International studio (23.1904)

Arts and Crafts at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition

existed. This is one of the great benefits of the
Applied Art exhibit at the Fair, for a standard has
at last been established which no section of the
country can say is local or provincial.
Those members of the Boston Society who have
served on the juries of selection which met in
Boston, New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis
have been gratified to notice how uniform the
standard has been in the different cities and how
nearly it coincides with that adopted by the Boston
Society.
This is perhaps accounted for by the fact that
this society has from the first endeavored “to
stimulate in workmen an appreciation of the dignity
and value of good design; to counteract the popular
impatience of law and form and the desire for over-
ornamentation and specious originality,” and
insisted “upon the necessity of sobriety and
restraint of ordered arrangement, of due regard
for the relation between the form of the object and
its use, and of harmony and fitness in the decora-
tion put upon it.”
Such restraints are irksome to many craftsmen
who come to their work with no training, or very
inadequate training in design, believing in their
ignorance that, if they have the technical knowl-
edge, inspiration will come for the design. They
fail to realize that it is always the limitations
imposed by materials and conditions, time and
place, which mould the work; that the greater the
restraints and limitations the more noble will be
the result which rises superior to all difficulties
and uses them to secure its own fair ends.
It is this spirit of determination which the
society in Boston has been instilling into its mem-
bers’ work for some years. The salesroom which
was established four years ago with its attendant
jury has provided an opportunity to give daily
applications of the society’s standards, with specific
criticisms and suggestions where desired. The
quality and quantity of work available has been
steadily improved under this system so that the
society feels justified in removing its rooms on
September first to the gallery at 9 Park Street,
Boston, formerly occupied by Walter Kimball &
Co. This new store on the street, with fine win-
dows, will give the society a better opportunity
than heretofore to present the work of its members
to the public. The high standard will be main-
tained and the system so broadened that the jury
will be in position to give the greatest possible
amount of help to any working member who seeks
its advice and guidance. This is an advance step
which has tremendous significance to every worker

in the arts and crafts, lending a new dignity to the
movement and establishing the Boston society
more firmly than ever in its position of leadership,
inasmuch as it increases its capacity to serve the
movement. Plans are under consideration by
which it is hoped to co-operate with other societies
so that their members may have the use of the new
salesroom for disposing of work which has been
submitted to the Boston jury.
It is interesting to note that as early as the
Columbian Exposition, Professor Ives, who was
chief of the Department of Art, at Chicago, as well
as at St. Louis, realized that the tendency was
toward a broadened interpretation of the definition
of art and included in his classification a group
under which artists seeking expression through the
applied arts might enter their work. American
craftsmen were not then ready (it was four years
before the first exhibition in Boston) or they did
not realize the importance of the opening, so that
the Rookwood Pottery alone took advantage of
the opportunity. The broadened classification
had one very important result, however, in giving
Japan, for the first time, representation in the Art
Department of an International Exposition in this
country.
Encouraged by the great growth of the arts and
crafts’ movement during the past ten years, Pro-
fessor Ives has again given the craftsmen of the
world an opportunity to show their work under the
same conditions as those granted painters and
sculptors. The result must be exceedingly gratify-
ing, for many of the foreign countries have re-
sponded liberally, while the United States section
shows a collection such as has never before been
gathered together for exhibit in this country,
representing work from the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts, the far South and almost every other section
of the country. The greater part of the Applied
Arts exhibit is shown in forty-two cases which are
arranged in the Sculpture Court and fifteen other
galleries in the central Art Building (the United
States section) while those exhibits which could
not properly be shown under glass are arranged
in galleries Nos. 9, 11, 12 and 13.
Two stained glass windows, by Alfred Godwin,
of Philadelphia, are set over the East entrance,
while two smaller panels by the same artist are
shown in windows in Gallery 13 and an adjoining
alcove. In gallery 12 is a window representing
the Spirit of the Revolution, by Frederick S. Lamb,
of New York, while in the corresponding gallery
at the opposite end of the building (28) is a window
of much dignity and charm by Mrs. Henry Whit-

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