DOI issue:
Nr. 105 (November, 1905)
DOI article:Artistic leather work with oil dyes
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26961#0139
Artistic Leather Work
SCREEN OLD ENGLISLI STYLE
BAISDEN-BRAGDON-WEBB CO.
to use to the better advancement of his design.
But this characteristic of the material should not
lead us astray in comparisons. The sculptor is con-
stantly appealing to us by the texture of his stone.
The worker in metals rarely tries to dispense with
the outward qualities. The limits within which
leather must furnish its effects are, of course,
narrower. If, for one thing, metal could be cast
only in plates and stone quarried from the earth
only in thin sheets, the sculptor would never have
done all that he has. The element of thickness is a
verv real 1 Imitation and only one of several.
But an art is not enslaved by its restraints. The
Service that is perfect freedom is as evident in the
pursuit of the beautiful as in the conduct of life.
Though we are for some occult reason prone to talk
of a painting as if it were a violin obligato and of an
organ recital in the terms of a narrative poem, we
are only macl, like Hamlet, north-northeast. It is
our emotions we are criticizing, as was the case of
the astute young gentleman who affirmed that the
sunset was as goocl as a custard pie. And to say
that the limits of any art are confmed is about as
true and as informing as to say of some beautiful
diamond that it is not so large as the moon.
In the case of leather, to return to our muttons
and alligators and beeves, we are bound to confesss
that it will stand a goocl deal of pounding. In a
book just issued by one of our most suggestive
critics, we find it is still being hammered. The
author, who is writing of all the arts in sequence,
observes, in speaking of a notable piece of book
binding, that the ornamentation, however effective,
would be much more valuable as design if in
another material. Is this not to make of design a
sort of algebra, an abstract arrangement of the
eternal void ? If we aclmit that leather is perhaps
the best cover for books yet devised and that the
natural texture is itself valuable and pleasing as
decoration, are we finally to come to the conclusion
that books should not be adorned, or at any rate
that art is to be warned off all but the margins, as if
we should set up signs in the park: “Keep off the
Grass except at the Edges” ? Fashion, indeed, has
in the matter of dress gone the whole length. When
we draw on a glove we pay the sincerest llattery to
the Providence that put our finger-bones within
skin. But good taste decrees that we can no longer
display gauntlets of beautiful fine needle-line
tooling. Is there, from the artist’s view-point, any
good reason ?
The fact is that leather is one of the most
remarkable of natural materials. The artistic ideas
of its own omnipotent designer are still in the know-
ing twentieth Century, except in a merely categori-
cal wav, rather unfathomable. If vou take the
SMALL VENETIAN LEATHER
BAISDEN-BRAGDON-WEBB CO.
XXIII
SCREEN OLD ENGLISLI STYLE
BAISDEN-BRAGDON-WEBB CO.
to use to the better advancement of his design.
But this characteristic of the material should not
lead us astray in comparisons. The sculptor is con-
stantly appealing to us by the texture of his stone.
The worker in metals rarely tries to dispense with
the outward qualities. The limits within which
leather must furnish its effects are, of course,
narrower. If, for one thing, metal could be cast
only in plates and stone quarried from the earth
only in thin sheets, the sculptor would never have
done all that he has. The element of thickness is a
verv real 1 Imitation and only one of several.
But an art is not enslaved by its restraints. The
Service that is perfect freedom is as evident in the
pursuit of the beautiful as in the conduct of life.
Though we are for some occult reason prone to talk
of a painting as if it were a violin obligato and of an
organ recital in the terms of a narrative poem, we
are only macl, like Hamlet, north-northeast. It is
our emotions we are criticizing, as was the case of
the astute young gentleman who affirmed that the
sunset was as goocl as a custard pie. And to say
that the limits of any art are confmed is about as
true and as informing as to say of some beautiful
diamond that it is not so large as the moon.
In the case of leather, to return to our muttons
and alligators and beeves, we are bound to confesss
that it will stand a goocl deal of pounding. In a
book just issued by one of our most suggestive
critics, we find it is still being hammered. The
author, who is writing of all the arts in sequence,
observes, in speaking of a notable piece of book
binding, that the ornamentation, however effective,
would be much more valuable as design if in
another material. Is this not to make of design a
sort of algebra, an abstract arrangement of the
eternal void ? If we aclmit that leather is perhaps
the best cover for books yet devised and that the
natural texture is itself valuable and pleasing as
decoration, are we finally to come to the conclusion
that books should not be adorned, or at any rate
that art is to be warned off all but the margins, as if
we should set up signs in the park: “Keep off the
Grass except at the Edges” ? Fashion, indeed, has
in the matter of dress gone the whole length. When
we draw on a glove we pay the sincerest llattery to
the Providence that put our finger-bones within
skin. But good taste decrees that we can no longer
display gauntlets of beautiful fine needle-line
tooling. Is there, from the artist’s view-point, any
good reason ?
The fact is that leather is one of the most
remarkable of natural materials. The artistic ideas
of its own omnipotent designer are still in the know-
ing twentieth Century, except in a merely categori-
cal wav, rather unfathomable. If vou take the
SMALL VENETIAN LEATHER
BAISDEN-BRAGDON-WEBB CO.
XXIII