Studio: international art (3.1894)

Stencilling as an Art

cheap silks, with a hotch-potch of " Oriental"
and other gimcracks, made for the market—and
he is not only happy, but curiously proud; for
has he not in the matter of household gods suc-
cessfully vied with all his friends and enemies—
yea, even surpassed them by the untarnished
glitter of newness ?

And yet, in charity, we must not entirely blame
him, save perhaps as being too passive under the
yoke of fashion. It is the happy lot of only a very
few to be able to build as they wish, or choose a
dwelling after their own hearts; the most pait
have to put up with such edifices as the acci-
dent of their circumstances may decide, and
to consider in what wise they may be made both
comely and comfortable for use. But in the matter
of decoration we have, if we would only realise it,
a wide range of choice; and the object of this
paper is to draw attention to one of the many
means which lie ready to hand for combining
efficiency, utility, and taste with good craftsman-
ship and the indispensable cheapness,
permission of M. Helleu, are necessarily much The art of stencilling is no new one. For the
reduced from fine proof impressions which Mr. last thirty years it has been one of the common-
Jacomb Hood kindly lent us. l)laces of decoration, until it has grown to be

despised as just a plaything for amateurs, or a

ETUDE '

STENCILLING AS AN ART. BY ^ «idd be safely entrusted
to the merest tyro. But the apanese— our masters
I? p STRANCr

' in this, as in so many handicrafts—have once more

There are few subjects in which the opened our eyes. A careful examination of their

average British householder displays an work shows without doubt that, while the art of

ignorance so complete, and a want of taste so the stencil-cutter is equal to the minutest intricacy

deplorable, as in the interior decoration of the of pattern, the finest delicacy of plant-form or

unsightly dwelling in which it pleases him to exist-. ornament, it is also able to produce those broad and

FROM A STENCIL, "THE DRYAD FRIEZE BY INGRAM TAYLOR

(By permission of Messrs. Essex dv Co.)

Given a number of rooms, hideous in their dispro- bold effects which are indispensable to the decora-
portionate rectangularity—a supply of wall-paper tion of the walls of a room ; in short, to give results
guaranteed to be in " the latest fashion "—sundry which, for directness, simplicity and truth, can hold
sets of spidery furniture, gaudily upholstered in their own even with the best our draughtsmen are

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