simplicity, both in house designing, furniture, and decorations on the
part of the more refined and cultured, as a reaction perhaps against
the ostentation and luxury of the appointments of the extremely and
newly rich, and the pretentiousness of the decorations of monster
hotels, where coarse imitations of decadent periods of French art do
duty for splendour, though even here of late the simpler taste has
asserted itself. There is indeed some danger that oak or green-stained
furniture and whitewashed walls may come to be considered as outward
and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace, when perhaps they
are only the fashion.
“Have nothing in your house but what you believe to be beautiful or
what you know is useful,” was the straightforward advice of that
great conservative revolutionist in English decorative art and other
things--William Morris--and he certainly acted up to it in his own
house.
[Illustration: Stoneywell Cottage, Interior of Living-room
Furniture Designed by Ernest W. Gimson, Sidney H. Barnsley, and Ernest
A. Barnsley]
As to the useful, there are no complications about that. A room with a
definite purpose has character, and is always more or less picturesque.
The kitchen is generally the most picturesque room in the house, yet
usually entirely devoid of what may be called decoration. Its objects
of art are merely the tools of the workshop, the bright brass and
copper vessels, the dish-covers gleaming like polished armour from the
white walls. The rows of blue and white plates and dishes upon the
dresser, and all the simple but sufficient hand tools of the cook’s
office about, easily make up an attractive Dutch picture.
[Illustration: Old English Farmhouse Interior (Kent)
From a Sketch by Walter Crane]
The real aesthetic dangers come in to the rooms which have no visible
means of subsistence, so to speak. The dining-room, perhaps for this
reason, is more successful generally than the drawing-room, and
there exists a sort of tradition that it should be warm and rich in
colour. Silver plate often gleams pleasantly from the sideboard, and
the furniture is simple and massive in its lines. An old English
dining-room, with Chippendale or Sheraton furniture, has a character
and distinction of its own. A library, again, is almost sure to look
a habitable room, and there are few more agreeable linings to walls
than books, and here we must depend upon the taste of the binders, as
well as on the furniture provided for the mind. There would, however,
be room for the professional decorator upon the ceiling, and I mind
me of the lovely plaster ceilings to be met with in sixteenth-century
houses, sometimes armorial, sometimes emblematic--such as those
at Knole and Blickling. In plaster work we have a beautiful and
permanent kind of decoration which we owe to Italy, but which seems
to have become quite domesticated here, and to have developed its
own forms with us. The plain white, flat ceiling of the ordinary
modern dwelling-house is the last relic, and even this used to have
a big plaster rose screwed up in the middle, from which sprouted the
gaselier; but one need not regret the departure of both excrescences in
favour of the clean and pendulous shaded electric light, with light and
simple brass or copper fittings. Our plasterers, however, might be able
to throw some delicate ribs or pleasant spacing of simple sprays and
devices upon the inviting plain of white plaster over our heads, or, if
not, why not let the joists show and paint or stencil them with running
leaf patterns, or paint them black, leaving white plaster between? Mr.
George Walton, one of the most tasteful and original decorators in the
newer mode, and under the Glasgow influence, showed a new treatment of
a ceiling in glass and metal, together with a completely decorated and
fitted interior at the recent Glasgow Exhibition. A plaster ceiling
demands a frieze, and both may be effective either plain or coloured.
This would depend upon whether a light, dark, or rich effect were
required in the room. There is much charm in the coloured treatment
of plaster, especially of figure designs in low relief as in the work
of Mr. Anning Bell, Mr. Pomeroy, and Mr. Gerald Moira, though these
require large rooms, public halls, or churches.
[Illustration: Combe Bank, Sevenoaks, the Saloon
The Stamped Leather, Plaster Ceiling, Chimney Breast, smaller Frieze
Panels, and Door Panels Designed, Modelled, and Painted by Walter Crane]
[Illustration: Printed Cretonne Hanging, “Defend the Right”
Designed by Walter Crane]
[Illustration: Printed Cretonne Hanging, “Bon Voyage”
Designed by Walter Crane]
I have designed decorations (ceilings and friezes) in plaster and
in stucco, and gesso worked _in situ_. These, in several instances,
were gilded or silvered and lacquered so as to produce a low-toned
metallic effect. This ornament harmonizes with richly coloured and
rather dark-toned walls hung with silk or Spanish leather; but these
were by no means cottage interiors.
For a cottage or small country house, printed cretonne, used as
hangings for the lower walls of a room, has an attractive effect if
suitable in pattern and colour, having a fresh, clean, and even gay
effect with white woodwork and furniture.
The most comfortable, and at the same time the most romantic, also,
I fear it must be added, the most expensive, way of decorating walls
is by hanging them with arras tapestry such as that produced by
William Morris. The dining-room of the English House at the last Paris
Universal Exhibition was panelled in oak up to about six or eight
feet, and the space above to the cornice was hung with Morris arras
tapestry, designed by Burne-Jones and himself, showing the legend of
King Arthur’s knights and the Holy Grail. The simplicity, yet richness
and dignity of effect has a striking contrast to the more clamorous
decorations of some of its neighbours, among which, however, the
Spanish Pavilion was an exception.
Complete schemes for wall decorations (including field, frieze, dado,
and ceiling), can, however, be had in wall-paper, which, with plain
painting for the modest citizen, remains the chief method of interior
mural decoration. A frieze usually heightens and lightens the effect
of a room, and its junction with the field can be utilized for a
picture-rail, the wall space from the picture-rail to the skirting
being covered with rich or quiet pattern, as the particular scheme may
demand. Sometimes a patterned frieze does well above a plain tinted
wall.
[Illustration: Wall-paper, “Lily”
Designed by Walter Crane]
[Illustration: Wall-paper, “Dawn”
Designed by Walter Crane]
I venture here to give some illustrations of some of my recent
wall-paper designs, by permission of the makers, Messrs. Jeffery and
Co.
[Illustration: Wall-paper, Lion Frieze and Rose Bush Filling
Designed by Walter Crane]
The blue and white lily pattern (single prints) would be suitable
where a bold effect was desired for a dado or field of lower wall with
plain white, or a quiet frieze above. It might be useful in halls and
passages.
The rather ornate design called “Dawn,” with the figure medallion,
might be used for a drawing-room in quiet tones. The blue and the brown
being re-echoed in the hangings and furniture with white wood-work.
The “Rose Bush” would be appropriate to a dining or living-room where a
rather dark and rich effect was aimed at. It would harmonize with oak
framing and furniture.
The “Olive Spray” might be generally useful, and would answer as a
background for pictures.
When wall-paper is used for ceilings the walls should be comparatively
quiet.
I have found the “Vine Trellis” pattern has a good effect with a plain
tint on the walls, and is especially useful in covering the rather
blank and ugly plastered soffit of the staircase which so often meets
the eye in a town-house of the older type.
“The Cockatoo” would answer in a large room where an ornate effect was
desired, or it could be used as a frieze above panelling, or a plain
tint.
The “Oak Tree” is on simpler lines and rectangular in feeling,
combining a bordered field with a frieze.
In choosing wall papers to suit particular rooms, regard should be had
to the character of the lines of the pattern as well as the colour,
bearing in mind that a pattern which runs into marked vertical lines
would tend to increase the apparent height of a room, whereas a pattern
of marked horizontal feeling would tend to make a room look lower and
longer.
[Illustration: Wall-paper, “Olive Spray”
Designed by Walter Crane]
[Illustration: Wall-paper, “The Cockatoo and Pomegranate”
Designed by Walter Crane]
[Illustration: Wall-paper Decoration “The Oak Tree”
Designed by Walter Crane]
In designing complete schemes for wall-paper one’s aim has been to
balance the different quantities of pattern in the different parts,
and to re-echo the leading lines, masses, and colours by different
expedients, so as to keep an essential relationship between each part.
Relationship is, of course, the essential in all decoration, otherwise
it becomes a patchwork of conflicting pattern and colour. It matters
not what our materials may be, or by what means, costly or simple, we
seek to obtain our effect, whether by painting, carving, gilding and
rich textiles, metal or plaster work, stamped leather or wall-paper,
stencilling, tiles and plain painting or stained wood and whitewash.
All must be in keeping, and seem fit and in its right place and
proportion, and suitable to its conditions and surroundings; rich and
splendid if the aim is to be rich and splendid, simple and quiet if the
aim is to be simple and quiet; but without the pretence of richness or
obtrusive display on the one hand, or the extreme rudeness, baldness,
and ugliness which sometimes accompany what looks like the affectation
of simplicity on the other.
OF THE PROGRESS OF TASTE IN DRESS IN RELATION TO ART EDUCATION.
If taste in dress could be traced to, or its cultivation and exercise
were solely due to, the influence of the constant study of beautiful
forms and fine historical models in design, as well as of the living
human figure, we might be justified in looking to our schools of
art to give us the best types and standards in costume. There are,
however, too many missing links between the ordinary art student and
the practical designer, between the tasteful person and the leader of
fashion, to enable us to prove a close connection of cause and effect
in the matter.
No doubt the general and extended cultivation of a knowledge of art
even on the ordinary art-school lines has contributed not a little to
the general interest in artistic questions, and quickened the average
eye to some extent; but it must be said that we have not yet succeeded
in making our schools of art remarkable as sources of invention, of
initiative, or, on the whole, distinguished for capacity of artistic
selection. We should be expecting too much, perhaps, to look for
these things from training grounds. We ought to be satisfied if they
ultimately turn out a fair average of capable artists, or, rather,
enable students to become capable artists.
Even if all schools were equally well equipped in respect of models
and teaching staff, under the present system there is practically
but little margin left by the regime of the Board of Education for
individual experiment and inquiry off the main lines of the prescribed
courses of study in which passes or honours are obtainable.
The courses and classes of study are arranged in certain stereotyped
ways, so that it becomes an object to attain a certain mechanical
proficiency in certain methods of drawing, and the representation of a
certain range of forms, in order to obtain certificates, rather than to
cultivate the sense of beauty in individuals with a view to the public
benefit and the raising of the standard of taste.
These defects are, it seems to me, inseparable from any attempt to
teach art and taste in schools (that is to say by precept and principle
rather than by practice), and upon a uniform system directed from a
central department. Such an organization must necessarily tend to
become rigid and work according to routine, and its administrators’
best faculties are apt to be too much absorbed in mastering the details
and rules of the system itself, and in the working of it, to be able to
think out, much less to adopt, vivifying changes from time to time.
[Illustration: Greek Drapery, Temple of Niké Apteros, Athens]
At certain stages, no doubt, by its command of expert opinion, such a
Department may be of service to the schools of the country collectively
in setting up a standard of taste, and advancing it from time to
time by means of the national competitions, which are the means of
instituting instructive comparisons between the work of different
schools.
But the real educating after influences; the inspiring and refining
sources of artistic invention in design must be found in the splendid
array of examples of ancient art of all kinds in our museums and
galleries--which are mines of artistic wealth to the student and the
designer.
Yet the most ordinary art-school training cannot be without its effect,
even if only negative. The mere practice of cultivating the observation
and uniting it with a certain power of depicting form is an education
in itself, and gives people fresh eyes for nature and life.
The mere effect upon the eye and feeling of following the pure lines
and forms of antique Greek sculpture, and the severe and expressive
lines of drapery can hardly be without a practical influence to some
degree even upon the least impressionable.
At all events, we have living artists, many of whom have survived the
usual art-school or Academic training, and who through their works have
certainly influenced contemporary taste in dress, at least as far as
the costume of women is concerned.
I think there can be no doubt, for instance, of the influence in our
time of what is commonly known as the pre-Raphaelite school, and
its later representatives in this direction; from the influence of
Rossetti (which lately, indeed, seems to have revived and renewed
itself in various ways) to the influence of William Morris and Edward
Burne-Jones. But it is an influence which never owed anything to
Academic teaching.
Under the new impulse--the new inspiration of the mid-century from
the purer and simpler lines, forms, and colours of early mediaeval
art, the dress of women in our own time may be said to have been quite
transformed for a while, and though the pendulum of fashion swings
to and fro, it does not much affect, except in some small details,
a distinct type of dress which has become associated with artistic
people--those who seriously study and consider of the highest value and
importance beautiful and harmonious surroundings in daily life.
Beginning in the households of the artists themselves, the type of
dress to which I allude, by imitation (which is the sincerest form of
flattery--or insult, as some will have it) it soon became spread abroad
until, in the seventies and early eighties, we saw the fashionable
world and the stage aping, with more or less grotesque vulgarity, what
it was fain to think were the fashions of the inner and most refined
artistic cult. Commerce, ever ready to dot the i’s and cross the t’s
of anything that spells increased profits, was not slow to flood the
market with what were labelled “art-colours” and “aesthetic” fabrics
of all kinds; but whatever vulgarity, absurdity, and insincerity
might have been mixed up by its enemies with what was known as the
aesthetic movement, it undoubtedly did indicate a general desire for
greater beauty in ordinary life and gave us many charming materials and
colours which, in combination with genuine taste, produced some very
beautiful as well as simple dresses: while its main effect is seen, and
continues to be seen upon the domestic background of interior fittings,
furniture, furniture-fabrics and wall-paper. The giddy, aimless
masquerade of fashion continues, however, perhaps not without a sort of
secret alliance with the exigencies of the factory and the market, and
it has lately revived, in part, the modes of the grandmothers of the
present generation, but, as is often the fate of revivals, has somewhat
vulgarized them in the process.
Modern dress seems to be much in the same position as modern
architecture. In both it looks as if the period of organic style and
spontaneous growth has been passed, and that we can only attempt,
pending important and drastic social changes, to revive certain types,
and endeavour as best we can to adapt them to modern requirements.
Yet architects are bolder than dressmakers. They think nothing of
going back to classic or mediaeval times for models, while the modiste
generally does not venture much further than fifty or a hundred years
back, and somewhat timidly at that. Small modifications, small changes
and adaptations are always taking place, but it generally takes a
decade to change the type of dress.
[Illustration: TYPES OF ARTISTIC DRESS]
Regarding dress as a department of design, like design, we may
consciously bring to bear upon it the results of artistic experience
and knowledge of form.
Now, a study of the human figure teaches one to respect it. It does not
induce a wish to ignore its lines in clothing it, to contradict its
proportions, or to misrepresent its character.
It seems curious, then, that the courses of study from the antique and
the life usual at our art schools do not have a greater effect upon
taste and choice in costume than they appear to have.
We must remember, however, the many crossing influences that come in,
the many motives and hidden causes that bear, in the complexity of
modern existence, upon the question, and the stronger social motive
powers which determine the forms of modern dress.
Fundamentally, we may say dress is more or less a question of climate.
Pure utility would be satisfied if the warmth is fairly distributed,
and the action of the body and limbs is free. The child with a loose
tunic, leaving arms and legs bare and free, still represents primitive
and classic man; and he also often satisfies the artist.
But the child is free to grow, to get as much joy out of life as it
can. It does not feel under the necessity of pleasing Mrs. Grundy,
except perhaps when mud-pies are “off.”
[Illustration: · TYPES OF CHILDREN’S DRESS ·
· UTILITY ·
· SIMPLICITY ·
· PICTURESQUENESS ·]
Primitive, again, and picturesque is the dress of the labourer,
ploughman, fisherman, navvy; though purely adapted to use and service.
Concessions to aestheticism, if any, only come in by way of a coloured
neckerchief, the broidery of a smock frock, or the pattern of knitted
jersey.
Yet each and all are constant and favourite subjects of the modern
painter. Why?
Fundamentally, I think, because their dress is expressive of their
occupation and character, as may be said of the dress of all working
people.
The peasantry in all European countries alone have preserved anywhere
national and local picturesqueness and character in their dress; often,
too, where it still lingers unspoiled, as in Greece, and in Hungary
and Bohemia, adorned with beautiful embroidery worked by the women
themselves.
The last relics of historic and traditional costume must be sought
therefore among the people, and for picturesqueness we must still seek
the labourer.
This seems a strange commentary upon all modern painstaking, conscious
efforts to attain the natural, simple, beautiful, and suitable in
dress, to be at once healthy and artistic. There really ought not to be
so much difficulty about it.
If we lived simple, useful, and beautiful lives, we could not help
being picturesque in the highest sense.
_There_ is the modern difficulty.
We are driven back from every point to the ever-present social
question.
[Illustration: TYPES OF WORKING DRESS
UTILITY·
PICTURESQUENESS·]
[Illustration: Hungarian Peasant Costume: a Transylvanian Bride
Sketched at Banffy Hunyad, Transylvania]
[Illustration: Hungarian Peasant Farmer
Sketched at Banffy Hunyad, Transylvania]
Therefore, it seems to me that, though highly valuable and educational,
we must not rely entirely upon conscious cultivation and conscious
effort to lift the question of dress above vulgarity and affectation.
Modern society encourages the ideal of do-nothingness, so that it
becomes an object to get rid of the outward signs of your particular
occupation as soon as you cease work, if you are a worker, and to look
as if you never did any if you are not.
This notion, combined perhaps with the gradual degradation of all
manual labour under the modern system, has combined with business
habits and English love of neatness, and perhaps prosaic and Puritan
plainness, to produce the conventional costume of the modern
“gentleman”--really the business man or bourgeois citizen.
The ruling type always prevails, and stamps its image and
superscription upon life everywhere.
Thus the outward and visible signs of the prosperous and respectable,
the powerful and important, have come to be the frock-coat and tall
hat--gradually evolved from the broad-brim and square cut jerkin of the
Puritan of the seventeenth century.
Even the modern gentleman, when he takes to actually doing something,
or playing at something, becomes at once more or less picturesque.
The flannels of the cricketer, and the boating man, the parti-coloured
jerseys of our football teams--the modern equivalent, I suppose, of
the knightly coat heraldry of the lists--all have a certain character
and expressiveness. The costume of the cyclist again is another
instance of adaptation to pursuit allied to picturesqueness, since it
acknowledges at least the form of figure, and especially the legs, lost
in ordinary civilian costume. In the various forms of riding-dress,
again, we get a certain freedom and variety in costume through
adaptation, both in men and women’s dress.
What modern costume really lacks is not so much character and
picturesqueness, as beauty and romance--a general indictment which
might be brought against modern life. We are really ruled by the dead
weight of the prosaic, the prudent, the timid, the respectable, over
and above the specializing adaptive necessities of utility before
mentioned.
When we turn from the prosaic picturesqueness of such specialized
dresses to the region of pure ornament, as in the modern full or
evening dress of men and women, what do we find?
As far as men are concerned pure convention, the severest simplicity,
without beauty, and almost without ornament, and, except in the case of
those entitled to wear orders, confined to studs, watch-chain, etc. The
clothes, the negation of colour--black, enlivened only by white linen
and white waistcoat, and patent leather.
I have here drawn a contrast between a gentleman’s dress of the present
time and one of the fourteenth century.
Both are extremely simple in design; but the mediaeval one alone can
claim beauty of design, as it is true to the lines of the figure, and
does not cut it up by sharp divisions and contrasts.
In the repression of ornament we may detect another influence, that
of monarchical and aristocratic institutions. Since if ornaments were
freely worn by ordinary citizens, what would become of the doubtful
distinction of ribbons and stars. The ordinary citizen, in the exercise
of his individual taste, might have finer jewellery and better design
upon him than the courtier and the diplomatist. That would never do, of
course.
The same rock ahead will be found, I think, in the case of trousers.
Knee breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes are obviously more
elegant and becoming than tubes of black cloth; but if the ordinary
citizen takes to them what becomes of the official dignity of the
golden footman, or of the cabinet minister at court, my Lord Mayor, Mr.
Speaker, and other notabilities?
Men’s dress having been reduced to the extreme of plainness in ordinary
life, any relics of antiquity are used to denote official position,
and the very plainness of evening dress is made use of to set off the
decorations of courtly persons.
[Illustration: A CONTRAST MODERN & MEDIAEVAL SIMPLICITY
19th CENTURY
14th CENTURY]