DOI Heft:
No. 235 (October 1912)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: A notable decorative artist: George Sheringham
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21158#0034
George Sheringham
which, Mr. Kemp Prossor, was the first to recog-
nise Mr. Sheringham’s abilities as a decorator and
to encourage him in his efforts to express his
individual preferences in art. Some other notable
examples of his art have been seen in the exhi-
bitions of the Pastel Society, of which he is a
member—pastel is a medium which he handles
with remarkable skill, and it is one which par-
ticularly suits the daintiness and fanciful delicacy
of his designs. He uses all mediums, however,
with equal success, and he has a knack of getting
out of each one its fullest measure of meaning.
There is one thing that justifies the highest
expectations for the future in Mr. Sheringham’s
case—that his choice of decoration as the walk in
art that he has decided to follow has not been a
matter of expediency, but the result of a slowly
formed but absolutely sincere conviction. He
believes that the new fields for exploration in the
world of art are those in which decoration awaits
discovery, and he holds that Western art has
neglected decoration and has pursued realism
instead to the exhaustion of its possibilities. Now
he thinks the position is about to be reversed, and
the East, which has hitherto confined itself to
decorative art, will make its excursions into realism
while the West will develop its latent decorative
instincts. Decidedly, if such an awakening is at
hand, he is helping manfully to bring it about, and
he is offering an example which other artists who
are concerned about the future of Western art
would do well to follow. And he is to be sincerely
commended for the earnestness with which he is
setting to work; in his treatment of the motives
he selects there is no eccentric breaking away from
sane traditions. His desire is rather to use these
traditions as the starting-point of a new style which
will show all needful traces of its ancestry and yet
have a character of its own, and to build up this
style by legitimate means.
“ THE CHINESE LANDSCATE FAN
TAINTED ON SILK BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM
I 2
which, Mr. Kemp Prossor, was the first to recog-
nise Mr. Sheringham’s abilities as a decorator and
to encourage him in his efforts to express his
individual preferences in art. Some other notable
examples of his art have been seen in the exhi-
bitions of the Pastel Society, of which he is a
member—pastel is a medium which he handles
with remarkable skill, and it is one which par-
ticularly suits the daintiness and fanciful delicacy
of his designs. He uses all mediums, however,
with equal success, and he has a knack of getting
out of each one its fullest measure of meaning.
There is one thing that justifies the highest
expectations for the future in Mr. Sheringham’s
case—that his choice of decoration as the walk in
art that he has decided to follow has not been a
matter of expediency, but the result of a slowly
formed but absolutely sincere conviction. He
believes that the new fields for exploration in the
world of art are those in which decoration awaits
discovery, and he holds that Western art has
neglected decoration and has pursued realism
instead to the exhaustion of its possibilities. Now
he thinks the position is about to be reversed, and
the East, which has hitherto confined itself to
decorative art, will make its excursions into realism
while the West will develop its latent decorative
instincts. Decidedly, if such an awakening is at
hand, he is helping manfully to bring it about, and
he is offering an example which other artists who
are concerned about the future of Western art
would do well to follow. And he is to be sincerely
commended for the earnestness with which he is
setting to work; in his treatment of the motives
he selects there is no eccentric breaking away from
sane traditions. His desire is rather to use these
traditions as the starting-point of a new style which
will show all needful traces of its ancestry and yet
have a character of its own, and to build up this
style by legitimate means.
“ THE CHINESE LANDSCATE FAN
TAINTED ON SILK BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM
I 2