DOI Artikel:
Scott, Mackay H. Baillie: The cheap cottage
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43455#0148
The Cheap Cottage
The cheap cottage, by m.
H. BAILLIE SCOTT.
The problem of the cheap cottage is one
which has recently much engaged the attention of
all those who are interested in country life and the
proper housing of the agricultural labourer. In
discussing such a matter in The Studio it is
natural that more prominence will be given to the
artistic aspect of the problem than to the merely
utilitarian point of view. And first it will be well to
remove any misconception that may arise as to the
meaning of the term artistic used in this connection,
for it is a term which is generally misunderstood.
It is too often believed that an artistic cottage is a
plain cottage to which some extra embellishment
has been added which
applied to many cottages which boast artistic claims.
It will be well therefore at the outset to explain that
art in this connection has little relation to cost and
little relation to ornament. An artistic cottage may
be very cheap or very costly, it may be very plain
or very ornate, but its beauty depends neither on
costliness nor decoration. The artist in words
may compose a telegram or a sonnet which shall
be a masterpiece of economical and concise ex-
pression; and just in the same way the art of
cottage building likewise may consist mainly in a
fine economy in materials. The landowner who
deliberately defaces an old country village because
he believes that ugliness is cheap and beauty
expensive is under a delusion, and we have object-
lessons enough in the old cottages of many a
makes it a little more ex-
pensive and a little more
ornate than the plain
cottage. Like those old
prints which were sold at a
penny plain and tuppence
coloured, the artistic cot-
tage is assumed to be a
luxury which the plain man
cannot afford. No doubt
there are some grounds for a
conception of this kind as
The cheap cottage, by m.
H. BAILLIE SCOTT.
The problem of the cheap cottage is one
which has recently much engaged the attention of
all those who are interested in country life and the
proper housing of the agricultural labourer. In
discussing such a matter in The Studio it is
natural that more prominence will be given to the
artistic aspect of the problem than to the merely
utilitarian point of view. And first it will be well to
remove any misconception that may arise as to the
meaning of the term artistic used in this connection,
for it is a term which is generally misunderstood.
It is too often believed that an artistic cottage is a
plain cottage to which some extra embellishment
has been added which
applied to many cottages which boast artistic claims.
It will be well therefore at the outset to explain that
art in this connection has little relation to cost and
little relation to ornament. An artistic cottage may
be very cheap or very costly, it may be very plain
or very ornate, but its beauty depends neither on
costliness nor decoration. The artist in words
may compose a telegram or a sonnet which shall
be a masterpiece of economical and concise ex-
pression; and just in the same way the art of
cottage building likewise may consist mainly in a
fine economy in materials. The landowner who
deliberately defaces an old country village because
he believes that ugliness is cheap and beauty
expensive is under a delusion, and we have object-
lessons enough in the old cottages of many a
makes it a little more ex-
pensive and a little more
ornate than the plain
cottage. Like those old
prints which were sold at a
penny plain and tuppence
coloured, the artistic cot-
tage is assumed to be a
luxury which the plain man
cannot afford. No doubt
there are some grounds for a
conception of this kind as