DOI Heft:
No. 85 (April, 1900)
DOI Artikel:Brangwyn, Frank: A bedroom decorated by Mr. Frank Brangwyn
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19784#0187
A Room Decorated by Frank Brangwyn
decorate, to make something that would fulfil
a specific purpose of adornment and permanently
beautify some chosen place.
It is this idea that is being revived to-day.
A steadily increasing section of the public is
asking for something like consistency in the
applications of art to modern life ; and the wish
to make practical sestheticism logical and com-
plete is becoming a powerful factor in deciding the
direction in which artists can hope to achieve
success. The specialist, the man who narrows
himself down to fit a certain groove and refuses to
see what lies beyond it, is losing his following
because he does not realise that taste has changed
and that his work does not satisfy art lovers
whose ideas have progressed while his have been
standing still. His place is being taken by the
more observant craftsmen who can read the signs
of the times, and are prepared to adapt themselves
to what is plainly required.
That the change is really in the best interests of
art, though it may affect seriously a considerable
class of artists, is quite undeniable. Decoration is
the foundation of all that is best in artistic pro-
duction, and its principles govern every detail of
sound restheticism. The great pictorial master-
pieces which have set the standard of picture
painting throughout many ages owe their authority
to the fact that they were created by men who
considered design as an absolute essential for the
building up of great compositions, and depended
on nature for the component parts of a pre-con-
ceived pattern rather than for suggestions as to the
subjects that should be chosen for illustration.
The modern painter has accustomed himself to
worship realism, and to condemn as conventional
everything which does not reproduce exactly the
facts that nature presents. He has bowed down
before the imitative accuracy and truth of the old
masters, but he has missed the value of the
decorative convention which in their work brought
nature and art into harmony; and he has lost in
consequence the guidance by which his effort can
most surely be saved from straying into vague
irresponsibility. Therefore, a change in the public
taste, and the growth of a demand which will
oblige the workers to study more closely the laws
of decoration, cannot fail to improve the character
of their art, and to give it eventually a higher
value and significance.
At present the number of men who have
set themselves to satisfy the new condition is
distinctly limited. In the great array of working
artists some are too wedded to their habitual
methods, or too well satisfied with the suc-
cesses they have made in the past, to care to
FOLDING DRESSING-TABLE
174
DESIGNED BY FRANK BRANGWYN
decorate, to make something that would fulfil
a specific purpose of adornment and permanently
beautify some chosen place.
It is this idea that is being revived to-day.
A steadily increasing section of the public is
asking for something like consistency in the
applications of art to modern life ; and the wish
to make practical sestheticism logical and com-
plete is becoming a powerful factor in deciding the
direction in which artists can hope to achieve
success. The specialist, the man who narrows
himself down to fit a certain groove and refuses to
see what lies beyond it, is losing his following
because he does not realise that taste has changed
and that his work does not satisfy art lovers
whose ideas have progressed while his have been
standing still. His place is being taken by the
more observant craftsmen who can read the signs
of the times, and are prepared to adapt themselves
to what is plainly required.
That the change is really in the best interests of
art, though it may affect seriously a considerable
class of artists, is quite undeniable. Decoration is
the foundation of all that is best in artistic pro-
duction, and its principles govern every detail of
sound restheticism. The great pictorial master-
pieces which have set the standard of picture
painting throughout many ages owe their authority
to the fact that they were created by men who
considered design as an absolute essential for the
building up of great compositions, and depended
on nature for the component parts of a pre-con-
ceived pattern rather than for suggestions as to the
subjects that should be chosen for illustration.
The modern painter has accustomed himself to
worship realism, and to condemn as conventional
everything which does not reproduce exactly the
facts that nature presents. He has bowed down
before the imitative accuracy and truth of the old
masters, but he has missed the value of the
decorative convention which in their work brought
nature and art into harmony; and he has lost in
consequence the guidance by which his effort can
most surely be saved from straying into vague
irresponsibility. Therefore, a change in the public
taste, and the growth of a demand which will
oblige the workers to study more closely the laws
of decoration, cannot fail to improve the character
of their art, and to give it eventually a higher
value and significance.
At present the number of men who have
set themselves to satisfy the new condition is
distinctly limited. In the great array of working
artists some are too wedded to their habitual
methods, or too well satisfied with the suc-
cesses they have made in the past, to care to
FOLDING DRESSING-TABLE
174
DESIGNED BY FRANK BRANGWYN