Studio: international art (85.1923)

DECORATIVE ART AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY

“ THE VALE OF HEALTH, HAMPSTEAD”
DECORATIVE PAINTING FOR THE NEW
COUNTY HALL, LONDON, BY STUDENTS
OF THE WESTMINSTER SCHOOL OF ART

individual advancement as to arrest and
engage public attention, and he urged that
though the public has less occasion now to
have the importance of handicraft empha-
sised, there is still need to keep vividly
before it and periodically to draw its atten-
tion to u the permanently unique and un-
assailable excellence of handicraft, which
is in no small danger of getting confusedly
obscured by the increasing skill displayed
in the necessarily machine-made products
of commercial industry/' He pointed to
the work exhibited on this occasion as a
sufficient answer to those who are inclined
to take the view that the Society's special
work might now be regarded as finished,
and that it might well think of quietly
closing down. In dissenting from that
view he has, we feel sure, the support of
all who have at heart the advancement of
the applied arts of this country. Though
the Society has, perhaps, encouraged a
little too much the cult of what a writer in
this magazine has called u the drawing-
room mantelpiece," it cannot be doubted
that its influence has been of a salutary
kind. 0 0 0 0 0 0

As to the exhibition at large, its signifi-
cance cannot be exaggerated. Its primary
purpose was ** to direct the attention of

the public, and especially of those who are
concerned with the erection and adorn-
ment of public buildings, to the important
part which the arts of Painting and Sculp-
ture should take in architectural schemes,
by showing what British artists can con-
tribute to this end when suitable oppor-
tunities are offered to them," and as a first
step in this direction the display was highly
gratifying—though, oddly enough, it con-
tained not a single example of the work of
an artist who, more than any other, inside
or outside of the Academy, has won dis-
tinction as a master of mural painting—
Mr.Brangwyn. Hitherto the Royal Academy
has bestowed its patronage and encourage-
ment chiefly on the production of pictures
and sculpture without any specific relation
to architecture, and architecture itself has
been relegated to a minor position, while
what are called the u applied arts," which
have an intimate bearing on our daily lives,
have been almost entirely ignored. Hence,
if the recent Winter Exhibition is to be
regarded as inaugurating a new policy in-
spired by a recognition of wider respon-
sibilities in place of the more restricted
outlook which has prevailed in the past,
the event ought certainly to be welcomed
as one of national importance. 0 0

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