DOI Artikel:
Baldry, Alfred Lys: A notable decorative artist: George Sheringham
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43451#0018
George Sheringham
serious and significant importance. The manner-
isms of the incompetent designer are more than
ever despised by every sincere student of aesthetic
activities, but the inspired decorator who is a
master of his art and has a true judgment of its
possibilities is being accorded something like the
measure of appreciation that is indisputably his
due. He is becoming a power in the art world, a
very real power for good, and his influence upon
the public taste is growing steadily and widening in
its scope year by year.
That this should be so is a matter for earnest
congratulation, because it can safely be said that
in the development of decoration lies the future of
modern art. The subject-picture, the painting which
illustrates an episode and tells a story, has had its
day, and there are many signs that its popularity
is on the wane. A certain section of the public
no doubt clings to it still as the most effective
expression of the artist’s aims, but there is a larger
section which has lost all interest in illustrative
painting and which craves frankly for something
less obvious and. less limited in its possibilities.
These people are quite ready to accept the ab-
stract imaginings of the decorator and to find real
pleasure in the fantasies which he produces; there
is a demand which he can quite efficiently supply
if only he has the proper qualifications for the
work he is called upon to do.
For this reason it is of the greatest importance
that the men who venture into decorative under-
takings should be possessed of powers which are
perfectly balanced. It is only the artist who has
his imaginative faculties highly developed, who has
an exquisite sense of rhythmical arrangement and
a sensitive feeling for colour subtleties, and who
is capable of appreciating the inner meanings of
nature rather than her superficial realities that can
be expected to reach the greater heights of decora-
tive invention. The man who is not so soundly
equipped is always in danger of lapsing into an
unmeaning convention. If his imagination is un-
equal to the demands made upon it by his work,
his practice is apt to become stereotyped and his
DESIGN FOR A DECORATIVE PANEL
FROM A PASTEL DRAWING BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM
4
serious and significant importance. The manner-
isms of the incompetent designer are more than
ever despised by every sincere student of aesthetic
activities, but the inspired decorator who is a
master of his art and has a true judgment of its
possibilities is being accorded something like the
measure of appreciation that is indisputably his
due. He is becoming a power in the art world, a
very real power for good, and his influence upon
the public taste is growing steadily and widening in
its scope year by year.
That this should be so is a matter for earnest
congratulation, because it can safely be said that
in the development of decoration lies the future of
modern art. The subject-picture, the painting which
illustrates an episode and tells a story, has had its
day, and there are many signs that its popularity
is on the wane. A certain section of the public
no doubt clings to it still as the most effective
expression of the artist’s aims, but there is a larger
section which has lost all interest in illustrative
painting and which craves frankly for something
less obvious and. less limited in its possibilities.
These people are quite ready to accept the ab-
stract imaginings of the decorator and to find real
pleasure in the fantasies which he produces; there
is a demand which he can quite efficiently supply
if only he has the proper qualifications for the
work he is called upon to do.
For this reason it is of the greatest importance
that the men who venture into decorative under-
takings should be possessed of powers which are
perfectly balanced. It is only the artist who has
his imaginative faculties highly developed, who has
an exquisite sense of rhythmical arrangement and
a sensitive feeling for colour subtleties, and who
is capable of appreciating the inner meanings of
nature rather than her superficial realities that can
be expected to reach the greater heights of decora-
tive invention. The man who is not so soundly
equipped is always in danger of lapsing into an
unmeaning convention. If his imagination is un-
equal to the demands made upon it by his work,
his practice is apt to become stereotyped and his
DESIGN FOR A DECORATIVE PANEL
FROM A PASTEL DRAWING BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM
4