Studio: international art (9.1897)

The Arts and Crafts

—when the new Arts and Crafts Exhibition opened As it so happens, this time there is nothing of
its doors, when, instead of being a parochial his design quite so important as former years have
or a national arena, it had assumed a cosmopolitan seen ; or perhaps it would be more exact to say
interest, the work he had done had received the nothing which appears at once important and
laurels of success. True that the personal sad- novel. For the tapestry of the Primavera (253) after
ness of each member of the society imparted a Botticelli, and the two panels, Ministering Angels
gloom to the event; yet looking at the beautiful (252), and Praising Angels (254) after the Salisbury
objects which his enterprise had made possible, windows designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, do
one felt that although the master had been taken, but carry on the record of the fine decorations
the principles he had established were so firmly which the Legend of the Holy Grail had already
rooted, that the legend of William Morris would made familiar. The Kelmscott Press "Chaucer"
be the creed of the new movement, and loyal is here, but that also is not unfamiliar to book-
adherence to his teaching would rank more than lovers, any more than the other works in the same
ever as its watchword: case. The real influence of Mr. Morris is, how-

ever, apparent in dozens of examples not
of his design ; for he initiated so much,
and, by a steady adherence to certain prin-
ciples, restrained the English decorative
movement from excesses which the work
of other nations proves to be very near
at hand. Therefore no appreciation of the
Exhibition could be set down without a
formal recognition of one who, whether
actually its founder or not, was the " onlie
begetter" of the ensuing masterpieces ;
and is in very truth the first cause, even
of experiments which are distinctly op-
posed to his own ideas. These last sen-
tences—actually in type before his death
—need no revision ; but perhaps the truth
they contain may be more fully recognised
now that he has joined the crowd of Eng-
land's worthies.

Another artist as intimately connected
with the society—Mr. Walter Crane—is
also less fully represented than on some
former occasions, or, at least, is not seen in
so many varying moods. The long series
of illustrations to Spenser's Faerie Queene
(G. Allen) proves that it is not idleness on
his part which has deprived us of the
pleasure of seeing experiments in gesso,
fibrous plaster, and a dozen different
mediums he has essayed in former years.
Perhaps amongst the most important of his
exhibits (after these notable illustrations
which have already been noticed in these
pages) are a wall-paper and a frieze (see
page 54), The Meadow and The May-Tree
(Jeffrey & Co.), which are at once novel
and excellent. Taking brown paper as
the ground, opaque pigments of various
fig and peacock " wall-paper by walter crane light shades relieve its sombre monotony

(By permission of Messrs. Jeffrey &■ Co.) without destroying the rich effect. The

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