WE have seen (1) that architectural considerations lie at the basis of
design and control its general character, its scale, and relationships;
and (2) that utility determines and specializes its particular forms
and functions; now, as our third proposition, we may say that, in
addition to these in limitation of material and methods of workmanship,
we shall find the influences which determine primarily the purely
artistic question of _treatment_ in design, and which differentiate its
classes and varieties.
If we look at a piece of stone-carving and compare it with a piece of
wood-carving, for instance,--or, still better, take mallet and chisel
in hand and experiment upon a piece of stone or marble, and try to
evolve or to express a form by these means, and with a chisel, or
knife, work upon wood--we shall soon find that the differences of the
quality of the two substances upon which we work--the differences of
density, toughness, resistance to the tool--at once demand different
methods of handling each. Short, quick following strokes in the
case of chiselling stone, and a longer, steady sort of pushing or
driving movement, the chisel being held in both hands, in the case
of wood-carving. From such necessary and fundamental differences the
artist would soon develop a distinct style in the treatment of each
kind of work. He would not attempt to make the stone look like wood,
or persuade the wood to look like stone; but he would rather rejoice
in their fundamental differences of quality, and make his work in
each emphasize their essential and distinctive characteristics. These
different characteristics are shown in the design and treatment of the
carved stone corbel given, as compared with the misereres in wood; the
stone-work being also controlled by the necessity of the jointing in
the masonry.
[Illustration: CORBEL, 14th Cent, DENNINGTON CHURCH, SUFFOLK.]
[Illustration: WOOD CARVING. MISERERE, ST. DAVID'S CATHEDRAL.]
In handling soft materials, like modelling clay, for instance, we
encounter quite a different set of conditions. There is much less
restriction of material and method, although the plasticity of the clay
brings its own difficulties of manipulation with it. Modelling, indeed,
it is soon perceived, is the reverse of carving, since in carving form
is produced by cutting away, in modelling form is produced by building
up (or adding to); surface being gained in the first case by delicate
chiselling of sharp tools upon a close-grained, tough material, and in
modelling by a delicate pressure of the fingers, or tools, upon a soft
and sensitive clay.
Clay modelling, again, not being a final form, but rather a
preparatory stage in design, bears to bronze, or plaster, much the
same relationship as a design or drawing on paper for reproduction by
a particular process bears to its finished form in the material for
which it is intended. Clay has, it is true, after firing, a permanent
form in terra-cotta, which of course thoroughly illustrates the freedom
and naturalism of treatment of which it is capable; on the one hand
associating itself with domestic use and adornment, kindred with the
work of the painter, and on the other uniting itself with architecture,
and being adaptable to all kinds of enrichment upon brick buildings.
[Illustration: WOOD CARVING. MISERERE, ST. DAVID'S CATHEDRAL.]
[Illustration: SCANDINAVIAN CLAY VESSEL.]
The adaptability and plasticity of clay, again, is shown in what might
be called its fundamental capacity as thrown upon the potter's wheel.
Here, under the steady revolution of the horizontal circular disk, or
wheel, controlled and held in its place by the left hand of the potter,
while he manipulates and varies the form with the right, we see how
readily the clay obeys the law of the circular pressure and movement,
and how, in obedience to it, every variety of form which the history
of pottery displays becomes possible to it in the hands of a skilful
and tasteful craftsman. Manual skill of a very accomplished kind is
demanded in throwing, as anyone may see for himself by trying to form
a vessel upon the wheel, simple as the operation looks, controlled
by a purely mechanical movement. Then, in addition to dexterity in
manipulating the clay and skill in forming the vessel truly, and of
an even thickness, there is room for any amount of artistic judgment
and taste in deciding the final form, or section, which the vessel
shall take; and again, in the design and use of such ornament as shall
express its form and office, or give it an additional decorative
surface beauty.
With the use of ornament, indented while our clay is soft, or with
raised moulding and edges, or low relief work, we are still carrying
out the fundamental suggestiveness of the material and what may be
called its natural method; and we find that ornamentation upon pottery
in its earliest development took the form of indented zigzag borders
and patterns, and to this day in some kinds of German pottery, and that
known as Grès de Flandres, we find the patterns indented in outline and
filled afterwards with the blue colour and glazed; the modern Egyptian
red clay pots are ornamented with indented, cut, and raised patterns;
while in the homely brown jug of our English potteries, we see the
application of the principle of relief work in the quaint figures
stamped upon the surface, pleasing enough, though without any reference
to classic dignity or proportion.
There is a good instance of the pleasant use of stamping the pattern
upon a clay vessel in this German pitcher from Rothenburg (see p. 87),
bought from the workshop of the potter himself, who made the pots of
the local clay, fired them, and glazed them himself, and finally was
his own salesman--an instructive combination of functions not often
found in our own country.
[Illustration: MODERN EGYPTIAN POTTERY.]
With wax, modelling can be carried to a greater degree of fineness and
sharpness of detail, especially upon a small scale. It is a material,
therefore, which lends itself to modelling for bronze and other fine
metal castings, to metals and coinage, as well as to small figures,
lamps, various vessels and ornaments; and also to large scale, highly
finished statues, especially when intended to be cast by the _cera
perduta_ or lost wax method, by which the molten metal from the furnace
is made to flow into the mould, to take the place of the wax of the
model, the wax of course melting and flowing out through the vents
contrived for the purpose.
The figure is modelled in the usual way in clay first. Then a plaster
piece-mould is taken, and into the inside of this, when taken off, the
wax is pressed, so as to line it completely. A framework or skeleton
of iron bars having been constructed to support the weight, the hollow
mould inside the wax lining or skin, which represents the thickness of
the bronze statue, is then filled up with a core composed of brick-dust
and plaster, mixed in a paste and poured in. The ducts to enable the
molten bronze to flow properly into the mould are then arranged, with
vents for the escape of the melted wax and air. The plaster piece-mould
is then carefully taken off, and the statue is disclosed in wax. This
wax surface can then be finally finished by the modeller before the
whole statue is covered in with another mould made of a fine paste of
bone ash and Tripoli powder and other ingredients. It is then bedded in
earth or sand, and the bronze, being mixed and melted in the furnace
is run out into the ducts of the mould; when cool the mould is broken
off, and, the bronze taking the place of the wax which is melted and
escapes, the statue is complete.
[Illustration: BRONZE STATUE OF LOUIS XV. BY BOUCHARDON, SHOWING
INTERNAL IRON-WORK AND CORE.[3]]
[3] From Mr. George Simond's article on "Casting in Bronze." "English
Illustrated Magazine," 1885.
Thus a complete and perfect casting is obtained of the work, it being
only necessary to stop the places where the ducts and vents were
fixed, which by ingenuity could be arranged to occur in the less
important parts. _Cera perduta_, as its name indicates, is an old
Italian method, and was used by Benvenuto Cellini. It has been revived
by Mr. George Simonds, who has given an account of it, and by our
younger school of sculptors, Messrs. Alfred Gilbert, Onslow Ford, Harry
Bates, and others, in place of the method of casting without the use of
the wax, which entailed a great deal of surface work and chasing upon
the hard bronze, so that the delicate modelled surface--the touch of
the artist, in short--was lost, but it is just this which is preserved
by the lost wax process, so that it is a method which favours artistic
modelling, since it perpetuates it in bronze with greater precision
than by the ordinary method, and does not require after touching in the
hard.
In iron-work we have another strictly conditioned kind, in which
design owes its character and peculiar beauty to the necessities and
limitations of the material and mode of working. I am speaking of
wrought iron, and of the forms in which it is usually found--in grills
of all kinds, in gates, and railings. Now we may consider that the
designer in iron has a material to deal with which is capable, under
heat and the hammer, of obeying much invention and lines of grace
and fancy. We start with a bar of iron; we plan our main framework;
we may use rigid verticals and horizontals in forming our grill. A
simple square trellis is the fundamental grill, but we seek more play
and fancy. Our iron bar is capable of being twisted at its ends into
spiral curves under heat, with the pincers (or even without, if thin).
It is also capable of being beaten out with the hammer into flattened
leaf forms, which again, by heating, can be worked and elaborated,
and parts joined by welding in great variety of form. But we may
consider primarily that the designer in iron starts with the bar, the
spiral curve, and the flat leaf, or even only the first two. These
are his units out of which he constructs his pattern; his pencils
are the hammer and pincers, his easel is the vice, his medium is the
forge. His business is to make a harmony in iron, and these are his
notes, his treble and bass. His success will depend, firstly, upon the
effectiveness with which he contrives to meet the fundamental purpose
of the grill or gate, that it shall be a sensible and practical grill
or gate to begin with; secondly, his lines and curves, however simple,
must be harmoniously arranged, so that the eye is satisfied at the
same time as the constructive sense; and thirdly, any invention or
play of fancy which he can super-add without injuring the first two
considerations will be so much to the good, and to his credit, and the
common pleasure.
[Illustration: BRONZE STATUE OF LOUIS XV. BY BOUCHARDON, SHOWING
DISTRIBUTION OF DUCTS AND VENTS.[4]]
[4] From Mr. George Simond's article on "Casting in Bronze." "English
Illustrated Magazine," 1885.
It is well, however, to test our powers by simple problems at first.
If we cannot combine a great variety of attractive forms harmoniously,
and fit them to useful purpose, let us try what we can do with few
and simple forms. If we fail at constructing gates of Paradise let us
see if we cannot make a good railing. If we cannot invent a romantic
knocker, let us try our hands at an effective scraper. It is much
better to do a simple thing well, than a complex or ambitious thing
badly; and there is far more need in the world for well-designed and
beautiful common things than for elaborate exceptional things.
[Illustration: WROUGHT-IRON GATES, ST. LAWRENCE, NUREMBERG.
THE IRON WORKERS UNITS.
WROUGHT IRON WORK PORCH GATES CATHEDRAL OF S. LAWRENCE NUREMBERG.]
[Illustration: WROUGHT-IRON FENDER, TONGS, FIRE-DOG AND SHOVEL, BRUGES.
FENDER WITH TONGS BRUGES.
FIRE DOG.]
[Illustration: WROUGHT-IRON ALTAR SCREEN, ST. THOMAS'S, SALISBURY.
PART OF ALTAR SCREEN IN WROUGHT IRON, CH. OF S THOMAS, SALISBURY.]
A study of iron-work should be useful to all students in design, as
showing what ornamental effects can be gained by economy of means,
the effectiveness of simply repeating well-chosen curves, spirals, and
lines; as well as the amount of fantasy and feeling which an inventive
designer and craftsman can put into such work in its more complex and
elaborate forms, and, above all, how perfectly it may be made to unite
serviceableness and beauty; while, perhaps more conspicuously than most
kinds of artistic work, it illustrates the essential unity of material
and method with their results in design.
[Illustration: WROUGHT-IRON BALUSTRADE, ROTHENBURG, from a sketch by R.
PHENÉ SPIERS.]
The illustrations given exemplify different varieties of treatment, and
also show how design in iron-work, in addition to the influence of the
material, is controlled by the spirit and period of the architecture of
which it becomes part.
We see this in comparing the free Gothic and rather fantastic forms
of the gates of the south porch of S. Laurence at Nuremberg with the
symmetric and formal screen from S. Thomas's, Salisbury (seventeenth
or eighteenth century), or both with the flowing Renascence scroll
balustrade from Rothenburg.
A most important branch of design is that of textiles, whether we
regard it in its close association with daily life and the wants of
humanity, with domestic comfort, personal adornment, or ecclesiastical
splendour. It is, perhaps, the most intimate of the arts of design,
and here again we shall find the control of material and method always
asserting themselves.
Textile designing may be broadly divided into two main kinds: (1)
that which is an incorporated part of the textile itself, as in woven
patterns, carpets, and tapestry; and (2) that which is designed as
a surface decoration to be printed or worked on the textile, as in
cotton, cloth, cretonne, silk, velvet, and embroidery.
Into the many technicalities and complexities of the modern power-loom
it is not now necessary to enter; but the main essential conditions it
is always necessary for the textile designer to have in mind are that
his design has to be produced by the crossing of threads in the loom,
by warp and weft, as the sets of threads are called--the warp being
the vertical threads, forming the web and foundation of the fabric;
the woof or weft being the horizontal thread woven through it at right
angles.
[Illustration: LADY AT A HAND LOOM, from Erasmus's "Praise of Folly"
(1676).
DIAGRAMS SHOWING THE PRINCIPLES OF THE LOOM.
RECTANGULAR BASIC CONDITIONS GOVERNING THE STRUCTURE OF ALL TEXTILE
PATTERN.
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL OF THE FORMATION OF PATTERN IN WEAVING.
THE REED OR COMB USED TO DRIVE HOME THE THREADS.
DIAGRAMS TO SHOW ACTION OF THE HEDDLES WHICH LIFT THE HORIZONTAL SETS
OF THREADS ALTERNATELY TO ALLOW THE SHUTTLE TO PASS TO & FRO WITH THE
WEFT.]
In the simple low warp hand-loom, the warp being in two sets, the
alternate threads are lifted by the heddles alternately. These
heddles are connected with treadles worked by the feet of the weaver,
who, with his hand, passes his shuttle with the woof backwards and
forwards through the interstices thus left, and weaves the plain cloth.
To make patterns, various wefts in different colours are added. This is
the fundamental simple principle of weaving, which in a still simpler
form may be seen in the making of tapestry and carpets in the high
warp loom, where the threads of the warp are stretched vertically upon
rollers in a framework, at which the worker sits and works in by his
hands the different colours of the pattern horizontally, twisting and
knotting the threads in through the warps on which the pattern has been
marked, and pressing it together by a sort of comb to make it firm and
solid; as the fabric is completed it is rolled up upon the roller.
Penelope is seen working at such a loom in a Greek vase painting. The
simple hand-loom, as it was in the seventeenth century, is seen in the
figure taken from Erasmus's "Praise of Folly."
What chiefly concerns the designer in woven textiles, therefore,
is that he must be prepared for the necessity that his design must
adapt itself to working out upon a square trellis of horizontal and
vertical lines, which will represent his outlines, or the edges of
his masses, in stepped outlines and edges, where the design crosses
the warp diagonally at any angle, and in straight lines where it runs
with the warp; since it may be said that pattern on woven cloth is
produced by leaving out, or stopping out, certain threads in the wefts,
disclosing one set in one place and another in another; such threads
corresponding with the holes cut in the cards placed in the loom to
regulate the pattern, which are prepared from the design, after it has
been worked out on squared paper to calculated intervals and numbers of
threads or points to each line and mass of the pattern.
[Illustration: PERSIAN CARPET, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.]
Now, so far from wishing to conceal the characteristic flatness and
squareness of outline and mass, which the nature of the conditions of
weaving normally produce, the artist values these characteristics as
essential to the work, and would make his design adaptable to them.
The most beautiful and decorative effects are produced in woven
textiles by the contrast, harmony, and blending of coloured threads,
wool, or silk, and the relief of one flat colour upon another, or one
flat tint upon another shade of the same tint, so that anything like
attempts at naturalistic drawing, and the representation of planes of
light and shade and relief can only be clumsy, owing to the nature of
the conditions, besides being mistaken, from the point of view of good
pattern-work.
There are no better masters in the selection and treatment of natural
forms in textile design than the Persians, who, in their magnificent
carpets, show both the extreme of graceful conventional pattern, and
also a happy mean in the treatment of flowers, trees, and animals,
exhibiting in their drawing and colour definite characterization rather
than naturalism; translating nature, as it were, and allying it with
invention in a distinct region of their own. To do this is really what
all designers should aim at, in whatsoever material they may work.
When we come to the second division of textile design, that in which
pattern is applied to the surface of the cloth after it has been
woven, by means of printing, the designer is chiefly controlled by
considerations of scale and beauty of effect, as he has to adapt his
design to various purposes, such as hangings and furniture coverings,
or small dress patterns, kerchiefs, and so forth. Beyond the necessary
limit of size of repeat and its satisfactory construction, he is freer
than in designing for woven textiles; and, in fact, has about as much
range as any other surface designer in colours.
It is considered a practical and economic advantage that a design
should adapt itself to printing in many different schemes of colour,
and be capable of treatment on a light or dark ground. In larger scale
patterns, such as furniture cretonnes, patterns or parts of patterns
are produced by a mordant or resist; that is to say, the light parts
are printed in a mordant or chemical preparation which takes out
the dye, and so discloses in those parts the natural colour of the
cotton cloth. Similar effects can be produced by the reverse method of
printing the cloth first with a resist and dyeing or printing the whole
afterwards.
The methods and machinery of printing cotton have been carried to great
perfection, and the necessary limitations as to what effects can or
cannot be obtained are very few, what is done being largely regulated
by considerations of cost. These apparent advantages, however, from the
artistic point of view, expose us to new dangers. We may easily lose
sight of the end in the very perfection of the means; the very facility
of those means may lead the designer to forget that, after all, he
is designing for a textile--something which will be hung in folds,
variously draped, or worn. The desire to show the capacity of the
method of printing a pattern in colours may not always be on all fours
with the wish for tasteful design and reposeful effect. The fierce
competition of trade, and the violent demands of the salesman, do not
harmonize with the judgment of the artist. If you were in a company
where all were talking at once at the top of their voices you would
have to shout very loudly if you wanted to be heard, but no one would
contend that these were the best conditions for the human voice. It is,
however, a tolerably just simile of the present conditions of trade
and their effect upon design. So long as things are made primarily to
_sell_, rather than to last and live with, there will always be this
difficulty and disparity between art and commerce; but a school of art
can only concern itself with what are the best methods, and endeavour
always to set up the best types of design, the best standards of taste.
If we want to represent flowers, for instance, in their natural
superficial aspects of light and shade and relief, the natural form
for such renderings is the still life study; the natural means, the
canvas, palette, and brushes, or Whatman and water-colour; the natural
equipment, power of graphic drawing and knowledge of pictorial effect.
But, whatever value, pictorial interest, and charm such studies may
have, as such, with the charm of treatment, with the freedom of
handling open to the pictorial artist, and with the direct personal
touch, the value, pictorial interest, and charm and beauty would be
entirely lost if they were done by the yard, and spread over acres of
cotton. The particular conditions which give value to the individual
pictorial study become utterly lost when the attempt is made to
produce a pattern on the same principles. It is neither good pattern
nor good painting; and the very best machine-painting can only give a
more or less coarse rendering of hand-painting, and it is therefore
a mistaken application of it to try. It requires no special artistic
feeling or training to recognize a bunch of roses or poppies thrown
in exaggerated relief on a flat surface; but it does require both to
appreciate a design made of the same flowers, composed and coloured
harmoniously in an ingenious repeat, and drawn firmly and delicately
with an understanding of the character and construction of the plants,
yet treated with fancy and invention, and, at the same time, meeting
perfectly the nature of the material and the method of manufacture.
These qualities I should enumerate as the real necessities in designing
for printed fabrics, whether it is cotton cloth printed from the
pattern engraved on copper rollers, or furniture cretonne printed from
flat blocks. In either case, in providing the design, firmness and
sharpness of line would be good, and precision of touch in laying in
the colour.
The embroiderer, again, is comparatively free as to range of choice
in treatment of surface design, which will be necessarily governed
by purpose, position, and nature of material and method employed.
The bold design and large scale detail which would be suitable for
bed hangings and curtains in crewel work, such as we find in the
Queen Anne period, would be obviously out of place in small panels of
delicate fine silk-work. A greater approach to the colours and surfaces
of nature, too, in silk-work may be attempted, as in the plumage of
birds and the petals of flowers, as we see in Chinese and Japanese silk
embroideries, though the decorative principle of shading one colour
with other tints of the same should be followed when shading is used,
keeping the colour pure and brilliant, and never using black or brown
for shadows on colours.
[Illustration: EMBROIDERY.
NATURAL DIRECTION OF STITCHES IN WORKING LEAVES, STEMS, FLOWERS, &
FRUIT.
SILK EMBROIDERY HEIGHTENED WITH SILVER THREAD ITALIAN 16TH CENTURY.
JAPANESE KIMONO PRINTED PATTERN HEIGHTENED WITH GOLD & SILK EMBROIDERY
IN PARTS.
PERSIAN EMBROIDERY SILK ON LINEN BOKHARA.]
A certain natural convention, we might say, belongs to the conditions
of material and method in embroidery, and is inseparable from the art
of the expression of form by stitches. Following the same principle of
such acknowledgment of necessary limitations which we find hold good in
other decorative arts, the essential stitch method of the embroiderer
should be rather emphasized than concealed, although it does not follow
that in preparing designs to be embroidered the stitches need be all
represented, so long as the design is clear and plain, and the outlines
distinct; while in the choice of the direction of the stitches, as well
as in their form and character, must be found the particular means of
expressing varieties of surface and characteristics of form. In making
leaves, for instance, one would naturally make the stitches radiate
from the centre towards the point, while the character of tree stems
is well expressed by carrying the stitches crossways over others laid
vertically first, as, in addition to the suggestion of lines of bark,
the double row of stitches has the effect of suggesting the projection
of a rounded stem. For filling in large masses, or for meandering
types of patterns and scroll-work, or bold outline, chain-stitch is
very useful, and has a compact, solid effect. It is much used in
Indian embroideries. The introduction of gold thread, so much found
in all oriental embroidery, enriches and heightens the effects of the
colours very much, and on the unbleached linens and muslins, where the
pattern is quite light, it has a charming effect. The Japanese make
very effective use of gold thread embroidery, in some cases carrying
the whole of the work out in gold upon a dark ground, or using it as a
partial enrichment on printed textiles such as _kimonos_ or robes; in
other kinds, notably in dark, rich, full-coloured embroidered hangings,
by introducing disks of gold thread, formed by stitching the thread
down upon the ground in closely twisted spiral forms, which catch the
light very effectively when hung upon the wall.
There is, indeed, in the embroiderer's art immense range of both
treatment and subject. It may be light and delicate, and restricted to
one or two colours, or vie in fulness, richness, and depth of colour
and splendour of effect with tapestry itself. It may adorn a child's
quilt, or decorate an altar; it may touch the hem of a garment, or
inform the cover of a book; nothing seems to be above or below it;
and throughout its manifold adaptations it offers an attractive field
to the designer and the worker who is not afraid of patient but not
unrewarding labour.
As further exemplifying the influence of material and method, I
may just touch upon another art, in our days the most popular and
far-reaching, perhaps, of all--the art of design in black and white for
the book and the newspaper.
[Illustration: BUCH VON DEN SIEBEN TODSÜNDEN (AUGSBURG, 1474).]
[Illustration: HANS BALDUNG GRÜN, "HORTULUS ANIMAE" (STRASSBURG, 1511).]
Now, the early woodcut as we find it in the printed books of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries owed its forms and qualities to
the necessities of surface printing with types in a hand-press. The
vigorous, bold drawing with the pen on the wood-block was cut by the
engraver with a knife and on the _plank_, not as now, upon the cross
section of the box tree: softer wood, too, was at first probably used.
The engraver's knife left the artist's line firmer, perhaps, than it
was drawn, and the design in vigorous open line was exactly adapted to
print under the same pressure as the type had to undergo. The two were
in true mechanical relation, and also in true artistic relation. The
decorative effect of the early printers' pages is remarkably fine, and
is obtained by very simple means.
With the decline of the severe and vigorous drawing of the great
designers of the late Gothic and early Renascence period, and probably
also with the invention of copper-plate engraving and printing,
and the more rapid production of books, the art of the book printer
declined, and the art of the book decorator with it; and although
the woodcut still held its place, and was largely used for the next
two centuries, and, indeed, down to our own time, in book ornaments,
initial letters, and illustrations, it had fallen into inferior hands.
At the end of last century a sort of revival took place under Thomas
Bewick and his school, which led, not to a revival of the firm and open
linear drawing of the designers of the early printers, but rather to a
search after extra fineness and qualities of tone and colour, hitherto
associated with steel or copper-plate. This tendency or aim of the
engravers, however, only served to put the woodcut out of relation with
the type, and the type itself grew uglier, and was hardly considered
as part of the artistic character of the book. William Blake seems
to have been the only artist who made any attempt to consider the
necessary relation of illustration and type, but he did it by means of
copper-plate, and writing his own lettering.
It is only recently that a serious effort has been made to re-establish
the old relationship between design and text in surface printing and as
applied to books. Our newspapers and illustrated journals still print
heavy black blocks, reproduced from wash drawings, along with thin
pale type; and the tendency of the recent new photographic processes
of reproducing the designs of artists has rather been to dislocate the
decorative feeling and the relationship of type and picture aforesaid,
by imposing no restrictions of material or method in preparing
drawings for the press. We have now, however, a school of printers and
designers in black and white who do consider decorative effect in
printing and in the design of the printed page.
[Illustration: A CRADLE SONG
Sweet dreams form a shade,
O'er my lovely infants head.
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams,
By happy silent moony beams.
Sweet sleep with soft down.
Weave thy brows an infant crown.
Sweet sleep Angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child.
Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight.
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.
Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes,
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.
Sleep sleep happy child,
All creation slept and smil'd.
Sleep sleep, happy sleep.
While o'er thee thy mother weep.
Sweet babe in thy face,
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe once like thee.
Thy maker lay and wept for me.
Wept
WILLIAM BLAKE.]
Mr. William Morris, by his personal experiment and practice of
printing, approaching it from the designer's point of view, has again
placed the printing of books in the position of an art. By practical
demonstration in the beautiful results of his work--in the beautiful
books he issued from the Kelmscott Press--he has shown us what very
fine decorative effects can be got by careful consideration of the form
of the letters, by the placing of the type upon the page, by the use
of good handmade paper, by the use of ornaments and initial letters
of rich and bold design, harmonizing with the strength and richness
of the type (which makes the ordinary types look pale and thin). His
work, too, is obviously influencing printers and publishers generally,
so that something like a renascence in printing and in design and
decoration in black and white has been going on during the last few
years.
Certainly a return to the practice of drawing in line is good, not
only as a test of design and draughtsmanship, and absolutely necessary
to all designers, but also as essential to designs or illustrations
intended to contribute to the decorative character of the printed page.
In the various instances, therefore, to which I have drawn attention,
we have seen that design in its many forms and applications must
be reconciled to certain limitations of material and method; but
that, so far from these limitations being a hindrance to harmonious
expression or to beauty of result, they themselves, by their very
nature, if properly understood and frankly acknowledged, lead to those
very results of beauty and harmonious expression which come of that
perfect unity of design, material, and method it is the object of all
decorative art to attain.