ART.
THE ARTS AND CRAFTS EXHIBITION.
THE death of Madox Brown shortly after the opening of this exhibition will draw a closer attention upon some examples of his design that in themselves well deserve it. The teacher of Rossetti might indeed be called the grandfather of the decorative school that is strongest in the exhibition, and he linked the present more varied movement back with the older efforts after "historical" painting. For that form of decora- tion he was better equipped than his ambitious forerunners and associates. He never, it is true, mastered the medium of paint, but his design was large and interesting, his conven- tion intelligent, and his figures frequently had a vigorous or romantic character. He is perhaps seen at his best in cartoons like thoze here for stained glass, with their simple and yet rich arrangement of form. Rossetti, in the same branch of design, showed to the like advantage ; and the school begun by these two may be traced through the work of Mr. Burne Jones to the considerable number of followers represented in the gallery.
The man who has done most by the energy of his application to different crafts to impress the character of this school on various branches of decoration is Mr. William Morris. His immense interest in the technique of different crafts has led to the revival of not a few, and has impelled many designers to a study of the material and technique of the applied arts—a necessary preliminary to satisfactory design. This wholesome impulse, which is leavening the formerly rather abstract art of our architects, is of course a different thing from the absurd and sentimental view that every craftsman is convertible into a designer. Executive skill is for tunately not a very rare gift ; the designer's talent certainly is, and social or commercial changes will not alter this fundamental fact.
The latest results of Mr. Morris's activity are seen in specimens of tapestry and of printing. In the tapestries there is evident an affectionate study of the work of the best period, and this is combined with the romantic sentiment of the painters already referred to ; but the affection and intelligence that have brought these elements together stop short at that point. The adaptation is imperfect ; the colours that have a suspicion of harshness in the Flemish work have become a clear discoid; the continuity of the decoration is lost by a defect of tone that detaches the figures too much from the ground ; the flowers do not fall into their subordinate place, but assert themselves like single specimens at a show ; and an elaboration of modelling is employed in the faces and limbs that would demand a greater knowledge of drawing. Still, Mr. Morris has carried through the revival of a difficult art, and laid a stepping-stone by which someone ought to profit.
The printing comes nearer success than the tapestry; though here, again, we have rather an intelligent experiment by a lover of beautiful books than a convincing work of talent. To judge fairly, different qualities of a printed book would have to be considered, of which the printing itself, with the colour of the ink and paper, would be one; a second, the design of the page, with the disposition of the text and illustrations ; and a third, the character of the type itself. On the first score, these books of the Kelmscott Press deserve great praise. The
effect of colour in the printed page is extremely pleasant, especially where the grey produced by the fine lines of a woodcut are combined with the strong blacks and reds of the type. Then, again, the effect of that close and solid texture of type at which Mr. Morris aims is ,very handsome. But under this head there is a balance of advantage and dis- advantage to be considered. What Mr. Morris's page gains in solidity as a thing printed, it loses in lucidity as a thing read, and it is perhaps a more important quality of design in print to model to the eye as closely as possible the farm of the discourse by the device of paragraphs than to preserve the text from those breaks of white which are accidental if their logical cause is not considered. The bother, of course, is that the symbols of sound in print do not give an exact space equivalent to the time occupied in making the sounds ; hence the lines of a verse which are musically equivalent come out in print with a ragged difference of length. There is, how- ever, no way of getting over this except by some form of manuscript ; and to take the bull by the horns, as Mr. Morrie does in one instance, and run the lines of verse on in prose form, is to lose the greater advantage to the eye of grasping' the musical structure of the verse. It iè one of those irre- ducible elements that the printer must give up struggling with, because the general law of order and clearness requires that the arranger of the words as black and white should give way here to the arranger of the words as symbols.
The same law of clearness has pronounced finally against black-letter type, and its revival can never be more than a curiosity of taste. Mr. Morris's experiment in roman type iv more interesting. The man who could design a perfectly' satisfactory fount of roman type would be indeed a great designer, because the difference between the nearly good and the first-rate depends on variations so subtle ; and the room for variation, though infinite in subtlety, is within very strict and narrow limits of range this way and that. The main forms have been long ago determined, and the designers who have given loose to their personal caprices in the fancy founts that every printer possesses and lavishly uses when he gets the chance, have only exhibited their own vulgarity and inability to recognise what has been done once for all. And yet there is no existing fount which can be called quite satisfactory ; in each there linger one or two eccentricities, or else by some hair-breadth in thickness, or some almost inappreciable want of refinement in curvature, the absolutely right form is missed. Now Mr. Morris has, of course, gone to good models—probably to one of the early Venetian types founders, who modelled their types on a beautiful form of manuscript lettering ; but if his golden type" be compared with those, say, of Nicolas Jenson and Johannes de Spire, it will be found to miss just the last refinements on which the excellence of type depends. It would take too long to criticise the letters individually, but the individual defects tell at a glance when the type is looked at in masses. The same want of elegance is apparent in the scale and placing of those decorated initials which are introduced in imitation of illuminated manuscripts. In the matter of illustrations, Mr. Morris is not satisfied with the artless way in which the ordinary publisher dots his text with woodcuts, and he very properly attempts to bind up text and illustration in one scheme. This is partly effected by the use of rich borders, more rich often than coherent. For coherence, indeed, the best work Mr. Morris sends to the exhibition" is a large carpet, and, in spite of the interest of his other experi- ments, it were to be wished that he would limit himself more to a branch of art in which excellence is within his grasp.
Another instance of ambitious experiment is the cartoons of Mr. Richmond for mosaic and stained-glass in St. Paul's. They cannot be said to promise well; and St. Paul's, one of the rarest monuments not only of architectural genius, but of architectural unity in a particular order of magnificenee, is the last place in which such doubtful experiments should be made.
What has been said of type applies in a degree to all forms of design, and the element of personal caprice needs to be- held in check by the designer of furniture or chimney-pieces. No one is called upon to invent any of these things ; the, determined part of them is considerable. 'Blare is room for refinement upon form and proportion, but anything very new is almost certain to be bad. One is glad to see evidences of such restraint and good sense among the architect-designers
here. An obvious law of treatment is that if a material, say wood or marble, is rich and beautiful in its markings, there is in the display of this beauty a sufficient source of decoration. A notable instance of such good taste is Mr. Leths.by's chimney-piece, where the blocks of veined and coloured marble are pleasantly arranged to display the beauty of the material. Carving on such stuff would be a loss of time. 'The same talent for getting an effect out of his materials is shown in Mr. Lethaby's wooden chest and cabinet, with their extremely pretty and simple effects of inlay. Mr. George Jack has, like Mr. Lethaby, fancy and a sense for material, as his work in wood-carving, in iron, and in plaster shows ; 'but no one of his exhibits is quite simple enough. In the chest, for example, which is well-proportioned and carved in excellent style, there are several motives too many in the carving ; the effect would have been better with the thistles alone. His seabirds, again, just stop short of being bound completely into a decoration ; but they are one of the freshest adaptations in the place. Mr. Wilson in extrava- .gant in his chimney-piece. Mr. Blomfield has a well-designed settee and chair, and Mr. Voysey and Mr. Lorimer deserve notice. Mr. Cave's experiment in the treatment of a cottage piano comes very near success. Mr. Maoartney's escritoire is a dainty, coquettish piece of furniture in its rather severe surroundings.
In sculpture there is some good work. Mr. Frampton exhibits several coloured reliefs—" The Vision," already seen at the Academy, and designs for the ceiling of a church. 'The colour is not quite happy throughout, but the design and modelling are excellent. Then there is Mr. Pegram's -sculpture for the Imperial Institute, and works of merit by Mr. R. A. Bell, Mr. J. H. Purse, Mr. Dressler, and Miss Sargant Florence. Altogether, it looks as if a school of architectural sculpture were at last in sight.
In the same room with the productions of the Kelmecott Press is a number of book-illustrations and book-covers. Among the illustrations there is too mech of a would-be 41 decorative " treatment, expression being forced into un- necessary cramps and pains. Mr. A. J. Gaskin, for instance, has evidently a very delicate talent in drawing, and this comes out much more in his freer pencil drawings than in the minute and constrained pen draw- ings. M. Lucien Pissarro's woodcuts, in spite of affecta- tion, show a real talent for design and expression. Mrs. Hallward's children are delightful, and some of Mr. R. A. Bell's drawings are very beautiful. Among book-covers Mr. Rickett's designs should be specially noticed, particularly those for " Silverpoints " and Mr. Oscar Wilde's "Poems." Mr. Lawrence Housman shows a very dainty title-page, and Mr. Home's design for the new cover of the "Hobby Horse" -is extremely good. Messrs. Elkin Matthews and Lane have set publishers a good example by their employment of artists
for the decoration of their books. • D. S. M.
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