Studio: international art (11.1897)

Industrial Arts of America

Segantini's creed is contained in these words p » \\\\^ INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF
from one of his letters on art: AMERICA; THE TIFFANY

" The suggestiveness of a work of art is in propor- GLASS AND DECOR ATI Y E

tion to the intensity of its conception, and this is in CECILIA WAERN

proportion to the delicacy, subtility, and purity of

the artist's senses..... And why not say the Arts and Crafts? Well ....

"To preserve his ideal during the execution of there are certainly arts in America and crafts too,
his work in its initial intensity, the artist must call growing up quietly in unexpected places, full of
upon all his forces .... keeping up continual vibra- promise and worthy of study. But more immediate
tion of nerve to feed the fire, continual evocation, interest attaches to the arts that one would rather
that the idea disperse not before it take on body and call industrial. To neglect them would not only
life upon his canvas in a work spiritually personal, be to leave aside a characteristic and therefore
materially true. Not with that outer superficial interesting product of American civilisation and a
truth, the stamp of vulgar art, but that truth which, good opportunity for study, under novel aspects, of
going beyond correct design and harmony of some of the workings of " industrialism "—it would

colour, gives life to the form, light to colour..... also be to leave out of the reckoning entirely some

The brush hurries over the canvas, obeying while it of the results that count most, artistically,
shows the tremour of the fingers into which all the As for the social gospel that lies at the heart of
nervous vibrations are gathered. the English movement, the noble desire for the

" Objects, animals, persons are born, the smallest regeneration of society on widespread and practical
details take on form, life, light. The fire of art lines, it is obviously out of the question here, at
burns in the painter. In the tension of the least for many a long year to come—though
emotion he is transferring to his work the fatigue there is no knowing what may be brewing in the
of mechanical labour is lost. The work of art huge cauldron of strange elements and potent
appears—whole—of one piece. It lives. It is factors. For the present, however, it would be
incarnation of soul in material. It is crea- almost absurd to expect a serious " return to sim-
tion." plicity" in the land of mushroom fortunes, "social

stragglers," stimulating sun
and air, enervating steam
. . heat, and many other fac-

^|jpyip ; tors that cannot be dwelt

* '"^mK^' 011 here, but all making for

^j»[ut complication and what

iPHj jBj^jji Mrs. Meynell calls insim-

iBfcJBP flMP^yflMP plicity. The highest types

escape it, and only seem
'^Tfz'^mEt E* the simpler and grander in

iwv^lfp^p^^^^ the reaction against it.

But the art outcome of a
country and a period does
not, unfortunately, con-
form to the taste of the
highest type, but to the
demand of the general
public and this public is
more powerful here thaiij
elsewhere. So until the
art education that is
agitating the length and
the breadth of the land
M ^Hife has tultilled some of its

^tB ^,,,1^;- mi,,; lavish promises and

" ^ ^^m^^^^^^^^^^m leavened America through-

BUST OF SEGANTIXI BY PRINCE TROU13ETZKOY °llt Wlt]l U sP0ntanC0US ait

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