DOI Heft:
Nr. 118 (January 1903)
DOI Artikel:Radford, Ernest: Modern English plastering: Mr. G. P. Bankart's work
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19877#0280
Modern English Plaster JVork
craft all the same, and from the fact that it had
reached the degenerate stage, it ought not to be
argued, I think, that the art itself was ignoble.
The law for the artist is in the potentialities of
the material, and once understood there will be
nothing surprising in the quality of the achieve-
ment, or, what is more to the point at the moment,
in the differences, here so marked, between
Italianised-English plastering, and English pure
and simple. Because absolute surface-smoothness
was the hall-mark of excellence then as now, is it
fair to compare the art practised by Raphael with
the debasement of that art under conditions of
which he knew nothing ? I gather from what news
reaches me that money has never been more im-
moderately spent than it is at the present day,
and I should be delighted to hear of its helping
somebody to do something great in this way.
" Better spend it on good things than bad," said
Morris, many a time. The argument, if such I
may call it, is that there is work for the stucco-
durists and the rough plasterer too. There is a
particular interest in the revival of the Englishmen's
method, however, and the excitement of seeing
things growing; whereas that which is classic by
virtue of age and excellence has helped to illus-
trate volumes which can be studied at leisure.
Mr. Bankart is understood to be writing an
entirely new book upon plastering, which will
supplement without superseding. Mr. Millar's
exhaustive treatise, a work dealing almost entirely
with technical matters, and meant for the plasterer's
library. Mr. G. T. Robinson, the author of the
introduction to that volume, has laid a burden
of debt on the general reader by his scholarly
summary of the historical matter, making one feel
that plastering in classical times, and during the
golden age of its revival in Italy, was nothing if
not a fine art. The alliance between architecture
and the subordinate arts is nowhere so close as here,
and it is to be hoped that they will never be parted.
If the rich man's house were always his own, and
man always inherited taste with his money, there
would be no mutable substitutes like shiftable
ceilings for the work of the plasterer's hand.
Mr. Robinson attributes Raphael's death to the
assiduity with which he practised the re-discovered
and known to be dangerous art, and quotes
Spenser's descriptive lines :
Gold was the parget, and the ceiling bright
Did shine all scaly with great plates of gold,
words which convey an idea of splendour in
the achievement, and of a noble calling.
" During the latter years of Elizabeth's reign the
PLASTER CEILING AND CORNICE IN THE MORNING-ROOM BY G. r. BANKART
AT "ASHWELL'S," PENN, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
268
craft all the same, and from the fact that it had
reached the degenerate stage, it ought not to be
argued, I think, that the art itself was ignoble.
The law for the artist is in the potentialities of
the material, and once understood there will be
nothing surprising in the quality of the achieve-
ment, or, what is more to the point at the moment,
in the differences, here so marked, between
Italianised-English plastering, and English pure
and simple. Because absolute surface-smoothness
was the hall-mark of excellence then as now, is it
fair to compare the art practised by Raphael with
the debasement of that art under conditions of
which he knew nothing ? I gather from what news
reaches me that money has never been more im-
moderately spent than it is at the present day,
and I should be delighted to hear of its helping
somebody to do something great in this way.
" Better spend it on good things than bad," said
Morris, many a time. The argument, if such I
may call it, is that there is work for the stucco-
durists and the rough plasterer too. There is a
particular interest in the revival of the Englishmen's
method, however, and the excitement of seeing
things growing; whereas that which is classic by
virtue of age and excellence has helped to illus-
trate volumes which can be studied at leisure.
Mr. Bankart is understood to be writing an
entirely new book upon plastering, which will
supplement without superseding. Mr. Millar's
exhaustive treatise, a work dealing almost entirely
with technical matters, and meant for the plasterer's
library. Mr. G. T. Robinson, the author of the
introduction to that volume, has laid a burden
of debt on the general reader by his scholarly
summary of the historical matter, making one feel
that plastering in classical times, and during the
golden age of its revival in Italy, was nothing if
not a fine art. The alliance between architecture
and the subordinate arts is nowhere so close as here,
and it is to be hoped that they will never be parted.
If the rich man's house were always his own, and
man always inherited taste with his money, there
would be no mutable substitutes like shiftable
ceilings for the work of the plasterer's hand.
Mr. Robinson attributes Raphael's death to the
assiduity with which he practised the re-discovered
and known to be dangerous art, and quotes
Spenser's descriptive lines :
Gold was the parget, and the ceiling bright
Did shine all scaly with great plates of gold,
words which convey an idea of splendour in
the achievement, and of a noble calling.
" During the latter years of Elizabeth's reign the
PLASTER CEILING AND CORNICE IN THE MORNING-ROOM BY G. r. BANKART
AT "ASHWELL'S," PENN, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
268