Studio: international art (18.1900)

Arts and Crafts

Arts and Crafts in Regent Street ! But as for those
who are themselves engaged professionally in some
branch or other of art-work, what of their attitude ?
Among some of them, indeed, there does seem to
be a decided improvement, for which one cannot
but be profoundly thankful. Thus, three years ago
an accredited member of the movement, in an article
contributed to an artistic magazine, since defunct,
remarked: "The mere manufacture of so many
thousands of pictures and statues . . . may well
become a burden to society; . . . I think that the
way leading to the practice of 'unapplied' art
should be thickly set with notice boards and man-
traps." Now, so far, the advice is admirable
enough; nay, is such that could scarcely be
bettered by the most advanced teaching of the
present moment. But the writer—and that, be it
remembered, addressing himself not to the masses,
but to the esoteric subscribers of a limited issue—
spoils the effect of all the sound sense he has
already uttered by continuing: " Only a genius
should be permitted to follow fine art exclusively."
Now what is this that crops up but the old in-
vidious and wholly fallacious distinction between

arts that are to rank as " fine "—picture-painting
and image-carving, to wit—and the rest which are
all excluded from the like patent of nobility ?
However, the writer, if it is to be supposed that he
seriously meant what he said at the time, has at
any rate subsequently proved himself better in act
than his written words imply; for, being appointed a
few months later co-director of the London County
Council School of Arts and Crafts, he has con-
ducted it with such good purpose that, since the
institution was opened, not a single easel-picture
has been produced within its walls. Here is cause
for earnest congratulation, that in one art-centre at
least the baneful deluge of oil-paint is effectually
stemmed. The arrogant assumptions of a single
art have been such that the rest have long lain
under a sort of stigma, as though the pursuit of
them were something less honourable than that of
picture-making. And yet the man who paints the
average Academy canvas year by year, is just as
much a tradesman, a maker and seller of articles
for sheer commercial profit, as is, let us say, the
cheap-jack who hawks coloured paper fly-catchers
at a fair. True, compared with the latter, the
picture painter has received
a better " education," and
the manufacture of his com-
modities entails a greater
degree of technical skill, he
lives in a smarter house
and in a more fashionable
neighbourhood, he enjoys
a superior social position,
and, on Show Sunday, that
is, on the occasion when he
holds his annual spring sale
for the express purpose of
tempting customers, he may
even have the luck to hand
a patronising duchess a
cup of tea. For these and
similar reasons the painter's
products have a better
repute and fetch a higher
price than the humble
wares of the fly-paper man.
But they do not neces-
sarily result from any more
artistic imagination than his
who, by some fresh turn of
the scissors, may invent an
entirely original pattern in
cut tissue-paper; and if
they both come to be