DOI Heft:
Chamberlain, Neville: From the rt. hon. Neville Chamberlain, M.P., Minister of health
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41877#0025
From THE RT. HON. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.,
MINISTER OF HEALTH.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH,
WHITEHALL, S.W.l.
15th December, 1924.
Dear Sir,
I am interested to learn that the issue of “ THE STUDIO ”
YEAR BOOK OF DECORATIVE ART is to be continued.
The loss of beauty in things made, and the diminution in the power
to appreciate it on the part of those engaged in production, which resulted
during the last century from the changes brought about by the industrial
revolution, has been a heavy price to pay for the material benefits which
that development of industrialism has conferred upon mankind. No doubt
it was a necessary result of the rapid and extensive concentration of the
nation’s energies upon large scale production. There are good grounds
for believing that the period of recovery from this tendency towards ugliness
has already commenced.
The degree to which the recovery of beauty in the home and its
surroundings has been consistently kept in the fore-front of this effort has
not only widened the area of interest in the subject, but has greatly in-
creased the prospect that the influence exerted will have permanent effect.
The revival of the instinctive liking for beautiful things, and the cultivation
of a general taste, and an appreciation for order and beauty in buildings
and towns, on which alone a genuine revival in the arts can be based, is
more likely to spring from improvement in the home than from any other
source. Such an improvement has a universal appeal, and its influence is
imbibed from the earliest days of childhood.
There has been much attempt to relieve the monotony and want of
beauty in the products of modern civilization by the application of all kinds
of ornament, often reaching a high degree of elaboration, but it is in the
adoption of beautiful forms and harmonious colouring for the necessary
articles and surroundings of the home, not in elaborate and extensive added
ornament, that success will be found. The end sought cannot be attained
by short-cut or piece-meal methods. A badly designed or ill-proportioned
room cannot be made satisfactory by collecting into it a few beautiful
pieces of antique furniture. The placing of the house, the lay-out of the
gardens, its careful planning for convenience and comfort, its appropriate
decoration and its furnishing with the necessary articles for daily life, must
all be carried out in the same spirit and under the influence of the same
yii
MINISTER OF HEALTH.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH,
WHITEHALL, S.W.l.
15th December, 1924.
Dear Sir,
I am interested to learn that the issue of “ THE STUDIO ”
YEAR BOOK OF DECORATIVE ART is to be continued.
The loss of beauty in things made, and the diminution in the power
to appreciate it on the part of those engaged in production, which resulted
during the last century from the changes brought about by the industrial
revolution, has been a heavy price to pay for the material benefits which
that development of industrialism has conferred upon mankind. No doubt
it was a necessary result of the rapid and extensive concentration of the
nation’s energies upon large scale production. There are good grounds
for believing that the period of recovery from this tendency towards ugliness
has already commenced.
The degree to which the recovery of beauty in the home and its
surroundings has been consistently kept in the fore-front of this effort has
not only widened the area of interest in the subject, but has greatly in-
creased the prospect that the influence exerted will have permanent effect.
The revival of the instinctive liking for beautiful things, and the cultivation
of a general taste, and an appreciation for order and beauty in buildings
and towns, on which alone a genuine revival in the arts can be based, is
more likely to spring from improvement in the home than from any other
source. Such an improvement has a universal appeal, and its influence is
imbibed from the earliest days of childhood.
There has been much attempt to relieve the monotony and want of
beauty in the products of modern civilization by the application of all kinds
of ornament, often reaching a high degree of elaboration, but it is in the
adoption of beautiful forms and harmonious colouring for the necessary
articles and surroundings of the home, not in elaborate and extensive added
ornament, that success will be found. The end sought cannot be attained
by short-cut or piece-meal methods. A badly designed or ill-proportioned
room cannot be made satisfactory by collecting into it a few beautiful
pieces of antique furniture. The placing of the house, the lay-out of the
gardens, its careful planning for convenience and comfort, its appropriate
decoration and its furnishing with the necessary articles for daily life, must
all be carried out in the same spirit and under the influence of the same
yii