DOI article:
Great Britain: notes on some recent domestic architecture
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41869#0071
GREAT BRITAIN —NOTES ON SOME RE-
CENT DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
MOST educated English people, as yet unspoiled by worldly
success or equally worldly riches, have an inborn love for
country cottages and dream of possessing one themselves ; for
the cottage homes of England are amongst our most cherished
national treasures. In these less fortunate days, however, when the whole
and a bit more of what, in more favourable times, we might have been able
to regard as hard-earned savings is voraciously gobbled up by rapacious tax-
gatherers and greedy profiteers, we have little money to spend on necessi-
ties, let alone on dreams, even though, as with many of us, the country
cottage dream be very real. The ever-increasing burdens almost daily
thrust upon us have at least this advantage, that they reveal to us the arti-
ficiality of modern life, in which almost everything has become a sham. In
the social struggle to be “ something ” better than our neighbours, recourse
is had to every deceiving device that misapplied ingenuity can suggest.
Every article we buy must be a bargain, i.e., look more costly than the
price we pay. This principal having been almost universally adopted by
manufacturers, few modern productions, bar motor cars and aeroplanes,
are really what they pretend to be. So it comes about that in modern life
as a whole there is no art in the artistic sense, for the first principle and law
of beauty is Truth.
To admit all this, however, is not to deny the existence of an artistic sense.
Without that life would indeed be a vain thing. That persons exist who
have not the remotest artistic appreciation cannot be denied, any more
than that some people are colour-blind. But love of beautiful things is a
natural human instinct, and the present apparent general lack of good
taste is due to the fact that we live in an atmosphere of commercialism.
There are those who can find admiration only for that which is old. True
it is that, as compared with modern products, almost any article of a former
age has the appearance of beauty. Age imparts to good workmanship and
material a peculiar beauty irrespective of conscious design. The living
artist, however, will never find complete satisfaction in the art of the past.
He will admire and draw inspiration from the works of the past; but for
him real pleasure and happiness will only be found in self-expression. This
is as necessary to an artist as it is for him to breathe. In many cases only
failure will result, due perhaps to circumstances over which the artist has no
control; or again, want of the special opportunities necessary for express
sion ; or maybe in failing to develop sufficient technical skill in design or
craftsmanship. Failure, far from daunting the artist, only serves to increase
his admiration for the best works of others and stiffen his determination to
succeed in the future.
57
CENT DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
MOST educated English people, as yet unspoiled by worldly
success or equally worldly riches, have an inborn love for
country cottages and dream of possessing one themselves ; for
the cottage homes of England are amongst our most cherished
national treasures. In these less fortunate days, however, when the whole
and a bit more of what, in more favourable times, we might have been able
to regard as hard-earned savings is voraciously gobbled up by rapacious tax-
gatherers and greedy profiteers, we have little money to spend on necessi-
ties, let alone on dreams, even though, as with many of us, the country
cottage dream be very real. The ever-increasing burdens almost daily
thrust upon us have at least this advantage, that they reveal to us the arti-
ficiality of modern life, in which almost everything has become a sham. In
the social struggle to be “ something ” better than our neighbours, recourse
is had to every deceiving device that misapplied ingenuity can suggest.
Every article we buy must be a bargain, i.e., look more costly than the
price we pay. This principal having been almost universally adopted by
manufacturers, few modern productions, bar motor cars and aeroplanes,
are really what they pretend to be. So it comes about that in modern life
as a whole there is no art in the artistic sense, for the first principle and law
of beauty is Truth.
To admit all this, however, is not to deny the existence of an artistic sense.
Without that life would indeed be a vain thing. That persons exist who
have not the remotest artistic appreciation cannot be denied, any more
than that some people are colour-blind. But love of beautiful things is a
natural human instinct, and the present apparent general lack of good
taste is due to the fact that we live in an atmosphere of commercialism.
There are those who can find admiration only for that which is old. True
it is that, as compared with modern products, almost any article of a former
age has the appearance of beauty. Age imparts to good workmanship and
material a peculiar beauty irrespective of conscious design. The living
artist, however, will never find complete satisfaction in the art of the past.
He will admire and draw inspiration from the works of the past; but for
him real pleasure and happiness will only be found in self-expression. This
is as necessary to an artist as it is for him to breathe. In many cases only
failure will result, due perhaps to circumstances over which the artist has no
control; or again, want of the special opportunities necessary for express
sion ; or maybe in failing to develop sufficient technical skill in design or
craftsmanship. Failure, far from daunting the artist, only serves to increase
his admiration for the best works of others and stiffen his determination to
succeed in the future.
57