ART.
ARTS AND CRAFTS.
'THERE exists in the ritual of the Presbyterian Churches a form known as "Fencing the Tables." By it the sinful and thoughtless are warned away from the communion of the Church. In something of the same spirit, the giddy sight- seer and the worldly critic who approach the tables and chairs of the Arts and Crafts, are confronted, when they open their catalogue, with a number of serious discourses such as must put a check on any ill-timed levity. Some of these discourses are couched in a strange and solemn jargon, full of earnest- ness and aspiration, but sometimes wanting the simple grace of grammar, and often the modest merit of lucidity. It is, as it were, five or six Emanations of the Prophet Ruskin scolding severely the Spectre of the Giant Albion. It is true, it is too true, that the Giant Albion is tasteless in the furnishing of his back-parlour, and wild things are done when he is abroad in the Tottenham Court Road. But it is not wise for the young men of the Century Guild Hobby- Horse and`the Guild and School of Handicrafts, and the like, to terrify him with visions and abash him before his own chimney-piece ornaments. " To marry," Stevenson has de- clared, " is to domesticate the Recording Angel." To furnish a house is, in such company, to anticipate the Day of Judgment. "The object to be gained," says one, "in fur- nishing a room is to supply the just requirements of the occupants " (alas ! will rigid justice banish the rocking- chair, and would the truly upright man allow himself a sofa, or curb his senses with the austere settee?) ; " to accentuate or further the character of the room " (slack ! its character is apt to be already so strong and so far), "and to indicate the individual habits and tastes of the owner" (and, well-a-day ! we know what they are). Then, by way of example, we are strenuously directed by two of the young men to St. Jerome's study in the picture by Giovanni Bellini. " There is no stint of money evidently,—the Saint gets all that he can properly want, and he gets over and above—the addition born of his denial—the look of peace and calm in his room that can so seldom be found with us." It is an awful
prospect, even with the look of peace thrown in, for, if we remember rightly, the only possible article of furniture in the room was the lion, and he might have turned uncomfortable if lain upon. Other glimpses are vouchsafed us. "A conspicuous example of living art in modern furniture is a costermonger's barrow. Affectionately put together, carved and painted, it expresses almost in words the pride and taste of its owner." He does not, then, always, when he's finished " jumping on his mother," "love to lie a-basking in the sun," as the poet Gilbert has falsely affirmed. He has some affection left for his barrow, and wastes in paint as literary an impulse as any Academician. Or, again, there is the deal-table in the farm-house kitchen, " white and quite soft from many scrubbings : the butter fresh as grass in May—the kindly look of hospitality, and the art of it all, especially scrubbing and butter-making, are in- finitely expressive and delightful, and this, not oil paintings in frames, is really art." Which ? And does the writer mean that you cannot have butter and scrubbings and kindly looks of hospitality if you have oil-paintings ; or that, if you have butter, you must scrub your oil-paintings ; or that you may have kindly looks of hospitality if you leave your oil-paintings unframed ; or that everything is art except the work of the greatest artists P " Design, indeed," he adds, " really fresh and penetrating, co-exists, it seems, only with the simplest conditions." Butter may be fresh and scrubbing penetrating, but good design is in birth and breeding the moat inveterate aristocrat ever known. For this reason we have little hope that to divert the average person from the museum to what is called "Nature," as another writer attempts to do,,will result in better design. To the museum—that is, to previous design —the designer must go ; he may also go to the field if he likes. The average person will be as hopeless in the one as in the other, but more wanton in the field. The result will be work like the carving instigated by Mr. Ruskin in the Museum at Oxford.
For a phrase here and there we do thank the writers. It is indeed true that we constantly "postpone the responsibility of wise purchase," that we surround ourselves with " im- memorable articles" (a beautiful word for wedding-gifts—we shall never again use any other) " the justification of whose presence really should be that they form part of the history of our lives in more important respects than the mere occasions of their purchase." And one might ask a visitor to steer care- fully through " these ill-considered acquisitions which have gone to swell the general total of distress, an ever-widening ring of bitter ripple," and give him the choice of sitting on this "dictate of our fancy," or lying on that "dictate of our sloth."
It is right to add that several of the essays are written in intelligible English, and have something to say,—in particular the notes on Carving, Intarsia, and Woods, by Messrs. Stephen Webb and T. G. Jackson, and Mr. Cole's account of the stitches used in embroidery.
And now we proceed to look at the tables and chairs and other things on show. It may be said at once that the greater part of the exhibition merely represents the native exuberance of the amateur. As the catalogue puts it, " either in play- fulness of fancy, or in grave renunciation of the garniture of his art, he will put the stamp of his individuality on his work," which we take to mean that when the amateur's fancy is chastened, there is apt to be nothing left. It would be cruel to linger over this kind of thing, and to repeat the names that are so carefully gibbeted in the catalogue. Then, again, by some change of policy, the Committee have admitted this year the outer shopkeeper, like Messrs. Liberty and Messrs. Collinson and Lock, and have allowed them in some cases to leave the names of their designers and craftsmen in a decent obscurity. This seems to reduce the Society to the ordinary exhibition terms ; but that is their affair, and not ours. It must be said, however, that the exhibition gains little by the change. The most noticeable object thus introduced is an Egyptian fireplace from Messrs. Liberty, and that is a piece of ingenious and ugly perversity.
But there are one or two things that advance very distinctly beyond the ruck of work by amateur and manufacturer. The first one notices is the set of panels for the decoration of an altar, by Mr. George Frampton and Mr. R. A. Bell. They are modelled in low relief in fibrous plaster, coloured and gilt. The design of the figures is broad and telling, and the colour is admirable. It is a simple and, we suppose, comparatively cheap means of decoration, and, given a designer, a most effective one.
Then there is a remarkable chimney-piece (148), by Messrs. Wilson and Pomeroy. As architecture, it is good in its general conception, but heavy in its details, and too naturalistic in parts, like the capitals. But the main decora- tion, a panel with a figure of Undine in the centre, and waves and fish about her, is more like decorative sculpture than any- thing we have recently seen.
Then Mr. J. D. Sedding sends a sketch-design (246), for the decoration of an altar, in electrotype or beaten metal. The subject is the Nativity, and just as the last design shows a promise of architecture being reunited with sculpture, this holds out the same promise for painting. It is a beautiful design in itself, and remarkable from the hands of an archi- tect. We speak, of course, of the cartoon as it is, not clearly rinderstanding how the design is to be carried out.
Mr. Lethaby's cabinet (417) is void of offence, and admirably made. The sunflower uprights of Mr. Flockhart's brass fender (431), and the construction of Mr. Jack's (103), are pretty. Mr. Gimson's cabinet (313) is clean and simple.
Then there is a good deal of work that shows real designing talent; but that also shows a want on one side of architectural discipline, and on the other of training in drawing or modelling the human figure. It is spoiled by extravagance or weakness. Mr. Heywood Sumner, for instance, has plenty of talent ; but it needs both chastening and strengthening,—chastening in work like the wall-hanging (127), which is beautiful in material, colour, and piecemeal as design, but weak as a whole ; strengthening in work like the relief (77), where the colour again is good, but the figures feeble. It is a dangerous thing for a designer who has not mastered the figure in more fully realised form, to practise design like the sgraffito out- lines (2 and 54),—his work is too thin and scattered already. Mr. Morris's uncertain talent does not show well this time. The embroideries from his workshops are weak in design and confused in colour. The best in design is by Miss May Morris (117). Mr. Walter Crane has beautiful drawing in parts of his wall-paper designs (6 and 7). His Irish National Banner (113) is curiously bad every way. Mr. Cobden Sanderson's bindings are neat, and in some particulars graceful; but the real problems of designing for this art are rather evaded than overcome. Mr. Selwyn Image sends a pretty conceit for a stained-glass window (23), birds and leaves, with a little tag of innocent verse, such as those of the Blake tradition love to introduce. Mr. Home, too, in his bed-quilt (143), gets a good decorative effect from the lettering of the repeated motto ; but it is a desperate sentiment to ask any one to sleep under. The sculptured bosses on the back of Mr. Mackmurdo's grate (493) are very fair; and so is the ship on Mr. Voysey's stove (497). Mr. Gaskin's design for a placard (40) is clever, and there is merit in some of the book-work upstairs, par- ticularly that of Messrs. Louis Davis and Hallward.
Apart from the question of skill in design, which is always rare, the exhibition deserves praise for the evidence it gives of research and revival in the materials and methods of decora- tion. How much has been done, for instance, by Messrs. Morris and Wardle to revive the art of dyeing ! Mr. Wardle also revives successfully some old designs. The tiles and pottery, again, though they are seldom quite satisfactory, are patient attempts at finding out old secrets.
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