DOI Heft:
Nr. 143 (February 1905)
DOI Artikel:A notable decorative achievement by W. Reynolds Stephens
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20711#0019
THE STUDIO
ANOTABLE DECORATIVE
ACHIEVEMENT BY W.
REYNOLDS STEPHENS.
It is a common cause of complaint among
decorative artists that they are not given suffi-
cient opportunities of exercising their capacities.
With some justice they resent the manner in
which they are forced into conformity with schemes
of ornamentation with which they may quite possibly
be entirely out of sympathy, and they protest logi-
cally enough against being compelled to accept as
the basis of their own designs things more or less
immutable, which often hamper seriously the
freedom of expression that they rightly regard as
essential for the display of proper originality.
The justification for this complaint is to be found
in the almost universal practice of making the
decoration of a room, or a building, a kind of after-
thought. The decorator is not called in until the
architect has finished, and he is allowed no voice
in the preliminary ordering of structural arrange-
ments which can make or mar his efforts. This
would, perhaps, not matter so much if the modern
architect had habitually any serious knowledge of
the subtleties of decoration. But in his training
these subtleties are apt to be almost entirely dis-
regarded : he is taught the rules of his craft
sufficiently to enable him to produce a piece of
compilation which will not depart unduly from
what is customary in the particular style selected,
he is given various stock ideas which he can adapt
and modify up to a certain point if he has naturally
inclinations towards originality, and he is provided
with a number of safeguards against committing
any serious breaches of taste.
All this, however, does not necessarily help him
to discriminate between what is good and bad in
tenerai. view of the chancel
qCREEN at great warley church designed and executed
/ z> j. j 7 , by w. reynolds-stephens
{Reproduced by permission of the artist, -who reserves copyright)
XXXIV. No. 143.— February, 1905.
ANOTABLE DECORATIVE
ACHIEVEMENT BY W.
REYNOLDS STEPHENS.
It is a common cause of complaint among
decorative artists that they are not given suffi-
cient opportunities of exercising their capacities.
With some justice they resent the manner in
which they are forced into conformity with schemes
of ornamentation with which they may quite possibly
be entirely out of sympathy, and they protest logi-
cally enough against being compelled to accept as
the basis of their own designs things more or less
immutable, which often hamper seriously the
freedom of expression that they rightly regard as
essential for the display of proper originality.
The justification for this complaint is to be found
in the almost universal practice of making the
decoration of a room, or a building, a kind of after-
thought. The decorator is not called in until the
architect has finished, and he is allowed no voice
in the preliminary ordering of structural arrange-
ments which can make or mar his efforts. This
would, perhaps, not matter so much if the modern
architect had habitually any serious knowledge of
the subtleties of decoration. But in his training
these subtleties are apt to be almost entirely dis-
regarded : he is taught the rules of his craft
sufficiently to enable him to produce a piece of
compilation which will not depart unduly from
what is customary in the particular style selected,
he is given various stock ideas which he can adapt
and modify up to a certain point if he has naturally
inclinations towards originality, and he is provided
with a number of safeguards against committing
any serious breaches of taste.
All this, however, does not necessarily help him
to discriminate between what is good and bad in
tenerai. view of the chancel
qCREEN at great warley church designed and executed
/ z> j. j 7 , by w. reynolds-stephens
{Reproduced by permission of the artist, -who reserves copyright)
XXXIV. No. 143.— February, 1905.