DOI Heft:
Nr. 78 (Septembre 1899)
DOI Artikel:Sparrow, Walter Shaw: William de Morgan and his pottery, 1
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19232#0259
William De Morgan
FRIEZE DESIGNED BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN
them; and we can no more go back to those con-
ditions than we could return to Elizabethan London,
there to irritate Shakspeare with our expansive
hero-worship. What we have to avoid, moreover,
is that backward-looking dilettantism which is
never in touch with present-day needs and neces-
sities, and which aims at turning the applied arts
into effete panderers to an idolatry of physical com-
fort. Against this dilettantism we cannot protest
too strongly, for genuine art has ever been a con-
stituent of the national
life of a country, and
not a superfetation
upon its wealth.
This fact touches a
very important point of
the subject, as Mr. De
Morgan believes that
there are forms of
ceramic art which ought
to become as truly na-
tional as they were in
Persiafrom the eleventh
century to the seven-
teenth. In a letter to
me he says : “ If no
city exists in which
every wall is a fine
picture in imperisha-
ble tiles, it is not be-
cause of any technical
hindrance to its exist-
ence. To grapple suc-
cessfully with the diffi-
culties created by the
tile-joint is not so hard
as is commonly sup-
posed. In the first
place, the tile-joint is
PLAQUE
DESIGNED BY W. DE MORGAN
PAINTED BY F. PASSENGER
228
FRIEZE DESIGNED BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN
them; and we can no more go back to those con-
ditions than we could return to Elizabethan London,
there to irritate Shakspeare with our expansive
hero-worship. What we have to avoid, moreover,
is that backward-looking dilettantism which is
never in touch with present-day needs and neces-
sities, and which aims at turning the applied arts
into effete panderers to an idolatry of physical com-
fort. Against this dilettantism we cannot protest
too strongly, for genuine art has ever been a con-
stituent of the national
life of a country, and
not a superfetation
upon its wealth.
This fact touches a
very important point of
the subject, as Mr. De
Morgan believes that
there are forms of
ceramic art which ought
to become as truly na-
tional as they were in
Persiafrom the eleventh
century to the seven-
teenth. In a letter to
me he says : “ If no
city exists in which
every wall is a fine
picture in imperisha-
ble tiles, it is not be-
cause of any technical
hindrance to its exist-
ence. To grapple suc-
cessfully with the diffi-
culties created by the
tile-joint is not so hard
as is commonly sup-
posed. In the first
place, the tile-joint is
PLAQUE
DESIGNED BY W. DE MORGAN
PAINTED BY F. PASSENGER
228