International studio (17.1902)

Turin Exhibition

that, in Eastern bazaars, gathers round him a crowd
of wrapt and transfixed listeners. Though not in
words, yet Crane is a teller of tales, in which
humour and pathos, joy and sorrow, all find
utterance, and round him are gathered the children
of the Anglo-Saxon world. The seven seas have
carried his books to lands beyond their confines, and
the language of art has spoken in that speech which
echoes round the world, because love weights the
words and beauty wings the message. But this
message carries with it a certain qualification. The
horn-book of the mediaeval schoolboy was alike his
mentor and sole art treasure, little as perhaps he
realised this latter; and it may be that the wealth
of picture-books poured into our nurseries may
teach literature, even as did the horn-book; but
fail by their very quantity, to command an appeal
to the art instincts of their young readers. Means
may defeat ends, and education may better be
helped by a quality of work instead of a quantity
in output. For art is not a matter of quantity, and
there are economical laws which tell against over-
production, even in art. Moreover, it
is so difficult to do even one thing well,
that the all-round man carries with him
his own limitations. To design books for
babies, and illustrate operas tor those of
equally tender years; to illuminate the
poet, and decorate the page of the
mediaeval romanticist or modern versi-
fier ; to interpret Spenser, and put into
line the lore of the fairy tale; to design
the wall-paper, and make a pattern for
the carpet; to model in gesso ; to paint
in water-colours and handle oil-colours,
is to sum up a very big task. And
Crane has essayed all these. Is there
a masque ? Crane designs the dresses,
arranges the tableaux, and times the
dances. Does a lowly deed of heroism
require a chronicler, in order that art
through time may tell the story ? Crane
limns the incident, and form and colour
combine to transmit the story. Religion
building the house of God claims the
same artistic hand to enrich the light
streaming through its painted windows.
The student is bidden to turn to those
books where Crane resolves line into
language, and endeavours to trace design
back to a conscious basis.

The history of book decoration finds

CENTRE apse, st. agatha’s, decorated By in him an historian ; and to all this may

landport, Portsmouth heywood sumner be added other labours, which speak

25 Z

Ricketts and Shannon, not to mention others, are
names that stand for an art whose possibilities
are limited only by the artist’s power to use Nature.
And Nicholson and Pryde have taken work a stage
farther and shown the potentialities of printed
colour. With Crane, however, we are back to a
point analogous to that period when Egypt, speaking
through art, limned for us the history of the country
on the walls of the tombs of her kings. He is the
heritor of the primitive artist, making for a fraternity
of race and creed, and with whom language is a line,
speech a drawing, and eloquence the expression
of an idea in terms of colour and composition
blended to make a literary tale.

The music which the Pied Piper evoked from his
reed was as uncomprehended sounds to the good
people of Hamelin town, but to their little children
the gods called and they perforce must obey and
follow. The catastrophe of Hamelin, however, has
no parallel in Crane’s work; his heaven is for all to
enjoy, whether old or young, crippled or hale, and
he is better likened to one of those tellers of tales,