DOI issue:
No. 79 (October, 1899)
DOI article:Vallance, Aymer: British decorative art in 1899 and the Arts And Crafts Exhibition, [1]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19783#0057
Arts and Crafts
CARPET BY C. F. A. VOYSEY
[Messrs. Tomkinsou Adam, Manufacturers)
conceal the old, one thing is certain, that it
cannot be so fair and deserving an object to see
as that which it shall have concealed. It is
pitiable to think of the wantonness of sacrificing
any least fragment of architectural beauty. It
can ill be spared among all the miles and miles
of unlovely heaps of stones and bricks and
mortar of which our modern streets consist.
But even among those to whom the existing
state of affairs is no matter of indifference, there
is unhappily a complete absence of agreement as
to how the remedy is to be brought about. Some
proclaim that salvation must arise and penetrate
from the workshop upwards; others would turn
the artist's studio itself into a factory, the designer
into an artisan—opinions which, though appa-
rently antagonistic, are perhaps rather diverse
aspects of the same truth; while others, again,
deny any hope for the future of the arts until the
advent of political and social revolution. Neither
also is there any sort of consensus as to what
lines constitute essential beauty of form. Some
exalt the study of nature as supreme; others of
the theory of proportion; others of historical
tradition. With some either the literary or the
ethical idea is all-pervading ; others, on the con-
trary, are jealous of any other element encroach-
ing on the domain of pure esthetics.
With all this diversity of views it follows that,,
in actual practice, there is not yet to be observed
any indication of the genesis of a living national
art, which can be pronounced without hesitation
to be the exclusive and typical product of this-
our age, in the same sense in which the Grecian,,
the Byzantine, the Early English, the Cinque
Cento, the Rococo, the Empire, or any of the
historic styles can be definitely ascribed to the
particular date, place and people to which they
BRONZE FIGURE BY C F. A. VOYSEY
41
CARPET BY C. F. A. VOYSEY
[Messrs. Tomkinsou Adam, Manufacturers)
conceal the old, one thing is certain, that it
cannot be so fair and deserving an object to see
as that which it shall have concealed. It is
pitiable to think of the wantonness of sacrificing
any least fragment of architectural beauty. It
can ill be spared among all the miles and miles
of unlovely heaps of stones and bricks and
mortar of which our modern streets consist.
But even among those to whom the existing
state of affairs is no matter of indifference, there
is unhappily a complete absence of agreement as
to how the remedy is to be brought about. Some
proclaim that salvation must arise and penetrate
from the workshop upwards; others would turn
the artist's studio itself into a factory, the designer
into an artisan—opinions which, though appa-
rently antagonistic, are perhaps rather diverse
aspects of the same truth; while others, again,
deny any hope for the future of the arts until the
advent of political and social revolution. Neither
also is there any sort of consensus as to what
lines constitute essential beauty of form. Some
exalt the study of nature as supreme; others of
the theory of proportion; others of historical
tradition. With some either the literary or the
ethical idea is all-pervading ; others, on the con-
trary, are jealous of any other element encroach-
ing on the domain of pure esthetics.
With all this diversity of views it follows that,,
in actual practice, there is not yet to be observed
any indication of the genesis of a living national
art, which can be pronounced without hesitation
to be the exclusive and typical product of this-
our age, in the same sense in which the Grecian,,
the Byzantine, the Early English, the Cinque
Cento, the Rococo, the Empire, or any of the
historic styles can be definitely ascribed to the
particular date, place and people to which they
BRONZE FIGURE BY C F. A. VOYSEY
41