Studio: international art (17.1899)

The National Competition

as their pursuer. This
piece, however, is awarded
a bronze medal, perhaps for
a certain originality and
vigour which it undoubtedly
shows, though these are not
usually the qualities which
commend themselves most
to South Kensington ex-
aminers. The design for
a leaden cistern-head, by
Thomas Claughton, of
Pudsey, is a welcome de-
parture on utilitarian lines.
The beautifying of those
domestic fittings which have
so long been held to be
entirely beyond the pale of
aesthetic feeling should
surely afford scope for in-
vention to the designer of
to-day.

The regulation as to
“ white plaster only” has un-
fortunately excluded much

DESIGN FOR AN EMBROIDERED BOOK-COVER BY MARY G. SIMPSON (Lambeth)

that might have been interesting in gesso
or other coloured mediums. One may
admit the wisdom of setting some such
limits to students’ work, with the intention
not to embarrass the sight with colour till
a certain mastery of pure form has been
attained to. Still it may be said that form
and colour are not wholly independent
things ; colour sometimes brings a certain
atmosphere with it that reflects or discovers
hidden qualities in form. This applies
more particularly to work in low-relief, in
which there is just now a distinct and
significant revival. Ours is not an age of
great sculpture, springing calm, absolute,
and impersonal from august and serene
conceptions of life. But the method of
low-relief, as Mr. Walter Pater has pointed
out in his essay on Luca della Robbia,
permits a more intimate and personal
note in art; withdrawing the too clear-cut
features to another plane of movement
and feeling, and tempering the stern ideal-
ism of the classic with the subtleties of
shadow and atmosphere. In England,
for the most part, this more reserved and
design for a stencilled book-cover dreamy treatment of decorative panelling:

by robert a. dawson (South Kensington) has gone with a wholesome sweetness of

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