DOI issue:
No. 88 (July, 1900)
DOI article:The Royal Academy and architecture: with notes on some designs at the present exhibition
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19785#0122
The Royal Academy and Architecture
the most useful and the noblest of the arts, that
attention which is rightly its due. A well-known
French critic, M. Georges Lafenestre, commenting
on a similar grievance in his own country, remarks :
—" Dans la vie sociale d'un peuple, la peinture,
qui est un complement et un agrement, ne doit pas
tenir le premier rang, au detriment de Parchitecture
et de la sculpture qui sont des necessites. C'est
un fait historique que, lorsque la peinture mobiliere
prend le premier rang et qu'on ne s'occupe plus
que de collections de tableaux, tous les autres arts
tombent en decadence,—et specialement tous les
arts decoratifs.1'
This is quite true, and hence we remember
gladly that there are now many hopeful signs of
public sympathy for all those decorative arts which
may be called the handmaidens of architecture.
This revival of popular interest in " the minor
arts," stupidly so called, is not at present fostered
by the Royal Academy ; but it is still only a young
revival, and many of us may live to see half of the
rooms at Burlington House devoted every year to
the encouragement of architecture and its hand-
maidens. This is what we need, this is what we
should all struggle to obtain.
This means that the Royal Academy ought to
be the national protector of all forms of art, and
none can say with truth that its present policy is
beneficial even to its favourite art, the art of paint-
ing, which for some years has been coddled far too
ioo
much. To fill eleven rooms every year with more
than a thousand pictures, largely second and third
rate, serves no useful purpose; it would be far
wiser, far more serviceable to the cause of beauty,
to raise the standard of works hung. If this were
done, as it certainly ought to be, space enough
would be found at Burlington House for the due
encouragement of architects and craftsmen.
Greatly as we deplore the absence of so much
that we should like to see to-day at the Royal
Academy, we still desire to make more widely
known all the good things to be seen there. This
month, by kind permission of several architects,
we reproduce a few designs in domestic architec-
ture. There is an excellent, half-timbered house,
with a remarkably fine roof, by Messrs. Niven and
Wigglesworth ; a cottage, good in style, by Mr.
Thomas Davison ; an attractive house by the sea,
a kind of two-storied bungalow, by Mr. Arthur
Stratton ; another house, pleasingly austere in type,
and planned most economically, by Mr. Wetenhall;
and a charming little country home by Mr. Philip
Tree. Mr. Baillie Scott, with his discreet furni-
ture and his early methods of decoration, is well
represented by two characteristic drawings, while
Mr. Howard Seth-Smith gives a picturesque solution
of the problem of the semi-detached house. These
designs do not give a complete idea of the general
progress of domestic architecture in England, but
they are good and varied in their simplicity of
the most useful and the noblest of the arts, that
attention which is rightly its due. A well-known
French critic, M. Georges Lafenestre, commenting
on a similar grievance in his own country, remarks :
—" Dans la vie sociale d'un peuple, la peinture,
qui est un complement et un agrement, ne doit pas
tenir le premier rang, au detriment de Parchitecture
et de la sculpture qui sont des necessites. C'est
un fait historique que, lorsque la peinture mobiliere
prend le premier rang et qu'on ne s'occupe plus
que de collections de tableaux, tous les autres arts
tombent en decadence,—et specialement tous les
arts decoratifs.1'
This is quite true, and hence we remember
gladly that there are now many hopeful signs of
public sympathy for all those decorative arts which
may be called the handmaidens of architecture.
This revival of popular interest in " the minor
arts," stupidly so called, is not at present fostered
by the Royal Academy ; but it is still only a young
revival, and many of us may live to see half of the
rooms at Burlington House devoted every year to
the encouragement of architecture and its hand-
maidens. This is what we need, this is what we
should all struggle to obtain.
This means that the Royal Academy ought to
be the national protector of all forms of art, and
none can say with truth that its present policy is
beneficial even to its favourite art, the art of paint-
ing, which for some years has been coddled far too
ioo
much. To fill eleven rooms every year with more
than a thousand pictures, largely second and third
rate, serves no useful purpose; it would be far
wiser, far more serviceable to the cause of beauty,
to raise the standard of works hung. If this were
done, as it certainly ought to be, space enough
would be found at Burlington House for the due
encouragement of architects and craftsmen.
Greatly as we deplore the absence of so much
that we should like to see to-day at the Royal
Academy, we still desire to make more widely
known all the good things to be seen there. This
month, by kind permission of several architects,
we reproduce a few designs in domestic architec-
ture. There is an excellent, half-timbered house,
with a remarkably fine roof, by Messrs. Niven and
Wigglesworth ; a cottage, good in style, by Mr.
Thomas Davison ; an attractive house by the sea,
a kind of two-storied bungalow, by Mr. Arthur
Stratton ; another house, pleasingly austere in type,
and planned most economically, by Mr. Wetenhall;
and a charming little country home by Mr. Philip
Tree. Mr. Baillie Scott, with his discreet furni-
ture and his early methods of decoration, is well
represented by two characteristic drawings, while
Mr. Howard Seth-Smith gives a picturesque solution
of the problem of the semi-detached house. These
designs do not give a complete idea of the general
progress of domestic architecture in England, but
they are good and varied in their simplicity of