DOI issue:
No. 73 (April 1899)
DOI article:Vallance, Aymer: Mr. Arthur H. Mackmurdo and the Century Guild
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19231#0207
A. H. Mackmurdo
signer has secured decorative effect in details without
departing from the utmost simplicity of sternly archi-
tectural form. The sconce and rectangular panel
in repousse were executed by Mr. Kellock Brown,
and show the. kind of treatment in metal work
Mr. Mackmurdo was pursuing in the early eighties.
The remarkable fact, indeed, about the artist's
design is that, although the objects reproduced are,
for the most part, anything but new in point of
date, they are yet as fresh and animate as though
they had been fashioned but yesterday. And the
secret is that, while paying every deference to
TABLE LAMP IN BRASS
DESIGNED (1884) BY A. H. MACKMURDO
HANGING LAMP
DESIGNED (1884) BY A. H. MACKMURDO
Wren and the rest, Mr. Mackmurdo is, after all, no
mere copyist or translator of the productions of
past and gone generations. By diligent and con-
scientious research, at Florence and in other parts
of Italy, he sought to go to the root of the matter,
and resolve the first principles of art from the work
of those who laboured at a period before that fell
disease, misnamed the new birth, had had time to
pollute the last drop of life-blood that survived
after pulsing pure through the veins of ten centuries
of organic tradition. Quickened by such sound
motives, how could it prove otherwise but that
Mr. Mackmurdo's design should bear the impress
191
signer has secured decorative effect in details without
departing from the utmost simplicity of sternly archi-
tectural form. The sconce and rectangular panel
in repousse were executed by Mr. Kellock Brown,
and show the. kind of treatment in metal work
Mr. Mackmurdo was pursuing in the early eighties.
The remarkable fact, indeed, about the artist's
design is that, although the objects reproduced are,
for the most part, anything but new in point of
date, they are yet as fresh and animate as though
they had been fashioned but yesterday. And the
secret is that, while paying every deference to
TABLE LAMP IN BRASS
DESIGNED (1884) BY A. H. MACKMURDO
HANGING LAMP
DESIGNED (1884) BY A. H. MACKMURDO
Wren and the rest, Mr. Mackmurdo is, after all, no
mere copyist or translator of the productions of
past and gone generations. By diligent and con-
scientious research, at Florence and in other parts
of Italy, he sought to go to the root of the matter,
and resolve the first principles of art from the work
of those who laboured at a period before that fell
disease, misnamed the new birth, had had time to
pollute the last drop of life-blood that survived
after pulsing pure through the veins of ten centuries
of organic tradition. Quickened by such sound
motives, how could it prove otherwise but that
Mr. Mackmurdo's design should bear the impress
191