Studio: international art (14.1898)

struct miles of ornament from one striking motive
that he saw by chance in passing, and, to the
best of his belief, forgot
straightway.

It is impossible to
look at Aubrey Beards-
ley’s Morte d'ArtJuir
without feeling that the
interwoven brambles he
employed therein so fre-
quently first grew on the
wrapper of No. i of the
“ Hobby Horse ” ; and
even as Beardsley’s later
conventions of black and
white diverted half the
decorative illustrators of
the civilised world, so Mr.

Image’s work affected,
then and since, a large
number of pattern-de-
signers whose influence
on commercial design is
great. It is true that
the original motives he
employed with such feli-
city have been diluted
in the hands of imitators,
until all the spirit and
beauty they possess have
been lost. Yet if space
allowed one might bring
forward a whole series of
designs for various mate-
rials, showing the Cen-
tury Guild ideas gradually
transmuted from some-
thing notable to some-
thing ignoble.

The Century Guild and
its “ Hobby Horse” de-
mand more than a pass-
ing word, but for the
moment it must suffice
to say that first there
never was such a guild
(using the term in its ac-
cepted phrase), and next
that Mr. Image never be-
longed to it. Mr. A. H.

Mackmurdo, an archi-
tect, whose important share in the movement will
also be considered later, had for friend and after-
wards for partner Mr. Herbert P. Home. These
8

two were the guild (if, indeed, there can be a guild
of two); and Mr. Image, intimate friend of both,
was not a third member,
but a critic, counsellor,
and generally fellow-con-
spirator, yet not a mem-
ber. As Mr. Herbert
Horne wrote some while
since, with reference to
the “ Hobby Horse,” the
Guild’s organ, “The prin-
ciple which gives the
paper its name is that
of free expression ; each
writer is supposed to
utter only his sincerest
opinions, and such
opinions affect only the
writer, for the editors
hold with Uncle Toby
that the true translation
of ‘ De gustibus non est
disputandum ’ is ‘ there
is no disputing about
hobby-horses,’ and so
they endeavour to make
it a quiet garden of
literature, kept free from
arguments, for the setting
forth of high principles.”
But this is anticipating,
and it were best to hark
back to Mr. Selwyn
Image’s earlier days,
when he was an under-
graduate at Oxford, and
had not intended to de-
vote himself wholly to
art. We may find not
merely the year—r8yo—
from which to date his
art career, but, more, the
day and the hour, when
he entered the rooms of
Mr. Ruskin (then Slade
Professor) in company
with a few other under-
graduates, to join the
first class Mr. Ruskin
held. If my informant
is accurate in his memory
of the scene, Mr. Image led the way—a happy
omen fulfilled in later years ; and for his ’prentice
effort the master bade him copy a laurelled sceptre-


STAINED GLASS BY SELWYN IMAGE

Selwyn Image