International studio (58.1916)

Ernest Batchelder and his Tiles


training which art schools are giving in design,
is now making itself felt in the domain of decora-
tion, and life is the richer thereby.
As in our architecture, so also in the interior of
our homes, we have long copied everything usable
until our American house furnishings, if collected
from representative homes and arranged in some
great space, would present the appearance of a
musee de meuble of all ages instead of a distinctive
era of American decorative art.
Most happily therefore do we welcome a
craftsmanship which looks to the past, not for
subjects, but for principles enabling it to give
beautiful form to the expression of individual de-
sire. Copies of the craft of all nations past and
present will continue to pour into our country as
long as they are needed. From them we may
learn discernment and the historic development
of design. But the spirit which possessed the in-
dividual worker on the Gothic cathedrals, that
spirit, eternal as youth, which first finds out how
to work and then makes what it will, has at length
reappeared in the world of art and has been found
among us.
Scoff as the painter may at any attempt to re-
duce art to a rule of thumb, the fact remains that
we shall never be rid of the vagueness which per-
meates both our amateurish handiwork and the
taste of the general public until the fundamental
principles of unity, balance, rhythm, and har-
mony are incorporated into our elementary teach-
ing as a vital part of the training of every child.
To say that this was not done in the past when
great art abounded is beside the point, for never
before in the history of the world has it happened

that so great a mass of people has suddenly come
into possession of leisure in which to enjoy the
arts, without previous opportunity to acquire a
true appreciation of them.
The setting forth of a theory of pure design,
such as has been formulated by Dr. Denman W.
Ross at Harvard University, is as necessary now
as was the great work of Paolo Uccelli in the de-
velopment of laws of perspective, which changed
the whole face of painting in the thirteenth cen-
tury.
As direct result of his co-labours with Dr. Ross,
the writings, teaching, and successful individual
handicraft of Mr. Ernest Batchelder have helped
amazingly to spread this modern Gothic spirit
throughout the eager western portion of our
country.
Through magazine articles and popular text-
books on the principles of design and lectures on
the cathedral builders, and through personal con-
tact with craftsmen and art lovers in the Min-
neapolis Guild and in Throop Polytechnic Insti-
tute in Pasadena, Mr. Batchelder has for fifteen
years exercised the missionary spirit of New
England forbears to proclaim the glad tidings
that the simple underlying principles of good de-
sign may be mastered by all who would increase
their enjoyment of beauty, or express its appeal
in line or form or any of the graphic arts.
The leaven disseminated by such means is
working in our public schools, in craftsman guilds
and art leagues. Its results are met with on
every hand. But the lump of public art apprecia-
tion still remains largely unaffected by the stand-
ard of a craftsmanship founded on pure design.

LIV