DOI issue:
No. 49 (April, 1897)
DOI issue:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18388#0197
Studio-Talk
tive work, wherein the growing rivalry of photo-
graphic process methods cannot follow.
The design for a frieze by J. Dudley Forsyth,
here illustrated, is an excellent example of what may
be called the hidden classic style, for despite the
modern tree motive which has captivated designers
recently, underneath is the flowing acanthus ; but
the two motives, deftly blended though they
are, seem a little incongruous. Mr. Forsyth evi-
dently feels that the movement of a frieze should
be lateral; this is usually the dominant note in the
Italian Renaissance. But in Egyptian and early
Greek work a vertical movement is usually present,
whether the lotus or the honeysuckle be the motive.
The effort has been obviously to make a tree
growth adapt itself to the lateral movement of the
scroll below, but the leaves are permitted to arrest
EMBOSSED LEATHER PANEL BY ELLEN SPARKES
this sinuous action and to struggle upward. Hence
a certain feeling of unrest, which is accentuated by
the somewhat unfortunate line of the downward
curve, which in black and white is more noticeable
than it would be in colour. Therefore, although
the design is one that deserves study, it possibly
provokes a slight feeling of regret at the same time.
The director of the Baroda State Museum, India,
has commissioned from Miss Ellen Sparkes a series
of specimens in various stages of cut and embossed
leather work. The panel here illustrated forms
part of the finished piece—a box decorated with
the St. George and the Dragon, partly adapted from
an old drawing and bearing also inscriptions round
the lid, and a very happily chosen quotation from
Emerson, " Every brave youth is training to ride
and rule his dragon." A similar box by the same
artist was shown at the last exhibition of the Society
of Lady Artists, and book-covers of her handiwork
are on view at Kidderminster and elsewhere. Miss
Sparkes has succeeded admirably in avoiding the
over-redundant detail which spoils so much modern
German work of the class ; this is especially notice-
able in the work itself, which is far broader and
quieter in its general effect than in the photograph
here reproduced. No craft is more easily ruined by
undue fussiness, and the balance of interest this
clever worker preserves in her embossed and cut
decoration places it very high among the minor
arts lately revived. Good taste rules throughout,
and a temptation to display skill at the expense of
art is very nicely overcome.
It is the reproach of wood-carving to-day that it
relies far too much on dead precedent. But the
carved tea-caddy by F. G. Wallis, of which we give
an illustration, is a work that is at once eminently
wooden in its feeling and distinctly original in mass
189
tive work, wherein the growing rivalry of photo-
graphic process methods cannot follow.
The design for a frieze by J. Dudley Forsyth,
here illustrated, is an excellent example of what may
be called the hidden classic style, for despite the
modern tree motive which has captivated designers
recently, underneath is the flowing acanthus ; but
the two motives, deftly blended though they
are, seem a little incongruous. Mr. Forsyth evi-
dently feels that the movement of a frieze should
be lateral; this is usually the dominant note in the
Italian Renaissance. But in Egyptian and early
Greek work a vertical movement is usually present,
whether the lotus or the honeysuckle be the motive.
The effort has been obviously to make a tree
growth adapt itself to the lateral movement of the
scroll below, but the leaves are permitted to arrest
EMBOSSED LEATHER PANEL BY ELLEN SPARKES
this sinuous action and to struggle upward. Hence
a certain feeling of unrest, which is accentuated by
the somewhat unfortunate line of the downward
curve, which in black and white is more noticeable
than it would be in colour. Therefore, although
the design is one that deserves study, it possibly
provokes a slight feeling of regret at the same time.
The director of the Baroda State Museum, India,
has commissioned from Miss Ellen Sparkes a series
of specimens in various stages of cut and embossed
leather work. The panel here illustrated forms
part of the finished piece—a box decorated with
the St. George and the Dragon, partly adapted from
an old drawing and bearing also inscriptions round
the lid, and a very happily chosen quotation from
Emerson, " Every brave youth is training to ride
and rule his dragon." A similar box by the same
artist was shown at the last exhibition of the Society
of Lady Artists, and book-covers of her handiwork
are on view at Kidderminster and elsewhere. Miss
Sparkes has succeeded admirably in avoiding the
over-redundant detail which spoils so much modern
German work of the class ; this is especially notice-
able in the work itself, which is far broader and
quieter in its general effect than in the photograph
here reproduced. No craft is more easily ruined by
undue fussiness, and the balance of interest this
clever worker preserves in her embossed and cut
decoration places it very high among the minor
arts lately revived. Good taste rules throughout,
and a temptation to display skill at the expense of
art is very nicely overcome.
It is the reproach of wood-carving to-day that it
relies far too much on dead precedent. But the
carved tea-caddy by F. G. Wallis, of which we give
an illustration, is a work that is at once eminently
wooden in its feeling and distinctly original in mass
189