DOI Heft:
No. 52 (July, 1897)
DOI Artikel:White, Gleeson: Some Glasgow designers and their work, [1]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18389#0106
Some Glasgow Designers
who was amusing himself by deducing the person- "Certain conventional distortions, harpies, mermaids,
ality of the Misses Macdonald from their works, caryatides, and the rest are accepted, why should
and describing them, as he imagined them, not a worker to-day make patterns out of people if
" middle-aged sisters, flat-footed, with projecting he pleases ? " This is a query easier propounded
teeth and long past the hope (which in them was than demolished. If you once throw over prece-
always forlorn) of matrimony, gaunt, unlovely dent there need be no limit to experiment; except
females." At this moment two laughing, comely that to be accepted it must justify itself. Without
girls, scarce out of their teens, entered and were claiming that the method of new Glasgow is the best,
formally presented to him as the true and only be- or that it is impeccable, its very audacity and novelty
getters of the works that had provoked him. It deserve to be encouraged. After seeing much
was a truly awful moment for the unfortunate of it one must needs admit that there is method
visitor, whose evolution of the artists from his in its madness ; that in spite of some exaggeration
inner consciousness had for once proved so that has provoked the nickname of " the spook
treacherous. school," yet underneath there is a distinct effort to
With a delightfully innocent air these two sisters decorate objects with certain harmonious lines, and
disclaim any attempt to set precedent at defiance, to strive for certain "jewelled" effects of colour,
and decline to acknowledge that Egyptian decora- which may quite possibly evolve a style of its own,
tion has interested them specially. " We have no owing scarce anything to precedent,
basis," they say, in tone of demure contrition, " that One has but to recall the first reception of Whit-
is the worst of it nor do they advance any theory, man or of Wagner to realise how very feeble is the
but enjoy the discomfiture of an inquirer who had attitude of academic protest against any new experi-
expected the " intensity " of their work to be the ment in style. In each case contempt and hatred
product of " intense " artists. Therefore he is driven have long since given way to acceptance and
to believe that the very individual manner in which approval. The Glasgow decorators may never
they have elected to express their sense of beauty occupy places in the applied arts equal to those
is really the outcome of the feeling they have the American poet or the Bayreuth master hold in
towards the arrangement of lines and masses. theirs. But to say that they break with all tradi-
" Why conventionalise the human figure ? " said one tion, that they are eccentric, extravagant and
critic. " Why not ? " replied another of the group. chaotic, and merely mad, is but to take refuge in
PANEL WITH FRAME OF SILVERED COPPER " THE SLEEPING PRINCESS" BY FRANCES MACDONALD
89
who was amusing himself by deducing the person- "Certain conventional distortions, harpies, mermaids,
ality of the Misses Macdonald from their works, caryatides, and the rest are accepted, why should
and describing them, as he imagined them, not a worker to-day make patterns out of people if
" middle-aged sisters, flat-footed, with projecting he pleases ? " This is a query easier propounded
teeth and long past the hope (which in them was than demolished. If you once throw over prece-
always forlorn) of matrimony, gaunt, unlovely dent there need be no limit to experiment; except
females." At this moment two laughing, comely that to be accepted it must justify itself. Without
girls, scarce out of their teens, entered and were claiming that the method of new Glasgow is the best,
formally presented to him as the true and only be- or that it is impeccable, its very audacity and novelty
getters of the works that had provoked him. It deserve to be encouraged. After seeing much
was a truly awful moment for the unfortunate of it one must needs admit that there is method
visitor, whose evolution of the artists from his in its madness ; that in spite of some exaggeration
inner consciousness had for once proved so that has provoked the nickname of " the spook
treacherous. school," yet underneath there is a distinct effort to
With a delightfully innocent air these two sisters decorate objects with certain harmonious lines, and
disclaim any attempt to set precedent at defiance, to strive for certain "jewelled" effects of colour,
and decline to acknowledge that Egyptian decora- which may quite possibly evolve a style of its own,
tion has interested them specially. " We have no owing scarce anything to precedent,
basis," they say, in tone of demure contrition, " that One has but to recall the first reception of Whit-
is the worst of it nor do they advance any theory, man or of Wagner to realise how very feeble is the
but enjoy the discomfiture of an inquirer who had attitude of academic protest against any new experi-
expected the " intensity " of their work to be the ment in style. In each case contempt and hatred
product of " intense " artists. Therefore he is driven have long since given way to acceptance and
to believe that the very individual manner in which approval. The Glasgow decorators may never
they have elected to express their sense of beauty occupy places in the applied arts equal to those
is really the outcome of the feeling they have the American poet or the Bayreuth master hold in
towards the arrangement of lines and masses. theirs. But to say that they break with all tradi-
" Why conventionalise the human figure ? " said one tion, that they are eccentric, extravagant and
critic. " Why not ? " replied another of the group. chaotic, and merely mad, is but to take refuge in
PANEL WITH FRAME OF SILVERED COPPER " THE SLEEPING PRINCESS" BY FRANCES MACDONALD
89