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#0068
Arts and Crafts
children of the deceased. It is interesting to note tion on the hackneyed form of the acanthus scroll
how the lines of the avenue of closely-planted trees or of the ugly and artificial swag-ornament,
in the earlier design open out and develop later Mr. Frampton has, moreover, done signal service
into a semi-architectural arcade, with emblematic to architecture by inventing a new kind of capital,
figures seated in the intervals. This treatment of in which tree-stems, springing up out of the column,
trees in ornament has long been a favourite one grow upward and unite in a solid cap of foliage
with Mr. Frampton, who claims to have been the at the top. Adhering to no historic style, Mr.
first to use it in a frieze, with alternating groups of Frampton tries rather to evolve for himself fresh
cherubs' heads to represent Night and Morning, forms based upon suggestions of nature. At the
The original, in relief, coloured by Mrs. Frampton, same time there is a powerful element of sym-
now adorns one of the rooms in the artist's house, bolism underlying whatever he produces. But in
The idea of breaking a horizontal band perpen- his contempt for "meaningless" ornament the
dicularly into compartments by means of growing artist is inclined to become abstruse. There are,
tree-trunks is now so widely adopted that it seems of course, certain well-known symbols, like the
hard to realise that there was, not very long since, olive of peace and the palm of victory. But these
a time when the motif was regarded as an innova- Mr. Frampton supplements with a crop of horti-
cultural hieroglyphics so
fanciful as to require a
written cipher to interpret.
Would it occur to any one
as self-evident that the elm
represents Dignity or the
orange Generosity ? Yet
such are fair specimens of
the kind of significance
Mr. Frampton attributes
to the trees and flowers he
introduces into his design.
It is right enough to be
practical and insist on an
architecture being made
deeply overhanging, be-
cause its very function is
to protect what is beneath
it; but it is quite another
thing to be tied and bound
by arbitrary conditions of
hieratic import.
For the Art Gallery at
Glasgow Mr. Frampton
has designed groups to
occupy the spandrils of
the archway of the prin-
cipal entrance, with St.
Mungo and allegorical
figures in the lunette over
the door. The arches of
the returns are occupied
respectively by groups of
" Commerce " (symbolised
by Mercury with figures of
the principal local indus-
tries) and of " Art at the
PLASTER SKETCH F&R A MEMORIAL TABLET BY GEORGE FRAMPTON, A.R.A. Court of Love," who sitS
52
children of the deceased. It is interesting to note tion on the hackneyed form of the acanthus scroll
how the lines of the avenue of closely-planted trees or of the ugly and artificial swag-ornament,
in the earlier design open out and develop later Mr. Frampton has, moreover, done signal service
into a semi-architectural arcade, with emblematic to architecture by inventing a new kind of capital,
figures seated in the intervals. This treatment of in which tree-stems, springing up out of the column,
trees in ornament has long been a favourite one grow upward and unite in a solid cap of foliage
with Mr. Frampton, who claims to have been the at the top. Adhering to no historic style, Mr.
first to use it in a frieze, with alternating groups of Frampton tries rather to evolve for himself fresh
cherubs' heads to represent Night and Morning, forms based upon suggestions of nature. At the
The original, in relief, coloured by Mrs. Frampton, same time there is a powerful element of sym-
now adorns one of the rooms in the artist's house, bolism underlying whatever he produces. But in
The idea of breaking a horizontal band perpen- his contempt for "meaningless" ornament the
dicularly into compartments by means of growing artist is inclined to become abstruse. There are,
tree-trunks is now so widely adopted that it seems of course, certain well-known symbols, like the
hard to realise that there was, not very long since, olive of peace and the palm of victory. But these
a time when the motif was regarded as an innova- Mr. Frampton supplements with a crop of horti-
cultural hieroglyphics so
fanciful as to require a
written cipher to interpret.
Would it occur to any one
as self-evident that the elm
represents Dignity or the
orange Generosity ? Yet
such are fair specimens of
the kind of significance
Mr. Frampton attributes
to the trees and flowers he
introduces into his design.
It is right enough to be
practical and insist on an
architecture being made
deeply overhanging, be-
cause its very function is
to protect what is beneath
it; but it is quite another
thing to be tied and bound
by arbitrary conditions of
hieratic import.
For the Art Gallery at
Glasgow Mr. Frampton
has designed groups to
occupy the spandrils of
the archway of the prin-
cipal entrance, with St.
Mungo and allegorical
figures in the lunette over
the door. The arches of
the returns are occupied
respectively by groups of
" Commerce " (symbolised
by Mercury with figures of
the principal local indus-
tries) and of " Art at the
PLASTER SKETCH F&R A MEMORIAL TABLET BY GEORGE FRAMPTON, A.R.A. Court of Love," who sitS
52