DOI issue:
A foreword by the editor
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19430#0012
A FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR
manufacturer, he must be content to be for a while a learner rather than
a teacher, until he has acquired the knowledge which will make his posi-
tion secure and give him a market for his abilities.
Then will come his full opportunity to educate the public and to undo the
harm which has been done to the popular taste in the past; then will it
be possible to ensure to the applied arts their right measure of authority.
But all this, obviously, will take time and a considerable amount of con-
sistently energetic effort, and much help can be given by well-considered
propaganda. In this direction The STUDIO can claim to have, during its
seven-and-twenty years, laboured continuously for the information of the
public, and to have fought steadily the battle of the artist. Its assistance
will be offered as readily in the future as it has been in the past; but the
artist must co-operate if adequate results are to be secured. We shall not
get anywhere if he stands aside and expects other people to do his work.
Indeed, if he does stand aside, he will be shirking what is really a national
obligation. This country has to compete with others in commercial acti-
vity, and abroad the problems of industrial art are being tackled with
commendable energy. In Sweden, for instance, there is in working order
an association for promoting an alliance between the artist and the manu-
facturer, and it is giving special attention to the ways in which good art
can be brought within the reach of the mass by methods of machine pro-
duction. (The work of this association is fully dealt with in an article by
Mr. Wettergren in this volume, pages 107 to 122). In Germany there
has been in existence for some years a powerful organisation which has
established definitely the community of interests between the business
men and art-workers of all types, and which has achieved a notable suc-
cess in capturing home and foreign markets by the help of a sound com-
mercial policy. If we in this country are to secure our fair share of busi-
ness opportunities we must be not less active in organisation and in estab-
lishing the right relation between the people who are most concerned with
the progress of our artistic industries.
By means of the British Institute of Industrial Art the Government offers
practical assistance to a seriously conceived movement. To help on
matters by appropriate propaganda The Studio and The Studio Year-
Book are always available, and in them illustrations will readily be shown
of any work that is of sufficient merit to warrant attention. But really the
future is in the hands of the architects, the designers, and the art workers
of all kinds ; they must do more than they have done in the past if the dis-
abilities of the present are to be overcome, and if the authority of art is to
be established in years to come. GEOFFREY HOLME.
4
manufacturer, he must be content to be for a while a learner rather than
a teacher, until he has acquired the knowledge which will make his posi-
tion secure and give him a market for his abilities.
Then will come his full opportunity to educate the public and to undo the
harm which has been done to the popular taste in the past; then will it
be possible to ensure to the applied arts their right measure of authority.
But all this, obviously, will take time and a considerable amount of con-
sistently energetic effort, and much help can be given by well-considered
propaganda. In this direction The STUDIO can claim to have, during its
seven-and-twenty years, laboured continuously for the information of the
public, and to have fought steadily the battle of the artist. Its assistance
will be offered as readily in the future as it has been in the past; but the
artist must co-operate if adequate results are to be secured. We shall not
get anywhere if he stands aside and expects other people to do his work.
Indeed, if he does stand aside, he will be shirking what is really a national
obligation. This country has to compete with others in commercial acti-
vity, and abroad the problems of industrial art are being tackled with
commendable energy. In Sweden, for instance, there is in working order
an association for promoting an alliance between the artist and the manu-
facturer, and it is giving special attention to the ways in which good art
can be brought within the reach of the mass by methods of machine pro-
duction. (The work of this association is fully dealt with in an article by
Mr. Wettergren in this volume, pages 107 to 122). In Germany there
has been in existence for some years a powerful organisation which has
established definitely the community of interests between the business
men and art-workers of all types, and which has achieved a notable suc-
cess in capturing home and foreign markets by the help of a sound com-
mercial policy. If we in this country are to secure our fair share of busi-
ness opportunities we must be not less active in organisation and in estab-
lishing the right relation between the people who are most concerned with
the progress of our artistic industries.
By means of the British Institute of Industrial Art the Government offers
practical assistance to a seriously conceived movement. To help on
matters by appropriate propaganda The Studio and The Studio Year-
Book are always available, and in them illustrations will readily be shown
of any work that is of sufficient merit to warrant attention. But really the
future is in the hands of the architects, the designers, and the art workers
of all kinds ; they must do more than they have done in the past if the dis-
abilities of the present are to be overcome, and if the authority of art is to
be established in years to come. GEOFFREY HOLME.
4