Studio: international art (27.1903)

The Work of A nn Macbeth

forgotten or are relegated to the shop or to the much more wealth could he have attributed to
machine. nations had he taken into consideration that inex-

The pride of the bride used to be in her napery. pressible and untold value which the application
Her dower chest was gifted her, that she might store of art to common things brings alike to maker
those productions of the loom and needle that and to user ! And if this honour can be given to
should beautify the bed whereon she was to sleep the articles that are thus treated, how much greater
and the table at which she was to preside ; and is the credit due to the worker who produces them !
much of genius and a great deal of skill was And to Ann Macbeth every commendation can be
brought to bear upon articles alike of use and for paid for the part she is taking in this addition ot
ornament, so that the everyday handlings of life were beauty to our daily surroundings. With her, the
broidered with beauty and enhanced by art, even art of the needle is at once the object of her life
as the flowers of the hedgerow, the traveller's joy, and a means for the fullest expression of a nature
and the vagrant honeysuckle, the hop, and the that teems with artistic sentiments and ideas. And
bryony broider the hedges of the English she has no false pretences as to the value of the
highroads. And no one questions the joy that good she may possibly be doing in the world. She
comes from an environment of household wares is content simply to be a worker, doing practical
that, compelled by use, are enhanced by art in and useful work, and finding for it a place in the
their making. If the magic of beauty, the effect of market and by it a subsistence for herself,
temperament, can be added to the things we needs Coming of an artistic stock, and bearing a name
must have, must needs use, the having and using that figures in more than one list of Royal Acade-
give sensations of absolute pleasure. And if this micians, Ann Macbeth began life, if heredity
be possible, as indeed it is, then the objection that counts for anything, with helpful instincts'. But
beauty is rare, and therefore dear, and, as a quality, unlike so many art workers of the present day, who
must always remain a possession for the few, must start designing before they draw, and claim credit
be met and combated. Beauty is not for the few, for novelty of idea where workmanship would have
but for the many, and that it is costly is no valid been more desirable, Miss Macbeth kept her
objection. It costs no more to create a beautiful design aspirations in the background until she had
object than it does to produce an ugly one, and made herself a competent draughtswoman, and had
ugliness incarnate is oftentimes dearer than beauty, mastered the art of drawing, without which design
although less may have been paid
for the former. The price of the
material in an ugly production is
oftentimes more than that con-
tained in a beautiful object. The
purchaser of a picture does not pay
merely for the tubes of colours
used nor for the canvas employed,
nor even for the mere time of
the artist; he pays for that power
that transmutes both pigments and
time into beauty. And nowadays
there is far too much money in-
vested in the painted side of
beauty, and not nearly enough given
for that art that expresses
itself through the table-cloth that
covers our table or the towel upon
which we dry our hands. Adam
Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations,"
left out of account those priceless
treasures which we possess in our
pictures—wealth that makes poor

nations rich, and without which "embroidered table cloth" designed by ann macbeth

wealthy nations are poor. How worked by clara bentley

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