Studio: international art (16.1899)

The Passmore Edwards Settlement

which he has made himself known, have par-
ticular claims to attention as instances of well-
judged and soundly applied technical effort. They
show the purity of his method and the grace of
his style convincingly enough, and prove how
thoroughly he has mastered the best principles of
the school to which he belongs. They are neither
commonplace in their literal accuracy nor exag-
gerated in their adaptation, but combine agreeably
respect for the subject selected with true feeling
for elegance of composition and arrangement.
Mr. Ball, indeed, carries on with the completest
discretion the traditions that have made English
water-colour respected all over the world; and he
has a right to the appreciation he has gained,
because he understands the obligations which are
imposed upon him by his position in the modern
art movement.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE
PASSMORE EDWARDS
SETTLEMENT. BY G. LL.
MORRIS AND ESTHER
WOOD.

"All architecture is what you do to it when you
look upon it. (Did you think it was in the white
or gray stone ? or the lines of the arches or

cornices ?) " In this blunt and characteristic saying
Whitman suggests an artistic ideal which the
younger architects have sought increasingly to
follow. Recognising in architecture at once the
basis and the crown of the arts, they would fain
achieve in it, more fully than in any other, the
expression of human personality and desire.
Poetry, says Matthew Arnold—a more cultured
and coherent critic—is the faithful and complete
expression of a single mood of the mind. The
poetry of architecture must, then, take larger
ground than that utterance of individual feeling
which the lesser arts supply. It must express, for
the moment that creates it, the mood of societies
and nations.

The new residential colony in Tavistock Place,
known as the Passmore Edwards Settlement, is a
notable illustration of that development of modern
life which is bringing together persons of kindred
tastes and interests, more especially those engaged
in social and educational work in a given neighbour-
hood, to form a home in which the conveniences
of family life shall be combined with individual
seclusion and liberty. Growing out of the former
settlement at University Hall—an association in-
spired and practically founded by Mrs. Humphry
Ward after the publication of "Robert Elsmere "
in 1889—the present building represents a larger

X

"MORNING MIST IN ROBIN HOOD'S BAY "

FROM A WATER-COLOUR BY WILFRID BALL
I

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