Among the many so-called “booms” that followed the civil war, as the
result of the wonderful intellectual, moral and material impulse that
it gave the country, one of the most marked and promising of influence
on the national character is the advancement in decorative art that
this generation has seen and felt. Its presence and influence are
observable in the general demand for more artistic interior finishing
and furnishing: for better form and coloring in wall paper, frescoing,
painting, floor-coverings, upholstery and drapery, and in that broader
study of the harmonious wholes of which these are related parts.
It is not an art renaissance, so much as a new birth of popular art
feeling; a creation, rather than a revival. Facts seem to indicate the
beginning of the long-talked-of American school of art. It is a peculiar,
and peculiarly-encouraging circumstance that this new development is
native and popular instead of imported and select.
For, we may be very sure that any movement that is to abide and have
much power over our people must be one that touches the average citizen.
To reach him it must be American. It need not be divergent from, and
it should not be antagonistic to established art principles; but, not
the less, in its sympathies, subjects, and methods it must be national.
An art that is to live with any people must be _of_ that people. With
us this requirement of popularity is doubly strong, because we are so
intensely national; because all institutions live and move and have their
being in the commonalty, and because the citizen is the only source of
living patronage of art here, where the state does not foster art as
foreign states do. The artist must eat, and the people must feed him.
Before they will pay for art, they must have sufficient culture to
care for it dollars’ worth, and it must be of a nature to reach their
sympathies. Even in monarchial England, Ruskin perceives the necessity
for beginning at the bottom to upbuild national taste, and he addresses
volumes of letters upon art “To the Workmen and Laborers of Great
Britain” (see “Fors Clavigera”).
We have not much to hope for in the way of education of American taste
from imported art, for this can never reach or touch the people. A few
_dilettanti_ in our cities can do very little toward creating, or even
influencing a national taste. They have no _rapport_ with true American
culture; they offend national sensibilities by unreasoning rejection of
everything undertaken here; and, above all, if they be brought to the
test, it will be found that they generally have no fixed art principles
back of their opinions and—prejudices. If the average American could
not appreciate foreign works, he was not much helped to a better
understanding of them by their admirers; and he came to think himself at
least quite capable of correctly estimating devotees who could no more
give good reasons for worshiping everything foreign than they could for
scorning everything indigenous.
The most hopeful augury for this new interest is in the fact that it
relates to that department of art which goes most directly into the lives
and the homes of the people: and that it has been the first to take on
marked American characteristics. Moreover, its commercial features will
be potent influences for its spread and growth. It is capable of being at
once the refiner, the educator and the almoner of thousands.
Confidence in the inherent genius of my countrymen, led me years ago to
predict that all that was needed for the establishment of a school in
any art was (1) the foundational training of mind or hand; (2) a belief
that it can be done; (3) a market for it. The last most important of
all, because demand inspires originality and creates supply, and because
recompense is the great stimulus to inspiration. Genius in this age is
pretty apt to have an eye to the main chance.
For all these reasons we are prepared for the conclusion that the impulse
given to decorative art by the organizations known as the “Decorative Art
Society,” and the “Associated Artists,” all of New York City, is the most
valuable of anything that has been done since the nation’s new sense of
the beautiful awoke. These are the parts of one movement possessing these
characteristics:
It is distinctively American.
It has compelled recognition at home and abroad as well of its indigenous
originality as of its artistic correctness and merit.
It has begun the production of exclusively American materials, designed
and manufactured in this country, which are unequaled by anything foreign.
It is commercially successful.
By virtue of all these achievements, it is doing a missionary work for
American art by encouraging similar efforts in other cities and other
countries; by demonstrating that “good _can_ come out of Nazareth;”
by putting in the way of thousands of talented women, suffering under
repression and lack of opportunity or for inspiration of hope, the
opening for culture and compensation combined.
It is to celebrate what has been accomplished, and haply, to suggest the
opportunities open to others, that this narration is essayed.
The movement was, indeed, patriotic in its birth. It was inspired by the
Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. The specimens of decorative art
from the South Kensington School in the English exhibit impressed Mrs.
Thomas M. Wheeler, of New York, by their lack of originality and freedom,
insomuch that she declared, “We can do better than that in this country
without any school!” and she set about doing it in genuine American
spirit. The first organization, The Decorative Art Society, which she
instituted, was composed of several hundred ladies of New York. The plan
was national, philanthropic and commercial—to serve art, help women,
beat the British, and make money. Ladies in a large number of cities
were influenced by correspondence and other efforts to form auxiliary
societies. The seed of the new art interest thus widely sown is still
bearing crops.
From this nucleus there were before long offshoots in two directions—in
a higher and in a more rudimentary line. The Woman’s Exchange was
organized to provide a market for the large surplus of handiwork of
all kinds that was pressed upon the society; and a less numerous, more
compact organization was originated to attempt a higher development
of the work—this being called the Associated Artists. Thus they had
three efficient agencies occupying ground in this order, artistically
considered—The Woman’s Exchange, The Decorative Art Society, The
Associated Artists. Each of these is still doing its appointed work, but
our present purpose has to do only with the most advanced—The Associated
Artists.
It should be said, however, of the Woman’s Exchange, that it has spread
the most widely; because it deals with the simple forms of ornamentation
which require but little training, but it produces articles that are
salable. Thus it has become a bread-and-butter enterprise to a large mass
of women. Not only do all of our leading cities now boast of Exchanges,
but Princess Louise, after her first visit to this country, caused one to
be formed in Canada. This “Yankee notion” has also been transplanted to
Germany and Sweden.
The Associated Artists, as first organized, was directed by Mrs. Wheeler
and three gentlemen, artists like herself—Mrs. Wheeler having charge of
the needlework department; one gentleman, of interior wood decoration;
another, of glass painting, and the third, of the color scheme, painting,
etc. They undertook the interior finish of rooms and houses upon entirely
new decorative notions. Among their public undertakings, also, were the
entire interior decoration of the Madison Square Theater, including the
drop curtain; the finish of the “Veterans’ Room” in the Seventh Regiment
Armory, and parts of the Union League Club House.
The business success of the Associated Artists grew on the managers. The
educational and philanthropic aims were in danger of being overshadowed
by the commercial consideration, and New York gave them abundant
employment without their going into all the world and preaching the
gospel of beauty and self-help to all women. Moreover, Mrs. Wheeler’s
department in the work grew so rapidly and opened out possibilities of
development and creation so great, that she decided to make it a special
and separate enterprise. This she did three years ago, retaining the
name, Associated Artists.
Success has vindicated the wisdom of the segregation, while the other
members of the older organization have not suffered by the separation.
From that time to the present the enterprise has been managed and worked
by women only.
The gentlemen formerly of the Associated Artists are working on
independent lines. The decoration of the new Lyceum Theater, New York, is
the latest and greatest triumph of one of them.
The Associated Artists now have to do with decoration as using or applied
to textile fabrics, including as well all upholstery as the hangings,
draperies, tapestry and applied decoration of any part of a room. In
the building which they occupy in East Twenty-third Street, there are
large exhibition and salesrooms, the studios or designing rooms, the
departments of embroidery, of tassels, fringes, etc., of tapestry, and
the curtain department—an entire floor. There are about sixty employes.
This is an art school as well as a business house. Many women come
to them with no other preparatory training than the drawing lessons
of our public schools afford. The best talent is furnished by the
Women’s Art School of Cooper Union. Aside from such preparation, the
Associated Artists furnish the education of their own designers and
workers. Unendowed, small, modest and young as it is, we shall see in
what respects this American school has outstripped the great English
institution.
One of the most serious obstacles that the effort to create American
design has had to meet, is the lack of suitable materials to work with.
All imported textiles were found to be, in color, texture and pattern,
unsuited to the new uses and ideas; and American manufacturers were so
much under tutelage to European tastes, that nothing different was to be
had from them. It is a fact as lamentable as it is astonishing, that a
carpet, wall paper or textile mill in this country rarely has an American
designer of patterns and colors. The schemes of color made by the
Associated Artists were out of harmony with French, English and American
fabrics and embroidery materials. The colors of these were too sharp,
strong and cardinal for the blending of tones that was sought.
To meet this case a Massachusetts silk mill was engaged to manufacture,
first embroidery silks of the desired shades; and, that being
accomplished, to undertake the coloring of fabrics. The greater step to
the manufacture of special fabrics was next taken. Now the Associated
Artists use only materials made for them in this country.
There are three different mills engaged on their work, one of which last
year supplied them with $30,000 worth. The work is a great advertisement
to a mill—such recognition have these fabrics gained, here and in
Europe, for fineness, design and beauty. Several European decorators of
first rate have sent for samples of them. Foreign artists and designers
visiting this country regularly have in their note-book memoranda to see
the wonderful new American fabrics at the Associated Artists. These goods
have also been used for garments. Mrs. Langtry, Mrs. Cornwallis West and
Ellen Terry bought largely of them for their wardrobes. Felix Moschelles,
artist, and son of that Moschelles who was the biographer of Mendelssohn,
declared that there was nothing in Europe to compare with these joint
products of American artists and artisans. Truly, there is nothing on the
shelves of dry goods men on either continent to match them; they revive
the traditions of the wonderful products of Oriental looms.
Another _chef d’œuvre_ of these artists is their tapestry work. It has
the definiteness and freedom of drawing, and the delicacy and feeling
of color of an oil painting; nay, deft fingers with a needle and thread
can produce effects in colors that the painter’s brush can not, because
colored threads reflect and complement each other. This work is done
upon the surface of a canvas, the stitch being similar to that used
upon “honey comb canvas,” all surface work. To make it more effective,
a fabric has been woven with a double warp, the embroidery being run in
under the upper thread, somewhat like darning. The process and fabrics
were invented by Mrs. Wheeler and are protected by letters-patent in this
country and Europe.
A portrait was woven in this way, thread by thread, so faithful as to be
preferred by the family, to the best work they had of photographer or
painter. A piece of this tapestry has been under the hands of from one
to three embroiderers—or darners, if you please—every day for nearly a
year. It is one of ten large needle-work pictures of American subjects
now in preparation. One of them is a Zuni Indian girl, by Miss Rosina
Emmett, and another, “Hiawatha,” a typical Indian girl of the North, by
Miss Dora Wheeler. (These two artists are directors of the Association.)
The pictures are life size, and are very characteristic studies. The
remaining eight tapestries are mainly upon events of American history.
Only close examination would convince any one that they were not oil
paintings. After seeing this work I am inclined to think less of the
famous Bayeux tapestry and all other pictorial needlework. William the
Conqueror was unwise not to have deferred his exploits until Yankee girls
could embroider them. The best we can now offer William is to invade and
conquer England over again—with American tapestry.
These high-class works are mentioned simply to show the height that this
line of decorative art has reached, in a short time, by the efforts of
native genius and mechanical skill.
Nor is the story yet all told of the relation of design to manufactures.
One of the largest manufacturers of paper hangings in this country not
long since offered prizes amounting to $2,000 for the best four designs
for wall paper. The competition was great, sixty designs being entered by
European artists, and many times more by American. When the awards were
opened the examining committee, as well as the donors, were astonished to
learn that the Associated Artists had taken all the prizes, the European
trained talent none. Now, the freshest, best-selling patterns for wall
paper are of American design.
There is more still to tell that is gratifying to patriotism. These
efforts have discovered to the world, as a fact, what was before the
cherished theory of a few, viz.: that an American school of art already
existed, dominant in brains and hands, waiting to be awakened to
activity. There is a distinctive character in all that has been done
in decoration, different from anything seen in other people’s work. It
has a nationality in choice of subjects and materials, an originality
in conception, a freedom and freshness in treatment, that fairly mark
the beginning of a new school. More than that, when the work of native
designers has come in comparison with that of the Kensington or other
schools, it has justified the opinion that was expressed at the outset as
to the ability of our women to surpass the latter.
When the Decorative Society was organized, it sent to Kensington for a
teacher, and employed the one that was the most highly recommended by the
management there. At the close of the very first lesson that was given by
this instructor to the leading ladies of the society, she was overcome
by the reception her teaching had met. “Why,” she said, ruefully, “these
ladies have got from me, in a single lesson, all that I know. _I have
nothing more to teach them._” This incident reveals the reason for the
contrast in work—gives the explanation of the stereotyped forms and stiff
designs of the foreign school. The difference is in the human material
that enters into the work in either case—the difference of development
and general culture back of special art training. The English girl who
is forced to earn a livelihood by needlework, and qualifies therefor at
Kensington, represents a different order of preparatory training, general
culture, social position and aims, from those leaders in art who engage
in the work _con amore_ in this country. But there is, also, a race
difference that runs through all society in both countries. The American
woman is a thinker—the English an observer; the American woman is by
nature an innovator, the English conventional; the one an originator,
the other an imitator. The same climatic, dietary, social and political
influences that make the American artisan the most inventive and free
handicraftsman in the world; the American business man the most daring
and rapid, have conspired to make their sisters, and their cousins, and
their aunts the most original and apt pupils of art in the world. We
may confidently look to them, and the sons that they shall give their
country, to go on and create for it a school of art as free and as
characteristic as are all our institutions.
The movement is but in the embryo stage. All this is the result of a
single effort, and it is still young. Time is of the essence of art
culture, and the United States offers ample verge and scope enough for a
wonderful work in the future. The field for invention in decorative art
is boundless, because genius may touch every item and phase of home and
carry into the innermost life of the whole people the refining influence
of Beauty.