NDICRAFT, VOL. I & O- tt- o O f i . ./>■ ft :) 7 ADVERTISEMENT FROM THE PUBLISHERS . January , 1891. 7 ’^ welcome which has already been accorded to this volume, even before its public appearance , must be its publishers' warrant for the following announcement , This edition consists of 1,000 copies 3 (2 50 large paper copies specially numbered, and 750 ordinary copies .) Of these , the first 100 been bespoken by the members of the Guild and School of Handicraft, and a further 300 have already been called for before the publication of the book. The remaining 600 copies of the edition are still obtainable on the terms originally announced. Large Paper Copies , 10s. 6 d. Ordinary Copies , 5s. Reductions are allowed as follows .*— Half-price to (a) Members of the Guild and School ; (b) Subscribers to the School of Handicraft during the year of issue of one guinea or over. Twenty-five per cent to all bona fide Teachers and Pupils of Art Schools and Centres of Home Art Industry in the United Kingdom. A limited number (200) of proofs of the Illustrations on Japanese hand-made vellum , touched up by the artists themselves , and in special covers, will be sold separately at 10s. 6 d. the set of 47. The profits of the annual sale of the Transactions will go to the support and further development of the School of Handicraft. Applications for the rest of the edition , or for the sets of Illustrations , should be made as soon as possible to Secretary of the Guild of Handicraft, 34, Commercial Street , London, E. THE GVILD AND SCHOOL OF HANDICRAFT. PRINTED BY PENNY & HULL, 53, LEMAN STREET, LONDON, E. * * * mr. w. b. Richmond’s masque MODELLED BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE GVILD AND SCHOOL OF HANDICRAFT, APRIL, 1890. SEE PAGE 79. ift^****»★★*★★★** Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/transactionsofguOOguil TRANSACTIONS OF THE GVILD & SCHOOL OF HANDICRAFT. VOL. I. EDITED BY C. R. ASHBEE. THE ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. R. ASHBEE, J. EADIE REID, T. STIRLING LEE, E. P. WARREN, S' OTHERS. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY THE GVILD S' SCHOOL OF HANDICRAFT, ESSEX HOUSE, MILE END, E. MDCCCXC. DEDICATED IN LOVING MINDFULNESS OF MANY LESSONS LEARNT ® TO THE MEMORY OF ® HENRY BRADSHAW CONTENTS. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . Page 6 PREFACE BY G. F. WATTS, R.A. 9 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION,.13 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GVILD SCHOOL OF HANDICRAFT, BY C. R. ASHBEE . W. HOLMAN HUNT, AN ADDRESS ON THE OPENING OF THE WHITECHAPEL PICTURE EXHIBITION, MARCH 28TH, l888 . 33 L. ALMA TADEMA, R.A., AN ADDRESS ON SCULPTURE, APRIL 7TH, 1888 . 45 HENRY HOLIDAY, THE ARTISTIC ASPECTS OF EDWARD BELLAMY’S “ LOOKING BACKWARD,” APRIL 3RD, 1890 ... W. B. RICHMOND, A.R.A., GESSO, APRIL I7TH, 1890 . T. STIRLING LEE, THE LANGUAGE OF SCULPTURE, APRIL 24TH, E. PRIOLEAU WARREN, A.R.I.B.A., PARLOUR ARCHITECTURE, MAY I9TH, 1890... RECIPES AND NOTES, A NOTE ON STUCCO, FROM G. F. WATTS, R.A. A RECIPE FOR GESSO, „ „ THREE RECIPES FOR GESSO, FROM WALTER C REPRINT OF THE RECIPE USED BY GIOVANNI DA UDINE . .124 ENVOI FROM THE GVILD . I25-I27 .53 .73 1890 ...85 .IOI . -123 . *121 *ANE . • J 22 LIST OF ILLVSTRATIONS Mr. Richmond’s Masque Modelled in Gesso before the Members of the Guild and School, April, 1890 . The White Pink of the Guild. Quintet of Pinks . Decorative Head-piece :— Guild and School of Handicraft. Craft of the Guild. Decorative Foot-note :— Rose and Ring . The Old Workshop of the Guild and School in 34 Commercial St., E. Decorative Head and Foot-notes:— Cabinet Makers’ Tradition—The Glue Pot The Three Crafts of the Guild—Woodwork, Metal Work, and Decorative Painting Apprentices and Franklins of the Guild ... Tares—Who is the enemy that hath done this? .. Metal Workers’ Alliance . Orange Tree Flowers — Founding of the Craftsman Club (April 1889) . An Historical Episode (April 1889) . An Historical Episode (Sept. 1890) . An Historical Episode (Odt. 1890) . Essex House, Mile End ... .. Plan of Essex House, with garden & workshops N umber of page in the Volume. Number of folio in the Vellum Proofs separately- published. Frontis i. piece Title X. page Passim. vi. 14 xiv. l6 Not in Proofs. 17 V. 18 viii. 19 X. 20 vi. 21 ii. 22 vi. 23 ii. 24 xi. 25 xvi. 26 iii. 27 iii. 28 xi. 29 xii. Decorative Foot-note:— Double or Quits; A Guild and School Problem 30 V. Los, the God of Time, and the building of the Sacred City . 3 i V. The Sign of the Craftsman Club. 32 X. Decorative Head-piece to “ Looking Backward ”: Workman instructing Designer.. 55 xiv. Mr. Richmond lecturing and demonstrating ... 79 Not in Proofs. Head and Tail-pieces to Mr. Stirling Lee’s lecture: 87 Egyptian Symbols, contributed by Mrs.G. F. _Q Watts .. 98 xiii. Sculptural Language of Egypt . 89 xiii. Current Coin of the Realm,; eloquent illustra¬ 1 tions of Art and Craft, (English 19th century) 94 xiii. Mr. Stirling Lee’s figure :— Adam created, Adam destroyed. 96 ix. Decorative Foot-note :— Leasehold Art.. ... .. IOI xvi. Cornices (good and bad) . 106 vii. Windows (good and bad) . 109 vii. An Adams Grate . 115 XV. Fire-place in Hell, Bolsover Castle . 114 XV. As opposed to Jerry’s pattern Mantel-piece:— The domestic high altar (English 19th 116 century).. XV. The Mother Art of Architecture. 127 iv. Head and tail pieces . Passim. X. PREFACE. THE valuable work attempted, and now for three years most successfully carried on, with re-assuring development and growth, by the Guild and School of Handicraft, in their workshop, at 34, Commercial Street, Whitechapel, whose transactions and history, with practical teaching given to the Guild in lectures by friends of the movement, are contained in this volume, needs neither introduction nor explanation; it speaks for itself. Good wine, says an old proverb, needs no bush. A few words, however, on the subject of Handicraft in relation to Fine Art, may perhaps be permitted in response to a kindly invitation from the Editor, which it would have been churlish to decline. IT is certain that any hope of vital art in England, and indeed, anywhere, in modern times, must be based on working, not dilletante principles. An art cannot be grafted, or planted, it must spring from its native soil, or it can never flourish in the right nobleness of full health and vigour. -$• -$■ -$■ v - FOR more than a hundred years, art, as understood in the highest sense, the sense in which literature is estimated, 16 has been encouraged by schools, and directed by discourses and criticisms; but a natural school of art, of the dignity that glorified the great achievements of ancient and mediaeval times, has, it must be confessed, not been developed. Art has entirely ceased to be a natural, devotional, or patriotic expression of sentiment. If any, gifted with the faculties and aspirations of Pheidias or Michael Angelo should arise, his genius would expire of inanition; no Parthenon or Sistine Chapel for him. It is with more than regret that the hope of attaining the position in art, which we may proudly claim in literature, science, arms, and discovery, must be allowed sadly for the present to be given up; as without walls for the presentation of art in mural decoration, and in a climate unfavourable to sculptors’ aims, costume and general habits unsuggestive of dignified effect, the efforts of ardent spirits struggling to keep alive great art in our nation and time, can only be worthy in endeavour, not in achievement. But when in our daily life, we find that certain things are out of our reach, the wise course is to discover what of its kind most nearly may be attained— that which, with patient steps, may ultimately lead to placing within the reach of a future generation the goal that is unattainable for this. a^ft a$^ FROM a nation of designers and handicraftsmen, from a people intolerant of ugliness and vulgarity in all the common surroundings of their lives, an age dignified by the highest expression in great art might be hoped for. 2$^ 2^ a^ a^ TO the fine designer and worker in metal, in iron, in this iron age—the carver in wood, the moulder in clay,- the handicraftsman who can put a living art into the hand and under the eyes of all in the household of rich or poor, we look now for our most vigorous and healthy art-work. He is somewhat less affecfted by the loss, to the painter and sculptor, from the ignobleness of costume and the consequent absence of free and natural movement in the human being, and the lack of almost every thing that can supply the imagination with the material for expressing, through knowledge of the perfect human form, that which should best appeal to man’s sense of the noble and beautiful, dealing as he should, as indeed all the greatest human efforts in poetry and in painting have dealt, with humanity, with man’s moods, emotions, sympathies and trials. 2^ 28^ Sflb II THE very grey ness of our climate strenuously demands of the craftsman that he should bring the pleasure of colour constantly to the mind, within or without the walls of our homes or our public places. Modern eyes are being opened to the glories of sea and sky, and a loveliness of tendril and blossom, the Greek and mediaeval man did not see. Our designers have left to them the inexhaustible book of nature, the only basis of all true decoration, ever open for reference; to their generation Mr. Ruskin has spoken with the language of inspired insight on the beauty of leaf, and flower, and stem; and he has shown that nearly every kind of loveliness and interest in line and arrangement is to be found in them. A whole school of design lies in such a passage as the following, and thousands of such could be quoted from his writings. 2^ “ TWO characters seem especially aimed at by Nature in the earth plants: first, that they should be characteristic and interesting; secondly, that they should not be very visibly injured by crushing.” The fundamental law to the Handicrafts¬ man is, that there should be the beauty of interest, so entirely lost sight of in mechanical decoration, and the beauty of perfect adaptation or usefulness. 2^ 2^ 2^ 5^ FURTHER, what a revelation follows in this: “The leaves of the herbage at our feet take all kinds of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them. Star-shaped, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, sinuated, in whorls, in tufts, in spires, in wreaths, endlessly expressive, descriptive, fantastic, never the same from Modern Painters foot-stalk to blossom, they seem perpetually to Vol V tempt our watchfulness, and take delight in page 95. outstripping our wonder.” <§& 2^ 2^ 5^ WHAT further can, after this, be said but to wish every Handicraftsman “ God speed,” and commend him to the book of Nature, with this great seer of her truths as his teacher; and bid him never to forget in the noise of the workshop, or in the temptations of the market, that his work, well and beautifully done, may be the cradle of a superb art, and may win back for his country that great spiritual possession, the perception of Divine beauty, from which, by her blindness, she has been too long disinherited. 2^ 2&fc 2^ 2^ 2^ 2^ G. F. WATTS. 13 INTRODUCTION. AS the present book may be considered the outcome of the following letter, I reprint it, with Mr. Richmond’s permission. May it serve as my best excuse for presenting the first volume of their transactions to the members of the Guild and School, and to the general and kindly public. Beavor Lodge, Hammersmith, MY Dear Ashbee, Nov . 22, 1889. I should like to go down to you one evening and give the people a few words on “ Gesso Work,” only it would have to be in the spring. THEN let me suggest a shorthand writer to take down all your lectures and copy them out, so that in process of time the Guild would have a little library for reference of its own, valuable, not only to the workers, but also as a future history of the Guild, Yours sincerely, W. B. Richmond. THE thanks of the Guild and School are due not only to the writer of this letter, but also to all those who have generously assisted in its educational work by giving their time and countenance to the movement for furthering the industrial arts, and more especially to the gentlemen who in this present volume have allowed their work to be reproduced both to the service of the Guild and School and of the public at large. THE addresses will appear without comment or censorship, as they were given from the free platform of the Guild; arid while from the many divers views, artistic and social, some strong element of school and tradition will doubtless form itself, the givers will be alone answerable for their gifts. The transactions of the Guild and School, regardless of opinions of schools or forms of thought will, it is hoped, be plain records of the spoken word and the accomplished deed. ft-*© The Editor. THE COURSES OF LECTURES. THE inaugural course given at Toynbee Hall in 1888, in the year of the Guild and School’s formation, was as follows:— W. Holman Hunt .“An Address on the Opening of the Whitechapel Picture Exhib¬ ition.” * * * ^ ^ * * *Henry Blackburn .“ Art and Modern Dress.” ^ *Walter Crane . “ The Construction and Evolu¬ tion of Decorative Pattern.” ^ Edmond Gosse .“ The Place of Sculpture in Modern Life.” ^ ^ ^ ^ % L. Alma Tadema, R.A.“An Address on Sculpture.” E. C. Robins, F.S.A. “ Enthusiasm in Art: its moral and material significance.” % * Walter Crane . On his Picture “The Bridge of T ’* -Y- *V- *^ uc * W W W W W W *7? THE second course, given in the year 1889, when the Guild and School became an independent body and self-governing, was as follows:— *William Morris .“ Gothic Architecture.” % % *W. B. Richmond, A.R.A.... “The Dignity of Handicraft.” ^ Lewis F. Day .“A Talk on Art and Handicraft.” '"The Hon. Harold A. Dillon .“Armour.” % % % % % *Ernest Radford . “The Beauty of Useful Things.” Sir James Linton, P.R.I. “Guilds.”:^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ C. Kegan Paul . “Art in Poetry.”^; ifc ife ifc *Principal Sparkes .“ The Potter’s Wheel.” ife # THE third course given in the workshop in the year 1890, was as follows:— Henry Holiday .“ The Artistic Aspects of Edward Bellamy’s ‘Looking Back¬ ward.’” * * * # * * * *T. Cobden Saunderson ... “Bookbinding.” *W. B. Richmond, A.R.A. “ Gesso.” ^ ^ ^ *T. Stirling Lee .“The Language of Sculpture.”^ *E. Prioleau Warren, A.R.I.B.A. “ Parlour Architecture.” *H. Stannus, F.R.I.B.A. ... “Construction of Design.” ife ife Those marked * were practically illustrated. '#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#“' THE fourth course, will be given in the Spring of 1891, and the reprints of the course will form, together with coloured illustrations, recipes, and other matter, and with such of the past lectures as can be reproduced, the volume of transactions for that year, ifc^^^**^*^**^**^ A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GVILD &■ SCHOOL OF HANDICRAFT. SfttftfiitfS 8 THE OLD WORKSHOP OF THE GVILD S' SCHOOL, 34 COMMERCIAL ST., J 9 MAKERS’ TRADIT ION • • THE Guild and School had its beginnings in the years 1886-7, i n a small Ruskin class, conducted at Toynbee Hall, and composed of three pupils. Each of these three has since been engaged in an industrial venture of a co-operative kind. Each has failed. ^ m ^ ^ THE reading of Ruskin led to an experiment of a more practical nature, and out of Fors Clavigera and The Crown of Wild Olive, sprang a small class for the study of design. The class grew to thirty, some men, some boys; and then it was felt that design needed application, to give the teaching fulfilment. A piece of practical work, which involved painting, modelling, plaster-casting, gilding, and the study of heraldic forms, gave a stimulus to the corporate action of the thirty students, and the outcome of their united work as dilettanti was the desire that permanence might be given to it by making it work for life and bread. From this sprang the idea of the present Guild and School. a§^ Zflh a$^ a^ VERY undefined at first, the notion was that a School should be carried on in connection with a workshop; that the men in this workshop should be the teachers in the School, and that the pupils in the School should be drafted into the workshop as it grew in strength and certainty. a^ 5^ 20 WISDOM pronounced the experiment from a business point of view as entirely quixotic, and precedent for it there was none. The little Guild of three members to begin with, and the larger School of some fifty members, was however started in its present form; the top floor of a warehouse in Commercial Street was taken for two years, to serve as workshop and school-room combined ; it was polychromatized by the pupils, and the Guild and School celebrated its inauguration on June 23rd, 1888. A kindly public gave the funds for supporting the School for two trial years; while the Guild, launching as an independent venture, announced its intention of taking up three lines of practical work: wood work, metal work, and decorative painting, and intimated the ambitious hope, that it would one day take over the School, for which purpose, when formulating its constitution, it laid by a first charge on its profits. B38S8S8SSSSS8S8S THE little workshop in Commercial Street saw many vicissitudes, and unexpected developments. Strange new things 21 had to be learnt, new conditions and new experiences. The introduction among its members of some of the leading trades- unionist workmen—an indispensable element in the solving of an industrial problem—gave to the Guild that peculiar character which has been the principal reason of its success so far. gg gg THE marriage between the stolid uncompromising co-opera¬ tive force of trades unionism, and the spirit that makes for a high standard of excellence in English Art and Handicraft, has so far proved a fortunate one ; and a younger generation is already beginning to tell of a life and tradition of its own. gg WE look back now with wonder to the circulars issued in the days of the beginnings, and ask how far the original intention has been warped, and changed, and twisted; but the central ideas have always been maintained—that the movement shall be a workman’s movement; that it shall be one for the nobility and advance of English Art and Handicraft; that it shall be developed not on the basis of mastership, in the ordinary sense, but co-operatively as an industrial partnership ; 22 and that the arts and crafts, united in the Guild, shall be the children of the mother art of architecture. This is the basis upon which all has been built up. ON the first birthday of the Guild and School, celebrated by a supper, a cake, and one candle, the Guildsmen numbered eight, and the School, increased to several classes—carpentry, modelling, carving, metal work, with the central design class as the backbone of the whole, counted an average of seventy pupils, men and boys. ¥¥&?¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥&¥¥*¥¥ WE have had numberless lessons in working out the practical difficulties, but we have had to work along the line of least resistance. Many things are tried, many abandoned, but that only means vitality. Where a number of men are united together to one end, there is lack neither of experiments, nor of encouragement in failure. Such things are often tares, and the enemy that sows them frequent; but even tares can serve their purpose, whether as pointing a parable to those who follow after, or merely decorativelv in the wheat field, 2 3 IF the Guild then takes its stand on the highest technical excellence, and challenges judgment on the character of its work and the reasonableness of its system, the School lays claim also to a character of its own. Its general principle is to get hold of young journeymen, and give them some idea of design in its application to the industry in which they are engaged. There have passed through the School, since its beginning, men engaged in numberless trades : cabinet making, wood work, metal work, electricity, lamp making, lithography, printing, draughtsmanship, sign writing, pattern making; also teachers in board schools, and such as are engaged in educational work of various kinds. To the minority who are not direCtly connected with trade or education, the work of the School takes more the form of pastime in the evening ; but it is none the less educational, and many of them have united themselves into a club — The Craftsman Club—which holds reunions, has debates and discussions, and seeks to give ex¬ pression to the social, in contradistinction to the productive * METAL • WORKERS -ALLIANCE* 24 and educational, work of the Guild and School. “ To cherish kindliness ” is the motto of this Club, taken from the history of an old Cambridge Guild of the 14th Century, which, doubtless, left its little record upon the works of men. IN the School of Handicraft, since we work not so much by a system of classes as by means of instructors’ evenings, the contact between teacher and pupil is of a more real nature, and as the pupil’s fee franks to all the nights of ad- mission, he is free to apply his design and labour to any material. This contact of teacher and taught bringing the pupils in the School into close relation with the members of the Guild has resulted in an expression of Corporate Life in the School itself, and the third year of its being has brought to birth a flourishing Students Committee eager to take its share in the government and financial burdens of the School.,#s#S#s#N#S#N#s#s#S#S#s#S#- THIS is the School in its general aspect; in its more limited but perhaps more important aspedt, for the genuine develop¬ ment of art and craft, it is the feeder of the Guild. Many of the pupils of the School have already been drafted into the •ORANGE -TREE'TLOVv/ERS -APRIL: 89 • 25 Guild, and others by contact and indirect interest in its work have been placed on the list of affiliated workmen, and so been put in the position of earning some complement to the wages of life- x#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#N#S#S#S#N#- IF the School be small and insignificant in many respe( 5 ts, it is composed of good working material, and it is above all— living. Our object is not to create a dilettante and ephemeral School that shall be pretty and winning, and be supported on the passing charity of West End culture; its existence determined by the margin of spare time which we, and our friends looking kindly on us, are enabled from the more earnest calls of life to yield it —the School of a hobby; our ideal is to create a School whose life shall depend upon what is the only living thing— the Life of Workmanship, a School whose future shall be bound up in the future of those who labour in it; a School therefore, that shall be self-dependent and supported from within, not from without —the School of a movement. THE facts we hope do already speak for themselves. In the first year of its life as a School, about £*250 was called for from without, and from within some £10 was found in fees from the HISTORICAL*EPISOPE -'APR* ‘I 26 pupils, &c. In the second year of its existence, owing to the economy of working with the Guild, the expenses of the School were reduced, and of the amount needed for its conduct—£140, about £100 was found from without and about £40 from within. During this present, the third year of its life, the figures have been again transposed: some £80 has been called for from without, and about £80 from within ; and in addition to this, much more potent than figures, an esprit de corps and enthusiasm have developed among the whole members of the Guild and School, which has ended in their taking upon themselves the entire financial responsibility of the School, so that they hope, at the beginning of the fourth year of life, to show that what may still be asked from outside for the School proper will be only as complement, or tribute to what they themselves produce. It is a proof this, of the rightness of applying the principle of self-government to even so remote a subjedt as a school and an artistic workshop. PERHAPS the best token of the success of the method we have so far sought to carry through in the School of Handi- SEPT. 27 craft is the fadt that we are being imitated, that other bodies are forming who seek to take as their standard our educational ideal. Not only in East London, where the need for the training of the eye and the hand is greatest, and where there would be room for a dozen schools of a similar nature, but in other parts of England also, groups and combinations of a like character are in embryo. The words Craft, Handicraft, Guilds of Craft, Guild of Handicraft Workers, and such like terms, are sufficient indication; and to some of these younger bodies we send instructors, and give what assistance we can, other than pecuniary. THE third birthday of the Guild and School will be celebrated in its new premises. We have outgrown the old workshop, the coloured rafters and hanging lamps have served their purpose, and we are leaving it for others who may follow after, and carry on work of a like nature. By the beginning of this spring, the Guild and School will "have entered into possession of Essex House, Mile End, for which a lease has been acquired. OCT. 28 ESSEX House is one of the land-marks of East London. Situated in the Mile End Road, which has gradually closed in around it, it is a good centre for the majority of the workmen and pupils of the Guild and School, who live mostly in the neighbourhood. © ® © © © © © © © © © © © © THE house itself, built in part by a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren, with panelled rooms, oak stair-case, garden, stables and vinery, is fit no longer for private residence in this part of London ; but for a Guild House, with class rooms and club rooms, as a repository of the traditions of a body of men, its position in Mile End dignifies it at once with a new and living purpose. ©©©©@©©©@©©©©©@© THE members of the Guild and School will meet here. They will meet here for work, for education, for debate; they will entertain their friends, and the place will, we hope, become a rallying point in East London, even as the old workshop was, in a very small way, for architects, artists, and designers, who are keen on the encouragement of living Handicraft. © © © THE plan on the opposite page will show the extent of the pro¬ perty acquired, its gardens, class rooms, lecture hall, workshops, and the scope it gives for later expansion and development, while the little foot-note here may serve to give a suggestion of the old house, as it is entered from the Mile End Road, its gardens and workshops lying at the back. ©©@®®@@@© 306 NORTH 29 WEST ESSEX HOUSE. fflMmM? •JRMpw ARRANGEMENTS OF ©THE ©PLAN, GARDENS, WORK- SHOPS,©SCHOOL- ROOMS,©ETC.©® THE HOUSE IS ENTERED FROM THE MILE END RD. OPPOSITE BURDETT RD. ®®@©®@©© A Arbour. B Flower Beds. C Craftsman Club (lar^e panelled room on 1st floor). D Hon. Diredtor’s Room. E Extensions (later). F Proposed Fives Court. G Galleries proposed for r a o t loan Pictures &■ WHY is public sculpture thus neglected ? I think that the system of competition is largely to blame. Competition in everything; competition in our national life in general, competition in our system of art production in particular. Take the instance of the creating of works of art for public buildings ; Competition and Officialism ! There is one nice kind of tape which I hate, and that is red tape; but a man who exists only by this tape naturally won’t let it loose: on the contrary, he sticks to it—he would lose his salary if he didn’t. The proposed new War Office was a scandalous case. Distinguished artists were appointed to decide. Several people competed: and the competition was decided in favour of a country firm. The firm was delighted and came up to London ; but then red tape came up too — in faCt was already there, and decided that after all there should be no new War Office. This ought not to be. If a man goes in for a competition and gains it, then he ought to have the job. ( This sentiment was loudly cheered.) So THEN there is another case. I have been told that all the money left for sculptures on Blackfriars Bridge has been swallowed up in competitions that have all come to nothing. Now, that’s a pity! It would have been much better that 49 one of the competitions should have been accepted, even if inferior works had been chosen, than that there should be no money left for any sculptures at all. However, now there are some more empty pedestals to go with the others ! LOOK at France. How is it that France is so rich, even after having been vanquished in a disastrous war and after paying an enormous war indemnity ? She is defeated: she pays; and yet she does not lose her European supremacy in art. Why ? It is because her people are easily first in artistic skill and taste. And as that is so, you still understand how much I appreciate all new efforts, such as you are making here at Toynbee Hall, with this School and Guild of Handi¬ craft of yours, to spread the feeling for art and beauty. As soon as we English can make our productions as tasteful as the French, our work will be better than theirs, for already it is more solid. Our earthenware is better than any other. Our Minton ware and Doulton ware are admirable. I was at Rome not long ago, and went over the Farnesina Palace, and was pleasantly struck by finding a Minton pot on a mantel¬ piece, holding its own in the company of Raphael and Michael Angelo. (Cheers.) So* £©* S©* £o» So* fa fa BUT we cannot expeCt to make all our productions more tasteful until the love of beautiful things is more widely spread among our people. To implant this love in the individual is the great thing wanted, and the greatest thing of all is to make every workman feel that he is an artist. This Minton and China ware is called “industrial art.” Now, that phrase is an invention of modern times. In the great times of art there was no “ industrial art ” : all art was simply “ art.” The new idea is one result of the division of labour which characterizes modern times. In some things the change is good. In old times a painter was also a maker of pots. Well, a painter now could probably make pots too if he tried; but perhaps after all it is better that he should confine himself to the higher branch of art. That is the good side of division of labour; but if it is not also to have a bad side, we must take care that the man who sticks to making pots does not lose the sense that he, too, is an artist. (Cheers.) fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa EVERYBODY cannot be a Raphael, and everybody cannot be a Pheidias ; but everybody can be something. Everybody can say with De Musset, “ If my glass is small, yet I drink out of my own glass.” Every stone cannot be the corner stone, but every stone has its place; if it had not, no building and no society could stand. If only every artist who carved beautiful stones, and every artist who drew beautiful faces, would recognize that each sincerely admired the other, then we should all see that we were brethren in art together. ® @ ® THE love of Beauty is the root of all good, and I am glad to note some favourable sign of a movement in the present day towards the wider dispersal of taste : I lay great value, for instance, on the Kindergarten system, which recognizes that children take interest in the forms of things before they do in literary ideas—that education, in other words, should begin with the eye rather than with the ear. The recognition of this principle in early education develops in a child a taste for art that never leaves it; it is the means of teaching that source of pleasure, the possession of which a friend envied me the other day. “You enjoy,” she said, “ things in nature which I pass by without seeing.” This taking pleasure in natural forms, is not only a source of happiness, but is the secret of success in “ industrial art ”; and this form of art is nearer perhaps to sculpture than to painting I CANNOT lay too much stress on the importance of this relationship between sculpture and industrial art; of the value a little understanding of sculpture will be to you who are engaged in industrial art, and of the need for your studying and enjoying it. Why, there is sculpture everywhere—the elements of sculpture are in everything. There is sculpture in this lamp on the table before me. Its manufacture has required considerations of shape and proportion, and that is sculpture. There is sculpture in the handle of a tool. The handle has to be given a certain sweep, certain lines of curvature; that is sculpture; and the greatest of all the periods of Art was the Greek period, and that was the period of sculpture NOW, why is it that Greek art was so grand ? It is simply because Greek workmen took pleasure in everything they made, no matter how simple, and because they tried to make everything as well as they possibly could. Take their tiles, for instance. They are not so hard-baked as Roman tiles, but they are simply the best tiles ever made. And this same sense of industrial delight inspires the Art of the Japanese; why has their Art so remarkable an influence on us to-day? Simply because the Japanese workman loved the thing he did for its own sake, for the pleasure it gave him, for the play he had in it. ® ® ® ® ® ® ® ® ® 5 1 LET us try and do that too! We need not sacrifice the useful. Make a thing useful and the useful will be beautiful too, in order to do it! For instance, take the human hand: you cannot find anything more beautiful than a well-shaped human hand : every curve in it matches every other curve. Well, now, if you have to make a handle, you must make it fit this useful and beautiful thing the human hand, and in doing that perfectly it also will be art, it also will be beautiful, because primarily it is useful! © MY friends, believe me, the greatest happiness in life is to do a thing thoroughly and to take interest in making it as good as you can—the thing need not be costly, or rare, or of any rich material, all it need be is to be good in itself. My daughter brought home, the other day, a few very simple pots from a country market place ; they were beautiful things, those pots, and I am very glad to put them with any other ornaments. A sculptor can do beautiful work in wood, just as well as in marble. Nay, he always does work in clay, which is cheap stuff enough; and if only clay would remain, he would leave his work in clay. He puts his statue into marble in order that it may last, but there is no more art in the marble statue than there was in the clay. And you ask me what it is that makes the art; I say it is the love of the beautiful form :—the love of beauty. © @ © @ MY FRIENDS, LET US APPLY THIS LOVE OF BEAUTY TO EVERYTHING. IF WE DO, WE SHALL MAKE OURSELVES HAPPIER AND OTHERS HAPPIER TOO. (Prolonged cheers.) ® ® HENRY HOLIDAY ON “THE ARTISTIC ASPECTS OF EDWARD BELLAMY’S ‘LOOKING BACKWARD.’” 55 I MUST assume that most of you have read Looking Backward , and if those whom I am addressing resemble those with whom I have discussed the book, I may further assume that it has in¬ spired the large majority of you with the enthusiasm of hope, and, may I not add, with the determination yourselves to assist in promoting the fulfilment of that hope; but my experience leads me also to believe that with some of you that hope is qualified by misgivings as to the practicability of our author’s scheme, that to others the state of society represented is not in itself attractive, though preferable to that of the present day, with its terrible proportion of destitution, misery, disease, and crime, and finally, that a very small, I might say a negligable proportion, object to the scheme altogether, as neither practic¬ able nor desirable. I need hardly say that I do not refer to the individual objectors as negligable, only to the smallness of their numbers. TO those who feel that the dawn of a bright future for humanity is breaking, let me say, not by way of damping their enthusiasm, rather to help in confirming their faith, that any faith, which is to be known by its works, must be based upon a genuine convi< 5 tion well understood in its grounds. A generous aspiration may supply the lever, but not the fulcrum. It was a fulcrum that Archimedes needed to move the world. It is the world that has now to be moved, the living social and industrial world, and our fulcrum must be immutable. 56 I RECENTLY read a paper on this subject, in which I endeavoured to answer three practical objections urged by some to Mr. Bellamy’s scheme of Social and Industrial reform. (i) That it would require a regenerated human nature to carry it into effeCt. (2) That it does not supply a sufficient incentive to work. (3) That the equality of material reward is neither just nor desirable. ^ THIS evening I propose to consider objections urged in connection with the probable influence of Nationalism (for so the new scheme is called) on habits of life, on taste and on art.^ THE ledturer here summarized the economical arguments of the above mentioned paper, particularly referring objedtors, who regard Mr. Bellamy’s as impradticable, to J. S. Mill’s analysis of a precisely similar scheme of joint production and equal distribution, where he concludes by saying :— “ WHATEVER be its merits or defects, it cannot be truly said to be impracticable; ” and that “ all the difficulties, great or small,” attending it, “would be but as dust in the balance” compared with the evils of our present system. Sc* NOW, supposing that Mill was right in regarding a scheme of joint production and equal distribution as practical, and, from the economic point of view, immeasurably superior to the system under which we live, what would be the effeCt of such a social and industrial change upon habits of life, taste, and art ? IN the first place let me remind you that, the principles on which Mr. Bellamy’s scheme is based, are not new. This is evident from the passages cited from Mill, which occur in an examination of the systems of St. Simon, Fourier, and others. Those who have heard any of the Fabian lectures will know how the able members of that Society have been advocating similar principles for years. Many of you have, I doubt not, read the remarkable volume of essays published by them in January. The work itself, and its rapid sale, are veritable signs of the times. To those of you who have not read these essays, I earnestly commend their careful study. They are especially instructive where they deal with that aspeCt of the subject now before us. The reason why I have made “ Looking Backward” the starting point of the present address is, that Mr. Bellamy’s book has, far beyond anything else that has appeared, called the attention of the whole educated world to the possibility of abolishing the frightful evils which desolate an immense proportion of the population in every civilized country, which destroy at once their happiness, their health, their morals, while the presence of these ruined and depraved thousands in 57 our midst, gives a constant heart-ache to all but those who have no heart to ache. ^ §&■ §& §& §&■ NOT only has “ Looking Backward ,” by the vividness of the picture which it presents, and by the persuasive arguments put into Dr. Leete’s mouth, attradted and convinced many who hardly ventured on the study of theoretic writings, but the scheme of social and industrial life, depicted by Mr. Bellamy, has been thought out in a truly remarkable manner that has compelled the respedt of our ablest and most practical men. Even on the subjects of which the book does not treat diredtly, it conveys principles by which these subjects may be followed out by the reader. Such a subject is that of taste and art. It is lightly dwelt on, and while it is by no means ignored, there is nothing to show that the Bostonians of the year 2000 do not possess generally similar tastes to those of the present day, though these tastes in the year 2000 are shared by the whole community and under favourable conditions. But if the tastes are not described, the influences at work on them are, and we can form our conclusions. §0 5©* ^ ETHICS, and resultant habits of life, are dealt with more at length in our book, for which reason I will only touch briefly on this part of my subjedt, and also because I have heard very few deny that, if pradticable, the system would be wholesome in its moral influence, though many make the great mistake of supposing that moral change must precede the inauguration of the system. §&■ §&> §&■ §& && §& §0 ALL that is needed is that society be enlightened to perceive that our self interest is better served by working with our neighbours than by fighting against them, that the latter course is wasteful, and we are the poorer by it, while the former is beyond description the more profitable, and we are richer. The ultimate effedt of substituting friendly co-operation for the free fight which is the only principle now governing our produdtion and distribution, must undoubtedly be favourable to morals, to a higher ethical standard of honesty and of brotherhood, and, as a matter of fact, I have only heard one complaint as to a moral result of the system before us, and a very curious complaint it is. Some persons fear that if we are all too comfortable, there will be no field for benevolence and self-sacrifice. NOW, if this criticism came from the miserable and destitute, if I found these asking that their misery and destitution might continue in order that comfortable people should enjoy the luxury of exercising the virtue of benevolence, then it might be necessary to discuss this difficulty. But while I only hear the objection made by persons, who, leading a comfortable life themselves, find a worthy pleasure in doing good, I do not think we need consider it very gravely. -#■ I THINK it is in Washington Irving’s “ Knickerbocker,” that a Dutchman, landing with some others on a swampy low shore in Australia, warms with delight at the scene, and exclaims, “ What a capital place for making dams and dykes.” It is as if one of our true-hearted Christian clergy, one of those who tackle, with courageous faith, a neighbourhood reeking with drunkenness, vice, squalor, and misery, instead of yearning for the time when these might disappear, were to regard the scene with great satisfaction, as a capital place to establish a mission, and to hope that there might always be plenty of such regions, because otherwise there would be nothing for the missions to do. Dickens has put the whole philosophy compendiously into the mouth of Mr. Sownds the Beadle in “ Dombey and Son,” when he is discussing the right of the poor to marry, with Mrs. Miff, the pew-opener. Dombe y & Son, XHERE we have it « We must have our poorer classes to be relieved by the benevolent.” ->,c ONE more illustration of this quaint topsy-turvy reasoning and I will leave it. A young medical student, of New York, whose talents had not met with the recognition he thought they deserved, who had, in fact, been plucked in his examina¬ tions, went to the diggings in California. A woman there, hearing there was a doctor at hand, sent for him to see her child who had a fever. The young man, seeing the child’s skin covered with a rash, said “ Well, I ain’t posted up in spots, but let him drink this, it’ll give him a fit, and then send for me, I’m a stunner at fits.” This was a strictly practical course from our objector’s point of view. Here was “ a stunner at fits,” with no field for his talents and energies. What was to be done ? Why! provide one. SURELY, in any condition of society among mortal beings, there must always be occasions enough for unselfish helpfulness, even though their be no “ inferiors ” to be visited. There will always be room for sympathy in work, in disappointment and in sorrow, in age and in joy, in success and in tranquil happiness. Those who sincerely desire to diffuse happiness around them will find daily opportunities, even though all the oaths and drunkenness, the vice and crime, the brutish ignorance and filth, the black darkness and despair, which disfigure our boasted civilization, be for ever removed. ->,c 59 PUTTING aside then, the fear that the world will be made too happy—I wonder what idea those people have formed of Heaven—let us turn to the positive aspect of our subject. And first, let us ask what must be the effect of equality on our habits and thoughts, from the ethical point of view. It requires some imagination, by which I do not mean fancy, but our power of forming a true mental image to realise the situation. Too many persons transport one condition of Nationalism at a time into our existing system with a grotesque result, which they dismiss at once as absurd and impracticable. On this question for instance, they protest that equality is impossible. LET us then recognise that, by the impossibility of equality, all that we mean is that great inequalities of education, unfit men for companionship on equal terms. Now, in Mr. Bellamy’s system, every one starts with equal education. Every one passes through the same course of varied work in the three years’ conscription of labour, so that equality of cultivation, experience and manners is ensured, and the miserably immoral notion must disappear, that work carries a taint of degradation with it, while it is a mark of nobility to live idly on the work nf nfVlPrc n1/ ^*/ UHlCIo. 7jC /|C ">yC "TyC 7^ 7|\ 7j\ ~7yC qv "TyC THE elimination of the word “ menial ” from our language will be a priceless gain. Few passages in Looking “Looking Backward /’ are finer than that on ac war , 117. men j a j work. Can meanness go further than this, to ask a service of another which we should consider it degrading to ourselves to render to them ? Can anything influence our habits of life and thought more than the abolition of so base a practice ? We all admit, in theory, that we are one flesh and blood, and that moral offences alone degrade, but we allow, nay, we make our fellow- creatures do what we would refuse to do, and consider we are justified by their lower position, though this low position only means that they are born of hard working parents, and not of privileged idlers. The answer always made to the absurdly crude proposal to divide all property equally among the whole population is, that if we were all made equal by Act of Parliament on Monday morning, we should all be unequal again by Saturday night. The answer is quite sound, but has it occurred to those who would mark varying amounts and values of work by unequal material rewards, that the inequality which would be on this understanding equitable in this generation, would be inequitable in the next, unless we adopted the utterly impracticable course of taking away the property acquired by 6 o an able and active man at his death, in order to divide afresh every generation ? Without such a process, the industrious son of an inactive parent would start life at a great disadvantage compared with the idle son of a diligent father. ^ ^ THIS consideration ought, I think, to show that differences of material reward must be a wholly unsatisfactory way of recog¬ nising differences of productive powers. Personal distinction, the high public estimation, which belongs to those who serve their country well and ably, these are, at the present day, the highest rewards, and they are the only ones not susceptible of corruption and of being made engines of injustice against our descendants. They are the only rewards which do not contain within them a poison capable of sapping the life of that brotherhood which is the central truth of Christianity, and of fostering the putrefying diseases of snobbery, purse-pride, and arrogance, with their correlative toadyism and servility. «j^ ^ COMMAND and discipline are essential factors in Mr. Bellamy’s system, but he believes, and I venture to think with good grounds, that the social equality of all members of the community would result in a very strong feeling “ Looking against rudeness and hectoring on the one side, Backward, 154. Qr insubordination 0 n the other. ^ qp" ANOTHER profoundly significant indication given by Mr. Bellamy of the excellent effects of equality upon the whole community, is that which concerns marriage, where he shows that equality of status would remove all temptation to marry except from genuine inclination. The importance of this consideration can be best appreciated by those who have read Francis Gabon’s “ Hereditary Genius,” which exhibits one of the most interesting developments of the principle of evolution. He makes it clear that mental and moral, as well as physical, qualities, are derived from progenitors. Natural selection, would here, as elsewhere, lead to the survival of the fittest, but whether the fittest is the best, depends on what it is to be fit for, on the environment for which the organism is to be fitted. IN the icy poles and the glowing tropics, in the depths of the ocean and in the running brook, on the mountain sides and on the verdant plains, natural selection results in the development and survival of those creatures fitted for their various habits. Sunlight and verdure promote one class of organism— darkness and slime another, gp^p^p^p^pqp^p^p^pqp^p SO among human beings, a society subsisting by a healthy and worthy spirit of emulation, will inevitably develop and 6i perpetuate the qualities best fitted for success under such wholesome conditions ; while a society, subsisting by profit, by giving the least and getting the most in every transaction, will, with equal certainty, develop and perpetuate all those qualities fitted for success in a hostile struggle based upon pure selfishness. Greed, a sharp eye for one’s neighbours weak point, an unswerving determination to take advantage of that weakness, a fertility of resource in making the worthless appear valuable, when selling, and in depreciating what is good when buying, these and all the other requisites for piling up profits have made cozening the one conspicuous Fine Art of the nineteenth century, by virtue of that principle of natural selection, which, in an environment of slime, developes the crawling and creeping things fittest to thrive in it. ^ ^ ^ ^ BUT how does this consideration affe6t marriage? In the most dire( 5 t manner. The natural selection, which, in a pure society of equal status and honourable work, would lead people to marry those who were, in person and character, most attractive, under our present system causes them, as a practical necessity, to consider ways and means, and even without such necessity, to incline towards the biggest establishment, the highest rank, or the most successful profit-maker. The Ethel Newcomes of Society indicate the fatal influence of our system of inequality on marriage, and ultimately on the race. Natural selection would continually raise our standard of humanity. Naturally, young people, where education was universal, would, in the vast majority of cases, be attracted by beauty, mental and physical. Artificial selection Natural selection under an artificial system) can alone make young people marry money-bags and peerages. ^ ^ ^ THIS depraving influence has so neutralized the more wholesome, natural impulse, that the standard of humanity is now lower, intellectually and physically, than in Athens twenty-three centuries ago. I WILL now proceed to consider the influence of the proposed system on taste, a subject, not distinguished by any sharp line from habits of life and thought—the one insensibly leading to the other; and I will begin by quoting again from Mill’s “ Political Economy,” his judg- Mill. p. 108. m ent on the principle which governs taste under the present system. IT would be difficult to estimate too highly Mill’s powerful description of the vulgar ostentation, which is our miserable substitute for taste in the present day, and I think you will 62 feel how remarkably exa 6 t is the contrast predicted by Mr. Bellamy as the result of the social change he advocates. In this passage he goes to the root of the matter. So long as difference of material posessions exists and represents a differ¬ ence of social power and distinction, so long will ostentation exist, so long will people surround themselves with finery for the sake of display, instead of beauty for the sake of enjoyment. What Mill well designates as the “ silly desire for the appear¬ ance of a large expenditure,” will, under present influences, always cause people to rent houses, to wear clothes, and take what they are pleased to call their pleasures, not because they like any of the things in question, but because it is expected of the class of society to which they belong, or, too often, because it is a mark of a class of society to which they would like to be thought to belong. The whole system, the whole sentiment, is corrupt, and the taste bred of the system and sentiment is worthy of them. A GLANCE at our streets and at our costume, is sufficient to show how depraved our taste has become, but of this I shall have more to say when I speak of Art. I am now considering not so much artistic taste as practical domestic and social tastes, though here again there is no real line of demarcation between these and art. Simplicity, as Mr. Bellamy shows, must be the result of a system which, by removing the tyranny of snobbery and the silly desire to do what everybody else does, for fear of losing social status, sets us free to do what we please, enables us to get a thing because it suits our individual tastes, and not because our class of society expects us to get it. Liberated from this servitude, there is no more chance of a man surrounding himself with useless superfluities, which give much trouble and little pleasure, than there is of a mollusc surround¬ ing itself with a shell larger than it can manage. The mollusc knows better than to be such a fool, and under a rational system, perhaps even man may attain to the wisdom of the mollusc. BUT there is an important complement to this simplicity of private life, with all the freedom from care and worry which it involves, and all the genuine enjoyment for which it provides, and all the picturesque variety of social life and its surroundings which must follow when each individual is absolutely free to develop and give expression to his own personal tastes. That other important aspect of the same subject is the simultaneous development of splendour in public life. THE growth of the spirit of brotherhood would give infinitely 63 greater zest to the carrying out of great public works than can exist under the pressure of the present struggle for life. @ @ © THERE would be a prospect then for a revival of that spirit which produced the Parthenon, and the great middle-age cathedrals; but this point brings me so near the question of art proper, that it will rather tend to simplification than to confusion if I take this up now without dropping those questions of taste and habit with which it is so closely allied. © W © © © LET us first enquire into the cause of the almost total absence of art in our present life. It is admitted on all hands. It is a matter of constant discussion. There are many clever, and some noble works of art produced still, that is to say, there are still men who, having made art their profession from a genuine impulse, produce works which possess beauty, and sometimes noble thought, but outside these isolated cases, where is the art of our daily life, the art in our houses, in our furniture, in our dress, in all our utensils, and in nineteen-twentieths of our pictures, and statues, and buildings? Whence arises that deadly uniformity, that depressing all-prevailing grayness— but that is too flattering a term—that all-prevailing dinginess which fills our life, so far as its external conditions are con¬ cerned, and has filled it throughout this century ? Here and there a few educated persons are cultivating taste in form and colour as an exotic, but as a spontaneous growth it is gone. Whether we look at the earlier, middle, or later years of the century we find the same thing. If we walk through our older or more recent streets, with some scattered exceptions, we look in vain for a gleam of taste, for a glimpse of anything that can charm the eye, or refresh the mind. INTERMINABLE rows of identical houses, all cut down to one common type, or a babel of discordant and incongruous styles. Slaves in chains must have built them, nothing else can account for the gloom which they betray and produce. S @ ORNAMENT there is, ghastly ornament, all done to order under heavy penalties, all alike, all representing—what ?—the pleasure of the worker in fashioning it ? Good heavens, no, it is done by machinery. It represents what is expected of the class of society to which the owners of the houses belong, or wish to be thought to belong. LET us now look at dress. Here, surely, there will be more freedom. Cannot the individual assert his personality here ? Let us see. Here is a tram arriving at Moorgate Street, full of well-to-do citizens going to their daily avocation. We can note the charming variety of form, colour, and material, which 6 4 is the natural expression of that individuality we all prize so greatly. But what is it we see ? All dressed exactly alike,—they must then certainly have found a type of dress so beautiful, so per¬ fect, that they have voluntarily surrendered their individuality as a tribute to that perfection which cannot be excelled. Is it so? Are these black cut-away coats, these black boots, these cylindrical tubes of trousers, these black top hats, are these the ideal for which all individuality is to be sacrificed ? I heard a critic of “ Looking Backward ” deprecate the orderly organization of the system he describes with the remark that, “ under such a routine people would be like sheep.” What are these like ? Black sheep it would seem. Gloom, and the total absence of individuality are the characteristics of our system. And why this deadly uniformity, this total absence of anything to shew that the wearers of these clothes, the dwellers in these houses, are anything but automata, all made to order, like the hideous and barbarous things they wear and live in ? Are they all alike TALK to them in their offices and you might almost think they are; but know them intimately and you will soon find the widest differences. Why, then, cannot they shew that they are thinking, rational beings, possessing here and there a stray idea of their own ? Are they slaves, or what does it all mean ? Yes, they are slaves, all working in chains, crushed under the tyranny of two relentless molochs, the great god Profit and the great god Snob. These two have chained up Individuality, and trampled her under foot. Beauty, they have expelled from Society (with a big S.) There are one or two Sanctuaries where she is still allowed a refuge, and the very few who are ever allowed by the god Profit to have a spare hour, occasionally visit her, but, if she appears in the street, the god Snob hoots her and tramples on her. EACH have their own weapons and instruments of torture. Some of the victims of Profit suffer so grievously, that they dare even to make a show of resistance. But it is futile and short-lived. He has two clubs, called Supply and Demand, and these he swings about mercilessly, and the wretched slaves are soon cowed. Occasionally a feeble protest is made by those who groan under the rule of the god Snob, but he also* has two clubs—Respectability and Social Status. At the mere sight of them, down go the slaves prostrate, before their relentless idol. And meantime, poor Individualism is wasting away in her prison. ^ ^ So* So* NOW, to drop our metaphor, is there any exaggeration in the 65 picture I have sketched ? I am confident there is not. Imagine the effect, if we were to take any of the great pictures of Paul Veronese, a man who lived in a great business community, a mercantile state, and who drew all his images from his daily experience. Take one of his works, such as the “ Marriage at Cana,” and put all the figures into modern, respectable costume, and you will then realise the extent to which taste has been depraved by the intervening, rapid development of the principle of competition for profit, and the growth of greed for money, to the increasing exclusion of all other interests. §&> THAT which impresses me most strongly in the study of this subject, is the extraordinary vitality of man’s love of beauty. Competition for Profit existed in the time of the great Venetian Painters, but the world was thinly populated then, and with a moderate effort, a man could live. Under these conditions, the love of Beauty still flourished, so hardy is it, that it takes long and cruel ill-treatment to suppress it. It continued to flourish, but with less and less vitality with the increasing populations, and resultant difficulty in feeding them all. The wheat was there, but the thistles and dandelions, and other coarse weeds were crowding it out. Now, the weeds have covered the whole field, and though the wheat is still there, she is hidden from the eye, stray blades here and there, seldom ripening, are all that remain. AND must it always be so—is there no hope for the future? Heaven forbid ! All the best intellects and truest hearts in the civilized world, watching the growing evil, have sought for the causes, and have found them ; they know that this death of beauty and brotherhood, this growth of selfish struggle and deadly vulgarity are not necessary. That man, in a state of freedom, loves variety in beauty rather than uniformity of hideousness. He loves affection and good fellowship rather than hate and antagonism. But what can he do ? If the population had really exceeded the capacity of the land to feed it, he could do nothing. But it is not so. There is abundance for all. Why, the same people who talk about over-population in one breath, talk about over-production in the next. Can both be true ? No, but the evils belonging to our system, which existed in the earlier times in so slight a degree that they did not attract attention, have, with the growth of population, become so rampant that our eyes have been opened to them. We perceive the criminal folly of having heaps of unsold goods in one place, and trade languishing for want of purchasers; and crowds of famishing creatures in another, 66 almost houseless and naked, crying for the goods which are rotting in warehouses, We perceive that it is hopeless to expect that the haphazard system of distribution which did fairly well when numbers were few, and nearly all got a tolerable share, will also work when countries are crowded, so that in the anarchic free fight of our present system, the strong wallow in luxury, and the weak starve and moan. @ ® © © BUT I am forgetting that it is Art I am talking about—the humanity question will come to the front. © ® © © © © WELL, what has been the effedt of the free fight for existence on Art ? Why this, that people have enough to do to live, they have no time for anything else. They cannot stop to think of enjoyment of life: their energies are exhausted in the struggle for food, clothing, and a roof over their heads. Having, some of them, got this thing, then begins the struggle to have more than their neighbour ; there is still no time to think of enjoying life, they have got to imitate the class above them. The labourer, who is successful and gets a rise in life, looks forward to the joy of wearing a shiny black chimney-pot hat. The tradesman, on whom the delights of broad-cloth and pot hats have begun to pall, struggles and wears himself out, in the hope of some day riding in a carriage, and so forth, and so forth, through the whole degrading series ; snobbery being the guiding impulse, profit*making the efficient machine; sordid struggle for the necessities of life at the bottom of the scale, far more sordid struggle to outdo one’s neighbour at the upper end of the scale.® WHERE do Art and Beauty come in ? Where is love of good work gone? There is no time for either. “Will it pay ? ” is the one question, not “ Do I love doing it ? ” Is it worth having when done ? If I don’t produce the largest number of articles in the shortest time, if I don’t screw my workmen down to the lowest wage they will put up with, and make my customers pay the highest price I can get out of them, I shall fall behind in the life and death struggle for profit. Beauty ? What have I to do with beauty? Will beauty pay? Fashion! that’s the point. Everybody is wearing this, everybody is asking for that,—the other, oh, I don’t keep it; I assure you, Madam, its quite gone out, no one asks for it. No one of consequence, that is. OH, the miserable crawling slaves, the god Profit on one side, the god Snob on the other, ruling them with rods of iron, while Beauty, scoffed out of Society, holds her lonely state in a National Gallery. Does any one deny that this fairly 67 describes modern treatment of Beauty. Hardly, I think, but you will properly ask, how will Nationalism improve this state of things ? It may be true that the severity of the present struggle is unfavourable to Art, but will a routine system, like Mr. Bellamy’s, be more favourable ? You may eliminate the misery and vice, and this will be a gain, but will you not have substituted a uniformity of discipline, with an absence of personal initiative, which will be as unlikely as the present system, to result in beauty of work and individuality of idea.® THIS is of course the question, and if I believed love of beauty to be an acquired artificial taste, I should have great hesitation in answering it; but, I am quite confident, that beauty is not an acquired taste. ®@®@©©©©@ IT is, in my opinion, an absolutely essential part of our nature ; it may, by disease, be distorted into love of finery; it may be stunted and suppressed and crowded out with engrossing cares and anxieties, till it is hardly, if at all, perceptible ; but to say that human beings naturally prefer ugliness to beauty, would be as rational as to say that they prefer pain and sickness to health, misery to happiness. ®©@©©@®©®@ I WOULD say we are what we are by virtue of all the influences that have operated on us from the remote aeons, when the primitive germs from which we are descended first possessed a sentient organic existence. We have by an un¬ erring and mighty process been moulded into our present condition by the action of our environment. The harmony between out'selves and that environment is not arbitrarily determined but inevitable. Between our consciousness and the minor, so called, accidents of nature there may be occasional dissonance. Between our consciousness and the great enduring facts of nature, under whose influence we have come into existence, there must be consonance; there must be harmony, as between a child and the mother that gave it birth. That quick response of our sentient nature to the great mother Nature is Love of Beauty, and nothing can utterly destroy it, except transportation to another universe. ® © © ® ® © IT has been universal, and is so still, where the foul monsters Profit and Snobbery have not established their corrupting rule. REMOVE these. Let men work in comfort, and without sordid cares or corrupting motives, and they will naturally prefer to work well than ill. Add to this the powerful incentive of public esteem, and they will work with zest and vigour. ® WHAT people call a routine in Mr. Bellamy’s system, is a simple series of inducements, which, by ensuring that each 68 worker gets the full credit of his work, gives him the most powerful incentive to distinguish himself by the excellence of his work, or by the improvements he can effect. The various grades supply an attraction almost absent in our present system to legitimate ambition, while the absence of the vulgar class distinctions of wealth and rank, and the leisure allowed to all, gives opportunity to cultivate, and liberty to enjoy, individual tastes. THESE last words remind me that I have scarcely touched on one very potent faCfor among the conditions which affedt the healthy growth of art. So far, we have only considered the great moral, or rather immoral, forces, profit, i.e., the love of money, which is the root of all evil, and snobbery, i.e., the servile imitation of the monied classes, which substitutes finery for beauty. These two, by degrading the higher moral and intellectual faculties, sap the vitals of Art, they poison it at the roots. But there is yet another condition absolutely essential to the healthy growth of Art, namely, leisure to cultivate, and liberty to enjoy, the Love of Beauty. Art is a plant which requires space, fresh air, and light; without these, you may secure the finest stock, you may plant it in the richest soil, but the plant will wither, and the root itself perish in time. §&>§&§& I HAVE already alluded to the faCt that, in earlier times, when countries were thinly peopled, Art flourished even under the same system which now kills it, because the evils inherent in that system were not then fully developed. Time has disclosed these evils, men have discovered the then unsuspected power of capital, a power wholly beneficent if capital belong to the community, but fraught with fearful peril when it is an engine in the hands of the few, by means of which they can enslave the many and exploit their labour. §&§&§&§&§&&&§& THESE evils would, in all probability, have developed themselves in time, even with thin populations, but, with the large increase of these, their progress has been accelerated and a new collateral evil has appeared. The crowding and confusion, the extent and intensity of the struggle for existence, consequent on the density of the populations, has left no room for Love of Beauty, even if the root of that Love had not been poisoned. IT is a common criticism, on the part of those who have given “Looking Backward” a. superficial glance, that even if they concede that the scheme it exhibits might ensure a higher average and more equal distribution of comfort, yet, a life so completely organized would tend to produce a dull monotony, 6 9 that much of the variety and charm of life would disappear, that uniformity would replace individuality, and that Art would decay under such conditions I HAVE, I hope, answered much of this already, and I venture to think I have shown that individuality has almost disappeared from the daily life of to-day. To an artist it is inexpressibly comic to hear the slaves of the pot hat, the black coat, the cylindrical trousers, and of the fashion-books generally, talking about their precious individuality and the necessity of cherishing it. When they have got a little, it will be time to talk about its value. BUT I have, so far, dealt with the moral forces alone which have ruined individuality, and would now indicate how the purely material conditions of the day, the crowding and jostling, the hurry and anxiety, in a word, the tremendous pressure under which we live, are no less fatal to Art than the vices of greed and servile fashion. IT is only necessary to formulate the above criticism, to shew that it will not bear a moment’s examination. If it be true, that order and leisure would be inimical to Art, then conversely, Art would be promoted by disorder and turmoil. IN this case, if I want to produce a great work of art, I had better set up my easel in the middle of the roadway .bo&o&ofo- THE result would be an admirable symbol of the higgledy- piggledy thing we call Art in the nineteenth century. Compare this with the Art of the Mediaeval Guilds, and you will under¬ stand my meaning. These guilds preserved a clear tradition of Art, so well understood and studied, that one can recognise the prevailing manner of any particular period, over a very wide portion of Europe, but the order, which was the condition of their work, and the absence of struggle and competition and hurry, left each man perfect liberty to develop his own ideas within the tradition he had received, with the result, that no two cathedrals in Europe are alike. Along with this marvellous harmony of broad principle, which exhibits the true genius of the age, we find that infinite variety of expression which marks the true genius of the individual.^^^^5^^ COMPARE these noble results with the work of to-day. Now, we either leave the art out altogether, and hand our work over to the contractor, or we employ artists, who desire to give individuality and interest to their work, but having no established order, no style, reflecting their age (the age is far too busy to be bothered,) make a haphazard choice, and we get imitation Venetian, imitation Romanesque, imitation 7 © Thirteenth century, imitation Classic, or some nondescript crank at which we shudder. THE state of things is humiliating. Only those can entirely feel how humiliating, who can compare the noble and impressive works which breathe the genuine, unaffected spirit of their several ages and countries, with this hodge-podge, this Babel of meaningless styles, which breathes the spirit of disorder and turmoil. LET me offer a homely illustration of a very practical kind, to those who really believe that order and organization would tend to produce monotony, and to injure Art. ^ ^ ^ WHEN I first began professional work, my studio arrange¬ ments were very simple, but, for the time, sufficient. Two or three portfolios of different sizes held my studies and other drawings, my cartoons stood in rolls in the corners of the room, my letters in a table drawer, and so on. As things went on, I found that I often lost time hunting for a particular drawing, photograph, or cartoon, and presently found it necessary to classify somewhat. I had a large shelf arranged, with a few divisions for cartoons, more folios with labels, &c., which was a great relief, and enabled me to devote some un¬ disturbed time to my art, which had, till then, been frittered away over the search, sometimes fruitless, for the thing I wanted. Further development rendered this little attempted organization insufficient, and ultimately I had to bring in builders and carpenters to line my room with racks, shelves, cupboards, &c., all supplied with sliding panels. My statues (for I collect casts from the antique) stand on pedestals, all of which have doors, and a multiplicity of shelves stocked with portfolios. Finally my cartoons are all catalogued, and I can find what I want without loss of time. As a result I can pursue my art, not merely undisturbed by the loss of time and temper otherwise imminent, but I can have my beautiful statues about me, which would have been impossible but for the organization which enabled me to utilize the space they occupy. In every way, direCtly and indirectly, Organization promoted Art. DOES not this point the moral of Mr. Bellamy’s book ? Has not Society outgrown the old simple organization, which sufficed for its limited numbers DO we not want a complete and radical re-organization, so that things may be found in their right places ? Here is the tradesman, on one side, obliged to spend thousands in adver¬ tising, in order to get rid of his wares, while hundreds of toilers ' 7i long for the wares, but cannot get them, because, in our sense¬ less haphazard system of “ every man for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost,” the money is being heaped up in hands that cannot use it, and kept from the workers, who would keep trade lively, if only they got their fair share of profit. ^ ^ UNDER such conditions there is no time to think of beauty— men must live, and for the large majority, there is just as much chance of their being able to make life beautiful, in such a fight for existence, as of my being able to paint a picture in the roadway. DO not suppose that I desire to give Art a place or a prominence that does not belong to it. I regard Art as the blossom, not the root of human life ; but if the blossom do not appear, or is deformed, we know that the root is unsound. ^ ART is, above all things, the offspring of Harmony. It is one expression, by means of harmony in form and in colour, in thought and conception, of that human harmony, that Divinity in Humanity, which we call Love. ^ IT is to promote this Divine principle that we are striving. Man has an element in him of self, but he has an element in him also of brotherhood. We believe, that the system under which we live, by compelling men to give as little and get as much as they can in all their transactions, developes the lower and stunts the higher element.^ ON all hands there is evidence that men are awakening to this great fact, they are beginning to feel that self must suffer, if brotherhood be neglected. A new faith and a new hope are springing up, and uniting men in the noble effort to realise the Kingdom of God on Earth, by substituting a system, based on brotherhood, for one based on self. ^ ^ ^ A STRONG faith is needed for such a work; happily we find no lack of it, and many who are still doubtful, only need that their reason be convinced, to glow with the same faith, and to be gladdened with the same Hope, that is giving strength and joy to those who are now toiling in the noblest cause that ever inspired human endeavour—the triumph of Love over selfish greed. THERE be these three, Faith, Hope, and Love, but the greatest of these is Love. W. B. RICHMOND, A.R.A. ON GESSO. APRIL I 890. © FROM THE SHORTHAND REPORT OF DAVID WILLIAMS. I DARE say that you will think that by all the preparations you see, that I am going to show you something very remark¬ able. I am going to tell you of the properties of stucco, such stucco as was put up by the ancients, and examples of which exist in Greece and Rome. $©* So* So* So* So* I WILL endeavour to show you in the first place something of the manipulation of the different materials used. So* THOSE who work in stucco, know perfectly well that there are two difficulties to be calculated with, because it wants, first a neatness of the over-surface, and, secondly, a finish of the design. Both these difficulties have been perfectly over¬ come, for workers in this material know well how to get in their work all the finish of a material like marble, and yet still to keep retained in it a sketchiness needed to render it artistic. IF we look at the beautiful ceiling ornamentation so greatly in vogue nowadays, we shall see how much of it is made up by the hand of the workman, he casts his work in glue and plaster, or mortar. This system of casting designs, of which I will try and give you one or two illustrations, I shall be able to show you is an utter abomination and false altogether ; they are worn out, false, old, and good-for-nothing. The cast from the glue and mortar is wrong from this reason, that the working of glue is quite different from the working of plaster. The work in glue has a finish which is very highly brought out, as such a material admits of this finish, whilst work in plaster is not so easy. It is necessary that the workman in plaster should bring into his work a definite understanding of what he intends to show, and make it altogether artistic and not a repetition of slavish detail. So* So* So* So* So* So* So* So* So* So* So* S«* S<^ AS to the ingredients used, they are simply these:—If any of those present will take notes it will be well for them to do so, for they may thus remember the materials. There was stucco by the Greeks and Romans, which still exists at this moment on the Parthenon and on the Doric Temples in Sicily. This was put up on a coarse material which was generally, as in the case of these temples, a base of coarse stone. The surface when completed—or nearly so—was able to be % 76 smoothed down and so finely finished, being composed of so beautiful a material, as to resemble very closely indeed, marble itself. NOW we often hear of stucco houses. In Rome many public baths and nearly all the places of resort were adorned—and beautifully too—by fantastic and exquisite devices in stucco, such as those in the Via Latina , and many of them still retain and are notable for the variety of their design and the freshness of their NOW the atmosphere of Rome is not much drier than that of England, but the places (and this has a good deal to do with their preservation), on which the stuccos were fixed, were admirably built. This is the sine qua non, and must be well looked to. Care must be taken that moisture does not come in from behind, for if it does your work will generally, after a time, come to AS to the glue to use. There are different kinds of glue, some prefer one kind, some another. On the whole, the glue which I prefer, and invariably use and think best, is the ordinary thin sheets of isinglass or fish glue. It is in thin long cakes, and the harder it is the less difficult it sets or is liable to clot, and in addition, it does not stain the work so much. OUR next ingredient is Plaster of Paris. It is very important that this should be of the finest quality and not old, the best is ground and white A NOTE contributed by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A.-~“ I find the best plan is to use but little glue. This, however, necessitates the finishing of small portions at a French Plaster of Paris. time; that is especially applicable to work partially NOW Some of out of doors, where it is wise to use as little glue as possible. I found that in old work I had done with much glue, e.g., in my big statue of ‘ Physical Energy,’ the work had rotted from the perishing of the glue. One can, however, go on adding, and changing, and re-modelling, but it is necessary in such cases to make the surface extremely damp. Another little warning to students would be that they make a key if possible, i.e., let the surface on which they work be rough. watch the These experiences of mine may be useful.” you, no doubt, want to know how I measure the glue; well, this is the way I manage. I addi¬ tion of the glue to the plaster until I get it to the colour of burnt umber, and so that the plaster is reduced to a kind of paste that you can easily work for an hour or so, and experience no difficulty what * ever with it. THE next ingredient is ordinary tow. This is used to bind the two together, and prevent its cracking. The next is cotton¬ wool, so you at once see that the things required are not very complicated. 11 TJOW I propose to show some of you who are practically interested in this work, how this is done. I will work up something and leave it here, and when it has become perfectly dry, you may throw it from one end of the room to the other and it will not break or crack. Will a few of the students step up on to the platform so that we may all work together? I will give as a first example, and roughly, a life-size mask, very light, as you will see when it is dry, and which may, if you choose, be finished as much as you please. The mask must of necessity be very rough, as I have not the time to-night to finish it off thoroughly. I OUGHT to tell you that to get the aCtual finish of marble, you must use marble dust, which you sprinkle over the work at the last, or just before the finishing touches are Here some dozen added. Now, the first thing we begin with is the cam^about^he tow > which you want to use as a base. It will table at which not look like anything at all at first. We now Mr. Richmond mix the plaster and glue together, and now I making of the materials. Itood around “m. build U P the mask in the t? w - 1 di P d in the plaster and glue, and with this I bind the base of the mask together. In my own opinion, it is best to put in as little plaster as possible. Stir it as little as you can, rather let it mix itself, for the more plaster you add, the more you in¬ crease its power of rapidly setting. Iam going to put in some glue now with the plaster, the quantity you see, enough to turn it to a light brownish colour. It makes the work bind together, and if you want the plaster to dry very quickly Hcreihckdhirer y OU must put in but little glue, but if you want fhe lads^fhe h to dry slowly, you must add a good deal of glue. I should now add some very finely powdered marble dust, but I have not got any. It makes a very fine finish, and I really must mention that it is entirely my own fault that we have not any here to-night, for I am sorry to say, that I omitted to mention that I required any. It must be pounded as fine as possible, but it makes the plaster harder to work. If it be added with a little wax, you get the most exquisite finish, and the most beautiful surface that you can imagine, so much so, that you can hardly tell it from marble itself. It is this marble dust that causes that beautiful sparkling effeCt. Knead your marble dust well, before you put it in the plaster, and very slowly, so that it mixes up by itself. One thing is to be remembered, be ex¬ tremely clean. You take the tow, and pull it well out, and make it into a thin sort of skin to cover your base, and pack 78 Here one of the it up so—as you see me do now. Be careful ° yS P tL 6 ° Ut y° u m ^ x y° ur plaster and tow well together. The first thing is get the base as a kind of first arrangement or foundation, and this should be temperately hard. I may mention that the plaster to begin with should be very liquid, so as not to set too quickly, and I use it thin, because I do not want to get rid of all the tow. QUESTION from a Student: “ Is this a quick method of working in plaster?” Yes. Why, I once made a figure in wood—a skeleton in faCt—in which every joint articulated perfectly, and then I put on the tow, muscle upon muscle, and then worked up the body, finally finishing with cotton wool, and when it was completed it was so light that I could carry it myself—that was after I had taken the inside out; this took me about two weeks to make. yr NOW with regard to our model; if you want to raise any part that you have got too low, you insert more tow underneath. You get structure, as you see in this rough As illustrated manner, and when you have got the face of by the model, your work covered in with tow and plaster, you add more plaster to your glue, because you require more consistency. When you get to this stage, instead of taking the long tow which I have previously" been using, you use cut tow, and be careful to tuck it well into its place, and thoroughly well in position. I MAY say that I do think this system a most excellent one, and I know of no better way of working than as I have shown you here. Mr. Watts made his colossal statue of “ Hugh Lupus” with it, and with particularly happy effedt. Care must be taken that your work does not get too limp. Here, I am only able to show you the particular method of working : for, from want of time, I am not able to satisfactorily work it out. I WILL pay more attention to one side of the face, so that you may see the points I wish to bring out, and that you may see also how freely you can work at it, in the Here cheek, stage which we have now reached. Now by on £ one n ^idJof Pacing the light on one side, and towards the the mask, rear of the mask, you are able to get the various, gradually took lights and shades beautifully. The plaster should s ape ' be allowed to-become smooth, and not too hard. Suppose, however, that it does get hard before you can add any fresh plaster, you must wet it well with a little glue, and as soft a brush as you can get; and then you may work over that as freely as you please. You must always be carefuL inis diock, irom ---„ 5»cu.u maae at the time, has been kindly lent to the Ouild & School by the Editor of the “Daily Graphic.” 8o about one thing, and that is, you must wash out your basin every time, if not, you will be put to a great deal of incon¬ venience by getting nasty gritty lumps, which you will find difficult to get rid of. © © © © ©) © © © © © © © KEEP piling up with the tow as much as you can, until you can get it so that you can smooth it at the end with plaster in a mixed condition, and in the second application, you should not use any glue at all. ©©©©©©®@ QUESTION from a Student: “Is this stucco applicable to large work ?”@®©@©®®©@ © © © © © ® OH dear me! Yes! It is very applicable to large ornaments, because you can get a more permanent structure upon which to work, and afterwards } 7 ou can also get upon the main structure ornamentation to an enormous extent. It is also absolutely impossible to break it. I could make a frieze as long as this room, i.e., about 30 feet, in a month or so, and it could be put up and taken down if you choose. It is this very same material that was used by Julio Romano in the Villa Madama, in Rome, and upon the same principle that I am now working, only it was set on a wall, instead of being flat on a bench ; so Mr. Richmond you see that the kind ofwork is identically the same. workin out the ^ ou ma y now no ^ ce that I begin to use cotton mask in greater wool. The history of this stucco work in England detail. briefly is this. I wanted some time ago a figure which I had not got in wood. I searched about and found an Italian—a Florentine—who was conversant with the method of operation, arid who carried out my ideas as I wished. The plan he adopted was that which has been handed down from the middle ages, and upon it many of the figures used in the fetes were made, and this principle was always employed. ©@©©©©@©©@@©© IN London civic pageants, figures are made in plaster; that is to say they are first modelled in clay, and afterwards cast. This necessitates two operations, but in our system, only one is used. This you will at once see is an enormous saving of time and is quite as effective, if not more so, and besides the London kind of figures are very heavy, whilst our principle ensures their being light, and the tendency to break or chip is avoided. Now you will see that I take cotton wool, very finely cut, and you may now finish the mask as highly as you please. For working the materials the fingers are best, and I believe in them better than all your tools. The work is much finer, and more like hand-work. Now I must suppose that our figure is considerably more advanced than it is. The next thing we must notice is, whether the plaster sets, because it makes the plaster a good deal thicker. You should let it—this we will suppose, has been worked upon for over two hours, instead of about three-quarters—keep fairly soft until it is nearly finished. Keep pressing in to get it firm on the face! And thus you get a good, hard, smooth surface when it becomes dry. © © I NOW make up a mixture with less glue and a good deal more plaster, and no tow whatever. It is to be well stirred up until it becomes a kind of cheesy stuff. QUESTION from a Student: “ Will this cast shrink ? @ WELL, there is nothing at all to shrink! We now put this plaster which I have just mixed, on the work as you now see me do ; work it well into the interstices of the tow, the same as you do in water colour work, where you apply colours and so make it form into a kind of paste or glaze. In this manner you fill in all the unpleasant paces as well as you can, for you still observe, the tow is elastic, and will remain so for another four hours and perhaps longer. It is better to put in cotton wool or tow which is finely cut. This allows us to work upon the cast for four hours or more. You may still keep adding to it wherever it is wanted. YOU will find that better than cotton wool, or tow, for such work is marble dust, if you happen to have it. Add some of this to a little tow or wool, and it is that which you will see, when it is dry, in the sparkle of the little particles of the marble, and which gives it that extraordinary finish. © © Q NOW with a sharp tool or spatula cut off whatever is not wanted, but do not do so until the work is “ cheesy ; ” otherwise you may spoil it. At this period you should go over the surface and get it uniform. Be always careful how you mix your marble dust: only mix it when you want it, and when the work is more or less finished. If the work is wanted rather stiffer, put in more marble dust, and vice versa. The less you use the more plastic the model is, and the easier and longer you can work it about any way, without any risk of its adhering when dry. This method of working will not permit the work to shrink, indeed, as I before mentioned, there is nothing at all to shrink, and it will amalgamate to any extent. The advantage of it for large ornaments is, that you get a good deal of toilsome work done very quickly. ALTHOUGH I have not got this work completed—for I am obliged to get it done somewhat rapidly—to a sort of presentable stage, you can, if you have the idea, carry this 82 on in the manner shown, ad infinitum, as the material dries. WILL one of the students step here and do something to this cast ? Now, please, will you just touch up the chin and the eye ? Press it in pluckily, so ! Don’t be afraid ! You all plainly see how easily and well it can be manipulated, and Mr. Richmond y OU can d 0 an y amount of shapes and designs S^oysZ at pleasure, and in the most beautiful and highly the adual model, finished style. This principle may be applied to the very smallest work. I see you already do this here to some extent in your Gesso work, aided by means of the paint brush, but that is not so good as the hand. You can do far better work by the hand than with the steam engine, and the less you see of steam engine work, the more variety of design and the better the finish ; for as you are aware there is finish and finish. Machine work does not seem to be as finished as work ought to be, and as it is possible to finish it with the hand. I WANTED to say something about picture frames of which, I believe, you make some here. If you will take the time—it is well worth it—and look at some Italian frieze of the fifteenth century, in South Kensington, you will find the work is very beautiful, but—and this is the point—it is not regular or mechanical ever, but free and spontaneous. However, I must leave this for another day. §&>f I WILL tell you, to finish up with, a story by Professor Huxley. I was once saying to him how the ancient faces of the Greek statues were more intelligent—I mean those of the really Greek —and how inane the faces of the Roman statues were. I noticed that in the former the two sides of the face were not alike, one eye was invariably higher than the other, the mouth was lower on one side, the plane of the cheeks was different. “ Well,” he said, “ Do you know, the only perfectly balanced brain is that of the idiot.” (Laughter). You will see, then, that the Romans did not do their work from the form, but from measurement, and this was the difference in their work, from that of the Greeks, who used their own faculties, instead of measuring. You will now understand the objection to those wretched things called stencils, in which the pattern of one is absolutely arbitrary and like the other. In ornaments, therefore, as in all decorative work, do not mind if your masters—and they, alas! are not gifted usually with the “artistic eye”—say that the “egg,” or the ordinary “egg and tongue” pattern does not seem to be in exactly the same place as its next door neighbour—the egg beside it. You, §3 by your irregularity, are showing art, while your master is wanting you to become a machine. If you see in old Italian friezes, places which have not exactly the same ornament, what does it mean ? what does it show ? Why—it shows you the hand of the workman ; and this I tell you as a saying for you always to remember : NO MACH INE CAN BE SO CLEVER AS TO BE IRREGULAR! {Cheers.) T. STIRLING LEE ON THE LANGVAGE OF scvlptvre. mmmmmm 87 WILLIAMS. WHEN Mr. Ashbee asked me to le<5ture here I felt very pleased, and that in speaking to you of sculpture, I should speak to you of the Art of all Arts least known, and of the Art, which, in its handing down, is as the history of nations. And as there came into my mind the extreme difficulty of the subject with which I had to deal, I thought of the beautiful dream of Lucian, the Greek writer, who tells, in his wonderful way, a good deal of the nature of the Art of Sculpture. His father and grandfather were sculptors, and he tells how he had just been in the workshop, and one day he dreamt that two women came to him and took hold of each arm. “ THEY laid hold of my hands and pulled me, each towards herself, so violently, that I had like to have been pulled asunder; and they cried out against one another—the one that she was resolved to have me to herself, being indeed her own ; and the other that it was vain for her to claim what belonged to others ; and the one who first claimed me for her own was a hardy worker, and had strength as a man’s, and her hair was dusty, and her hand full of horny places, and her dress fastened high about her, and the folds of it loaded with white marble-dust, so that she looked just as my uncle used to look 88 when he was filing stones. But the other was pleasant in features, and delicate in form, and orderly in her dress; and so in the end they left it to me to decide, after hearing what they had to say, with which of them I would go ; and first the hard featured and masculine one spoke :— “ DEAR child, I am the bit of image-sculpture, which yesterday you began to learn ; and I am as one of your own people, and of your house, for your grandfather (and she named my mother’s father) was a stonecutter; and both your uncles had good names through me; and if you will keep yourself well clear of the sillinesses and fluent follies that come from this creature (and she pointed to the other woman) and will follow me, and live with me, first of all, you shall be brought upas a man should be, and have strong shoulders; and besides that, you shall be kept well quit of all restless desires, and you shall never be obliged to go away into any foreign places, leaving your own country and the people of your house; neither shall all men praise you for your talk.” SCULPTORS must begin from the very lowest. I am here addressing those who are in the workshop, and who will understand how in the workshop one has always to begin from the very simplest beginnings. Think for a moment of the great Pheidias as a product of the workshop, and you will see what the workshop can lead to. When Pheidias had finished his figure and the people first beheld it, they surely believed that they had seen God. Then there was Polykleites, he too came from the workshop, and was one of the greatest mathematicians in sculpture. Then there was Myron (remember these names!) he was the sculptor of the great Athletes, he was very popular. Then there was Praxitiles, who beautified nature—no one more exact to life, though he was practically the decadence, his figures being rather too fat and run to seed. So you see, that this sculpture—the silent art—begins from the very simplest things, and begins from the workshop. If anyone here is going to follow sculpture, I should certainly advise him to begin with carving—let him learn carving first. All the last four Gold Medalists of the Royal Academy, have been simply boys in the carver’s workshop, who went to the Academy, and gained very trifling scholarships. I think that this year, the best work of the Academy is done by one of these men, and I should not be surprised if it is purchased by the nation.^^s^^ 8 9 VERY few people know that sculpture is a language, or how it became so, and this it is, of which I will tell you to-night. It began in the carved hieroglyphic writings of Egypt, and I will show you how. ^S#S#S#N#S^S#S#S#S#N#S#“> THIS figure is a little scent bottle, probably given, thousands of years ago, to some lady, and we shall see some of the first work, with lettering so formed by the horns.^^s^N^' THESE horns, in hieroglyphics, mean the “ opening.” Many of you have heard the expression “ the horns of a dilemma.” This does not mean that a bull is running after you, but that you are afraid of dropping into a hole or opening, which is formed, you see, by the curving up of the horns. THEN there is this hieroglyphic. It is rather a curious sort of onion, and really means, health-giving, or sweet. THEN, a hieroglyphic like this is the one from which we derive our letter N. THEN again, this is a sprout, which in Egyptian, meant “spring,” or “life-giving.” THEN that is a form, which, in Egyptian, means “all.’\^N#\^\^\^\#N#N#^ AND again, from that hieroglyphic we have “the hills and valleys,” or “the country.” And so we read the following sentence. “ Happy new year to the whole country.” All this you see was only sculpture on a little scent bottle.^s#S#^x#S#S^S#^ NOW this kind of character work went on and on, and gradually began to take form in ani¬ mals, birds, and creatures of all sorts, in its language. Thus, the Egyptians gave to this form the name of one of their gods. They worshipped the Ibis, the bird that in the East signified “ colour,” in this instance “ white.” go This bird used to settle on the banks of the Nile, as it set, and was, therefore, the signification of the settling down of that river, on which depended the prosperity of Egypt. And so there were many gods; one of them was an awful looking thing and it had but one eye. Then there was another, “the cat,” the origin this of our word “puss,” from the Egyptian “ paste.” The cat was sacred, because it destroyed vermin. It took one thousand years to domesticate the cat, so I think they must have had a very bad time of it during the period of domestication. They also had a sacred bull, and this signified the riches of the Egyptians and Hebrews, which consisted in their herds and stock, and they were sacred possessions. And so they got to human beings, and then they began to exercise their imaginations. Here you see the growth of the language of sculpture. ©©©©@©©©©© WELL, the Greeks came next, and they took up the same idea. They gave their very best prizes to their athletes. These men were bound to train their bodies to great perfection, and of the man who won the race, was made a statue. His, as a rule, was the finest form, and so, out of the athlete, was created a deity; a deity, that came to a climax, in the human form—in man ! © ONE of the greatest of Greek statues was the statue of Zeus, by Pheidias. It was forty-two feet high, and made in ivory and gold. The god had in one hand a sceptre, to denote his kingly power, and by him was the eagle, the royal bird. His cloak was of pure gold and covered with enamels. In the other hand he held a figure of victory, this alone was six feet high. Round the throne itself were scenes of victory. The legs of the throne were of pure ivory. The magnificence of this figure it is impossible to imagine. How lovely it must have looked, how beautiful it must have been. The people who saw it said they had seen God Himself. © ® ® © @ © © © © © © © I WILL give you an instance of how high the Greeks thought sculpture. The name of this marble, of which I have brought a piece to-night, is “ Lychinitis,” it means “ light,” and it was in this that the gods revealed themselves. The material was sacred to the deities. It was as sacred to them as our Bible is to us. It is told how a Greek was one day passing by a quarry, and he struck the stone by accident, when at once one of those statues was formed. ®©@®@©@©©@©®@ PASSING from the Greek period, I will take you to the middle ages. Strange to say, one might hardly believe it in 9i this age, but it is our own England, one might almost say, that made the greatness of the mediaeval Art of sculpture. There is a garden of Art in Wells Cathedral, and that was, most of it, built before Giotto built his famous Campanile in Florence. You might almost suppose that he had been to Wells Cathedral. BY the way, do you all know the story of Giotto ? If not, I will tell you. He was a shepherd boy, and he was sitting on the hill-side one day, drawing his animals and the scenes around him, when who should come by, but a great painter, who took him home, and trained him in the study of art. © © © © © NOW, sculpture in England went on all very well, growing in beauty and dignity in our Cathedrals; telling, as the Egyptian and the Greek had done before it, its language; — the religious language of the middle ages, and reaching its crowning glory in Canterbury; till there came Henry VIII.—a man who changed his mind very often—and with him came the Protestant reformation, and the iconoclasm of the sixteenth century. He sacked the shrine of Becket, dissolved the monasteries, and the next reign destroyed all the sculpture. We have never had a school of sculpture since. What we now want to have put up in our public places or collections, we have to go to foreigners to get done. Men such as Schemacher and Roubaillac. There is, now again, a small school of sculpture here in England—a very small one—it is not twenty years old, while that of our neigh¬ bours, the French, is about a hundred. ©©©©©©© SO much for the history of sculpture, and the language it has spoken to us. I will now show you some illustrations of what sculpture is in practical working. ©@©@@©@©© I HAVE put up a piece of clay here to show to all of you what sculpture begins in. My subjedl is one that we all know pretty well,—the first man—Adam ! It is rather a Here the lecturer good subject for sculptors, not only because of his revolving tC table costume, but because Adam himself, means “ red on which stood earth,” that is to say, in the Hebraic, “ living hi j mod el of an earth,” a very appropriate appellation for the sub- day, someth j ect —don’t you think? Colours in all the Hebraic high, see p. 96. characters mean “ alive,” so you see we get “ living earth.” Adam, being formed from the “ earth ” itself, and made alive. @ @ © © © WHEN Moses made Adam looking unto the light, made him a living soul, he gazed beyond the sun itself, to the power that was 9 2 the author of its existence, and for this reason he became a living soul, looking to the Infinite. If any of you here think of getting up a subject, take, first, a piece of paper, and try to express your ideas on it, think well over your subjedt, think of what it really means. It is not merely that you shall take a man, say, and put a harp or what not in his hand. Your subject must mean something beyond, something deeper, and so bear always in mind this model of Adam :—he looked beyond the sun, and became a living soul. And so, follow me further still, mark well and note carefully all the different poses and aspects. See how solemnly they fit the character, think how this—the living earth of the first man—ought, as a subject, to be perfectly solemn and still. You notice that I have tried, in this model of mine, to make him solemn and still, and looking beyond all things visible. NOW, as to working, the first thing is to get the model into good line. In sculpture, as in music, it has to flow ! So too in the human figure—from the top of the head Here the right down to the foot, it has to flow! If, hfs^finger^on therefore, you are working a figure and you the model come to a stop, and your lines do not flow, indicated the then you at once know there is something wrong. fn^he^gure 5 Your lines must flow as you see here,—and here,—and here,—until they come down to the little toe, here. Then every line in the figure belongs to some other line : for instance, in this model it comes so,—and so,—and so. Then again, if you have a line here, it must find its way there. If you have that muscle straight and you are learning to model it in a piece of clay, you will find it starts from there and is drawn on carefully until it is inserted here, and so gradually you learn all the forms in man. This line gradually loses itself in the bone there. That form starts from there, and is inserted here. This form is brought over here, and carried down like that, so that every form has its balancing form. Look again here, this line starts from this point and goes down there. I am speaking now more to the boys who are learning modelling. It is for them to bear this balancing of forms well in mind, when they model a bust or any object in clay. I think now you see the a<5tual way it is done, don’t you ? They are all balancing forms these, each form has its brother form to correspond with it. Form that does not flow, has, as I said before, something 93 wrong in it or in its balancing form. So you see that that , and that , and that, and that, balance all the way down; the back carries that line on, and so on, and so on. Thus much then for balancing lines and forms. I WANT now to tell you something about the training of a sculptor, which you should take to heart. There is nothing, I believe, except religion, which has demanded such sacrifices from man as sculpture: there must be some tremendous fascination about it; and it becomes the man’s greatest pleasure. If it were not so, I do not think that for the last ten years we should have had a sculptor in this country. I can assure you that if ever you want to gain real pleasure, learn to become a sculptor. You know, those of you who have an ear for music, of the great pleasure music gives ; well, you can have the same pleasure in form, if you have an eye for form. Therefore train yourselves to understand it. If ever you have spare time, go to the British Museum. It is open free, and as often as you go, you can learn to work out some of the greatest thoughts ever worked out by man. The birth of Athene for instance, who was the goddess of wisdom. I was talking to a man, the other day, about the Greek mythology. He said he did not care for it, said there was only one instance (to his knowledge) in which there was any wisdom in it, and that was, when Zeus had a bad headache, his head was cut open, and with that Athene was born. He didn’t think there was much in that, nor were the other stories much better. But what did it mean ? Why, it meant that wisdom was born from the brain of Zeus himself; and, what is more, born at the break of day! You will find the sun is rising out of the vast ocean : the rays are just coming out of the waves of the sea. The night is clearing away, and the red sun-rays are dispersing the darkness, and soon it will be day again, the time for work and activity, for every Athenian knew then that it was the time to go to work and learn wisdom. 94 AFTER THE LECTURE THERE WAS A DISCUSSION WITH THE STUDENTS, 6* MR. LEE SHOWED SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OF SEVERAL WORKS OF GREEK ART, &• OF THE EARLY WORK IN WELLS CATHE¬ DRAL, ALSO AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE ZEUS. JfiT* $£^ Sf#* QUESTION from a Student : “Will you tell us more about the sculptured scent bottle and its figures and symbols ? REPLY: “ The scent bottle is this shape. I think ladies have scent bottles like them now. It is of course the hieroglyphic which is the figurative or symbolic Here the ledturer sculpture: that is to say, sculpture written in sketched the figures or symbols. For example : the * crown ’— S< large onthe 11 an< ^ there are many kinds of crowns—round black board, the head of Zeus was an ‘ olive crown.’ The highest things the Greeks knew of were the olive and the vine. The gods were anointed with olive oil. The oil was the essential part of the plant, and the plant was the essential one to the ancients. Indeed, I believe that in hot climates it would be impossible to live without oil. Oil is the essence of life ; it was oil which they believed ‘ made man with a cheerful countenance.’ The town of Athens— named after Athene—had the olive as its symbol, and the gods were therefore anointed with the highest thing the earth produced—that was the olive. I WANT you to take note too of the symbolic colours. The crown round Zeus was enamelled ‘ green ’—green was the symbol of the earth. Then ‘ blue ’ was the symbol of heaven : it was ordered to be worn by the Hebraic priests, and was carried on the fringe of their garments, that it might remind them always that they were led through the wilderness by the power of God. Then, as I said before, ‘ red ’ was the symbol of life. Gold was the highest thing you could have, and the most precious of metals. We know how gold is mentioned in the Revelations of St. John. Every jewel had its symbolic meaning, and so on. LOOK! I will show you something we have, with a very pretty symbol on it. Our own shilling— not our new one, that is very bad, and brands our country as being in a very 95 bad period of Art. (Laughter). If you take this shilling you will find that there is written on it a most beautiful piece of symbolism, and whoever designed it, knew something: of the language of sculpture. YOU will find the olive and the oak wreath, and at the top of them the crown. The two trees are tied together with a bow. This symbolizes clearly, first, that the money is to be spent; then, that if it is properly spent, it will uphold the Crown, and so the whole nation will be bound up in love and unity.” (Cheers). QUESTION from a Student: “ I think that Mr. Lee might tell us how the clay work is carried out in plaster, or at least, the principle of working it. It will be of interest, especially to those of us who are engaged in the upholstery or similar trades, such as cabinet making. We should be able to get still more valuable instruction from the leCture if we are told how the structural working is carried out inside.^^q^»^^j* AND then, Sir, you spoke of the British Museum. I think, Sir, that we should have museums more get-at-able. What is the good of telling us to go if we can’t! We should have museums open on Sundays ! {cheers) so that the works of the great men, and the beautiful things of which you tell us, might be more readily seen. It is quite certain that good English work has always been able to hold its own, if it only gets its chance ; just as 4 shoddy ’ now, our main staple industry, has the best chance of all.” {Sentence completed amidst loud laughter.) REPLY : “There is some internal support in the model, or it would not stand up five minutes. There is a here the framework of iron in the arm. Look ! there, for off theday from example, is a wire ; so there, again, with the leg,— the framework, and here, with the head. You see it takes longer leaving it as to create an Adam than to destroy him! illustration on IN terra cotta work it has to be built up with no page 96. support at all. In marble, a figure like this would be first cast in plaster. It is done in plaster of Paris, mixed with water to a consistency of thick cream. You would probably put little pieces of zinc with it, then you take your plaster, and when it is moist you take a little clay. Water is sometimes used, mixed with a little red colour, to enable you to distinguish the proper depth of the work.^p^^^^j* g6 97 YOU take your plaster that is coloured and brush it over the work with some soft brush, and when you are taking your cast, if you get down to this coloured layer you know you are right on the model itself. It keeps the cast from adhering too closely to the model, and it will leave it easily. When it is first done, you put on the plaster to the model, until you get it to a certain thickness. You insert your little pieces of zinc in this way, and your two parts of the model will come apart. You now clean it well, and afterwards, when it is thoroughly clean, you take a little soft soap, being very careful to get it clean. You must be particular that you get it perfectly clean. After the plaster has set, you then take the different parts, and put them together, thus joining up your work. You can then get your cast of the plaster model. QUESTION from a Student: “ Do you think it right, in copying from a life model, to copy all the peculiarities of that ^ J „1 *)5) inuuei r wwwwwwwwwwww'Vl'ww REPLY : “ In the life school, most decidedly, yes ! Because you are training your eye to see correctly. In the life school, by no means alter anything, for if you do, you are only calling upon yourself to perform what really you do not see. In the life school, you are not to think of the causes of things, you are only to think of the results and effects of them, and you must show how you see the model before you—that is the effect of the model. You, as students, must show what you see in the effect of it. In a person’s head, for instance, you do not see all the detail of that head, you only see the effects they produce. If you put in other things that you do not actually see from your point of vision, you get in a number of slavish details. You should so work, that you show what you really see. Fora student, therefore, I say, let him train his eye, to see in such a way as you see this statue now—skeleton though it be.” # AFTER THE VOTE OF THANKS WAS PROPOSED, MR. LEE REPLIED, AND CLOSED. ^ # # # # ^ ~Y- «V- *-V* -V- -V* -V* «S£. *V- •S2. *V- 4f. ‘V- *V-- ^V- *v* VV* W *7S* W Vf* VV* *7v* *Vv* w W *7v* VC* VC* vv* Vi* W W VV* I CAN assure you that it has given me very much pleasure to be here, and now that I know it has given you pleasure too, I am amply repaid. I trust that some of you may take up this special study, and find out, as I have found out, what great delight there is in it. It has its sufferings too, for no great joy is without this. I knew once, how, for a figure in clay, a poor French boy got a pension from his town, to take him to Paris, to study. He wanted hard to get on, but he had no money to hire a model. As he came from the vine growing districts, his friends one day sent him, as a present, a cask of wine. He pinched to get the money for the model, but could not. At last, he asked a model to come to his room, and share his wine with him—the model remained as long as the wine lasted. This boy ultimately got his work into the Salon, and obtained the gold medal—he is now a great man. I should like to tell you more of the way in which the French treat their artists,—they treat them better than we do ours —but this I will tell you, and leave with you as a last word to-night ,—most of their finest work has been done at starvation point (Cheers.) THE EGYPTIAN HEAD AND TAIL PIECES OF THIS LECTURE WERE KINDLY SENT IN ILLUSTRATION BY MRS. G. F. WATTS. * * E. PRIOLEAV WARREN, A.R.I.B.A., ON PARLOVR ARCHITECTVRE. fiSUfffif 103 IN PART FROM THE MANUSCRIPT, AND FROM THE SHORTHAND REPORT OF DAVID WILLIAMS. TO judge of the architectural development of a nation by considering only its large and important buildings, its churches, palaces, and town halls, its theatres, and colleges; would be like basing one’s opinion of the social characteristics of that nation solely upon intercourse with its bishops, its judges, its mayors, and other public functionaries: or assessing the national dietary from a study of public banquets. The domestic life of a people is the truest indication of popular character, and expresses itself in no way more vividly than in its dwellings, the average homes of average citizens. And “ home,” I think I may safely say, implies the inside of a house; an interior of some kind, four walls and a roof. One builds a house to live inside, not outside of it. The consideration, therefore, of domestic interiors is of importance to us all, and I propose to deal this evening entirely with the internal architecture of ordinary houses. @@@@@@@@@ THERE is one far-reaching condition of modern life in town or country which so largely affects domestic building, and still more largely domestic decoration, that one cannot afford to neglect it. It is the leasehold condition. The few own houses, the many rent them. We are for the most part hermit crabs, who live in other peoples’ shells, with the unfortunate difference that we have to pay rent for our shells, whereas the hermit crab, I believe, merely looks around for an empty shell, walks in, and, if he likes it, stays there. Those of us who have a pretty comfortable home to-day are very apt to hope for a better next year, or the year after next. We don’t feel sure of staying where we are, and, therefore, are naturally not inclined to spend much time, labour, or money upon our homes. So we do a little in a cheap kind of way, very often cheap and nasty too, to bring our temporary shells into some accordance with our views as to what a shell should be. Thus arises a kind of 104 art we may call leasehold art. We may think it a pity—I for one do so—that there should be this kind of art, but we have to look faCts in the face, and I am afraid this is an indubitable faCt. A leaseholder when he wishes, or, shall we say, his wife wishes, for a little alteration and decoration in his home, is content if he can achieve what will “ last his time,” seven years perhaps, or three, or less. “ After me, the deluge,” said the French King, and so says the leasehold hermit crab; and after him the deluge often comes and spoils the wall-papers and the floors, for tiles and slates, gutters and pipes have got to have a leasehold sort of character too, and the leasehold plumber is a merry wag. I SPEAK of leasehold art in contra-distinCtion to freehold art; the art that means to last; the art employed by a man who makes a home for himself first, then his son, his grandson, great and great great grandsons; the art that each successor successively employs to alter, add to, and embellish the old home; the art that has made the delightful old homes that are the pride and glory of a country. The big buildings, the homes of rich men, the churches, town halls, and colleges belong, of course to the freehold type. They are well built for the most part, at any rate meant to last. Some houses, of course, of the more expensive leasehold type, built to be let to rich hermit crabs, partake a little more than usual of the free¬ hold character, but they are a very different sort of thing to the house a man builds for himself. THE speculative builder, commonly called, I know not why, by the familiar diminutive of “Jerry,” builds houses to sell or let, but not to live in, though people do try to live in them, try hard sometimes. I’ve tried before now, and didn’t enjoy it. Well, those of us, and I daresay I shall be right in including my audience to a man, who have a leaning towards the freehold kind of art, the art that is meant to last its honest time, and reach a mellow old age, are almost always engaged more or less in trying to circumvent our friend Jeremiah. Where we have for ourselves or others to deal with his handiwork we try and give it a sort of freehold look; it is not very satisfactory, but sometimes we really do wonders. # # # WELL, it is with a view to bringing before you some methods and principles which seem to me to be useful in dealing with homes, both of the freehold and leasehold type, that I have the pleasure of addressing you to-night. I HAVE called my paper “ Parlour Architecture,” because for some reason papers like this are expected to have a name; and as I am going to deal with the architecture of parlours, that name seemed to fit. For decoration is architecture: if you have windows, a chimney-piece, a door and a cornice, you have some architecture, good, bad, or indifferent; and most parlours have these—windows, chimney-piece, door and cornice. It is by their position, workmanship and design, that a good or bad, a pretty or an ugly parlour is made. Of course the propor¬ tion of the work has a deal to do with it, if a room is too high or too low, too long for its width, too wide for its length, or too short for its height, no beauty of detail, or cunningness, in placing doors and windows, will make it right, though they may make it nearly right. Still given a room of decent propor¬ tions, it may be hideous, because its details or its colours are bad. LET us begin at the top and deal with the cornice and ceiling, for there are few things more important in the effeCt of a room, though few things more generally neglected. # ^ ^ # # A CORNICE is the termination of the wall and is meant to give a sense of support to the ceiling and to cover the hard angle between wall and ceiling. It generally looks best if arranged so that its height and projection are about equal, The ledturer that is if the outer edges of its mouldings are in a here sketched a p ne f orm i n or an angle of about 4S degrees with Ser on S the C black eS the wall or ceiling. You will find this to be true board. in a general way, of old seventeenth or eighteenth century cornices, whether of wood or plaster. MODERN cornices, except those designed by people who have carefully studied old ones, are usually ugly and ineffective ; they give no sense of support to the ceiling and often one cannot tell whether they are intended to be the top of the wall or the beginning of the ceiling. They are generally treated as the latter and whitened in with the ceiling, thereby shortening the walls in appearance. They are often, if put up within the last 50 or 60 years, in a style intended to be “ Gothic,” with deep hollows and waved mouldings ; but they are not Gothic in effeCt or position, and are futile and ugly. Cornices are often enriched and extended with cheap and very nasty repeated imitations of lattice-work, basket-work, flowers and fruit, ineffectual, pretentious and out of all character with the rooms they are intended to adorn, and moreover, dust- traps of the most determined order. ^ # io6 THIS is a modern “ Gothic ” cornice, I daresay you know the kind of thing. tfoiA.***' C*JVVM.C*. THESE, on the other hand, are about the correct angle between wall and ceiling, the idea being, I take it, to form a support for the ceiling, between the hollow and the ceiling itself. Cornices of a better type are those of the seventeenth-century. You will see from the character of this one that it becomes, in a greater sense, a support. >0* >0^ >0^ ^0 ^0 ^0^ 0* THE sketch of the modern “Gothic” cornice, you will see, does not give us the same idea of support. >0- >0^ >0^ >0* THE cornice must of course, in depth and projection, bear a certain relation to the height of the walls. I cannot give the io7 rule—I don’t believe in exact rules for proportion, it must be a matter of feeling, it must look right ; but from actual experience, I only say that I find, as a general thing, that a room, eight feet high, requires a cornice of at least four inches deep and is better with rather more. A room of ten feet seems to me to want about six inches, and of twelve to thirteen feet about seven-and-a-half to eight inches. But of course, all this depends upon the mouldings of the cornice and the light of the room. As to ceilings, one may elaborate a ceiling to almost any extent, or one may leave it perfectly plain and it will yet look well. Personally, I like, when funds allow it, to divide the ceiling with rather flat moulded ribs into panels and patterns all over, and I don’t see why ceilings should be always white, as modern ceilings, except in mansions, generally are. Why shouldn’t the lid of the box be coloured as well as the walls and floor ? But whatever else is done or left undone to a ceiling, a “ centre rose,” as those ready-made abominations of plasterers are called, should be studiously avoided, and, when possible, if already existing, removed. IF you have to have a gas pipe or lamp-hook depending from the ceiling, a plain-turned wooden rose or a brass one will look a deal better than the “ centre ornament.” IT is a very prevalent plan, now-a-days, to fix a wooden moulding round the walls, a foot or two below the cornice; and this is called a “ frieze rail,” as the space it incloses forms a frieze. If this rail is of proper dimensions and nicely moulded, and the proportion of the room well considered, in settling its height from the floor, it has an excellent effect, especially so if a raised plaster frieze of good design can be placed above it. I need hardly tell you that there are the modern substitutes—moulded canvas and the like, some of which are well designed and graceful, and not to be despised but the real thing is more satisfactory. IT is a common plan also to fix another wooden rail round the walls, called a “ chair rail ”—to form a dado, at a height of some three or more feet above the floor, and a very pretty plan it is, if its height is rightly proportioned, the mouldings good, and the rail and the space beneath, together with the skirting, painted all one colour, and that a good colour IF a room is very high it can afford to have a dado and a frieze ; but the ordinary lowish room should have one or the other only; and if it is not possible to have an enriched frieze, I io8 should say have a dado. The skirting board is generally much overdone—too high, too much moulded, and the mouldings not good—of the cheap steam-joinery kind. 88 88 88 88 88 I HAVE seen even, in good, expensively-fitted rooms, a simple square wrot-board, about five inches by half an inch look extremely well. I have my own theory of the origin and growth of the cornice, frieze and dado in the form in which one generally finds them. 88E86888S8ES68SS8888 IT was the custom in Roman architecture, from which much modern architecture is indirectly derived, to divide a wall space with pilasters projecting slightly from the wall—one often sees this done still—these pilasters had pedestals with cap and base moulds, and also capitals and neck-moulds, and they very usually supported an “ entablature,” consisting of architrave or “ frieze rail,” frieze and cornice, but sometimes ran up to the roof or ceiling against which the capital terminated. Then there was a practice that arose of connecting pilasters or groups of them by extending the mouldings of pedestal and base, of cap and cornice. And this was imitated in more modern times, till in simple work the pilasters were omitted, and the pedestal mouldings in dado, and cornice, and frieze mouldings were retained. 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 THEN come windows, they are important in every way, for light and ventilation first, and as architectural features next; and there is no feature in which good and bad proportion tells more strikingly than in a window and the distribution of its parts ; and in my opinion, few things can well be uglier than the average modern window with its stumpy equal proportions and sash, where meeting bars equally divide its upper and lower parts. Compare it with the pretty casements of old country cottages, with their diamond panes, or even with the sash windows of the last century, with their long proportion, many panes and prettily moulded sash bars.88 88 88 88 88 THE modern ideal in windows seems to be the biggest possible panes of glass ; the nearer the approach to no window at all the greater the success. Of course the number and size of panes should be in proportion to the size of the windows; but in my opinion the large panes of plate or sheet glass of modern windows are excessively ugly and uncomfortable, they make one feel out of doors ; their only excuse is “ a beautiful view,” and even then the view I think looks none the worse for being cut up into a number of little pictures. That there is 109 a charm about lead lights, is shown by the way in which the jerry builder puts them into the hall glass doors, and upper sashes of suburban villas. 83 88 8S8S8S 83 8S8S6S WE are so much used to sash windows in England, that one gets to look upon a sash as the natural form of windows ; yet is it so ? Is it as convenient as a casement ? I doubt it. A casement, either of wood or of metal, in a metal frame, when well fitted, is as air-tight as, nay, more air-tight than, a sash ; it swings easily on its hinges like a door; you have not to hoist and pull as you have with a sash; its gear is less compli¬ cated ; it has no cords and weights to get out of order; it cannot come down like a guillotine and decapitate you when the cord gives; and last, but not least, it is far prettier. A window divided by an upright mullion and cross transom, can have hinged casements below and centre hung casements on “ hoppers” above, thereby securing abundant and easy ventila¬ tion. The casement can open outwards or inwards. If you want to have window boxes for flowers the casement should open inwards, otherwise I think they do better opening outwards. England and Holland are the only European Countries where the sash window is the rule, everywhere else in Europe the casement is the almost invariable form of window. IIO FROM windows we pass to doors, they are important also, and care should be taken to divide up the panels prettily. The usual four-panel door with its wide lock style is very ugly. Six, eight, or ten panels, like those of old doors, are far prettier. If you have panel mouldings have good ones, but plain square framing, with a good architrave mould round it, looks very well. £ dj» THEN as to the walls and decorations generally. As a rule the modern parlour does not get beyond wall paper or plain distemper or paint. I do not for a moment mean to imply that these methods only are not to be made very effective, but there are others. In old times the walls were generally covered with panelled wainscoting, or with hangings of damask or tapestry. Sometimes they were plastered and painted in patterns. Few things are more delightful than the wainscoting running up from floor to cornice, with pretty mouldings to the panels, and the panels nicely proportioned, with a chair rail at its proper height, and a low skirting, the whole painted in one quiet soft colour. Hangings of damask or tapestry are delightful too, but expensive, and moreover dusty. A wainscot, 5 or 6 feet high, with a painted frieze above, maybe made very effective; or a cheap method of getting the pannelled effect—a method I have employed on new and old walls—is to fix on wooden mouldings, by screwing them up to plugs in the plaster, stopping the plaster face and rubbing it smooth, and then painting the whole; this has the advantage over framed wooden panelling that it does not crack and warp and shrink with heat as the latter does, but it does not look quite as well because the whole wall is flat; whereas in the case of wooden panelling the panel may be recessed a little, or may stand out a little in front of the styles, cfb dfb dfb «jb WALL papers I look upon as a makeshift at best, though often a pretty enough makeshift. They arose, of course, from an imitation of hangings of stuff or tapestry, and were at first at the end of last or beginning of this century pasted on to canvas or hung loose in direct imitation of tapestry hangings; then they got to be strained on frames and finally pasted on the wall itself; but still for a long time retained in design the character of the stuffs they imitated. Flock papers are an attempt to imitate the appearance of velvet or plush hangings. Now, of course, wall papers are wall papers, and nothing else, except when they attempt to imitate tile mosaics, or grained wood or mottled marble—vulgar sillinesses which deceive no one; still I think that the most successful wall papers are those which give the same kind of effect as old hangings, the designs of which are in Ill vertical “repeats” and of a climbing character, growing up¬ wards, not sprawling along all over the walls, and of good big dignified designs; to me the infinite repetitions of small designs are very tiresome. I like to see a design that is not ashamed of itself, and stands up boldly like a full grown tree. I even like big designs in small rooms. I don’t think they dwarf the room, on the contrary, I think the little pattern gives a stamp ■of pettiness at once. It is a great thing to aim at breadth of -effect, and soft colour; a wall paper of two or at most three soft tones as a rule gives the best result. The paint of the wood¬ work should have direct relation to the colouring of the paper ; of course white paint, toned or cream, ivory or “ broken” white, as the painters call it, will “ go ” with almost any soft toned paper, but it is apt to be a little cold, and very often it is best to match the paint to the prevailing or most assertive tint of the paper. Grained paint, imitation oak, walnut and so on, is an ugly vulgar sham, a waste of time, pains, and ingenuity. Thank Heaven it is dying outcfh cfr €§b ^ of* dfr IN deciding upon the colouring of a room, selecting its wall paper and paint, the aspect must be thought of: cooler tints for the southern and eastern rooms, warmer for north and west are advisable. Then, in the country, with ground floor rooms that look out directly upon the greenery of shrubs, trees, and grass, it is well to have colours that contrast with green—blue, yellow, or red—as you wili see the room colour against the ex¬ ternal green out of windows. This should be remembered in choosing curtains. OUR parlours for the most part now-a-days are ruined by cheap ready made joinery, vulgar mouldings run out by the thousand miles, flimsy doors imported in hundreds from America and Norway, and, where the decorator or the house¬ holder’s wife soars above this kind of thing, by the nasty little ; gimcrack over-mantels, with silly balustrades and balconies, and cheap bits of gilding and Christmas card pictures, <§> BUT of all the important features of a room the fireplace is, perhaps, the most important, artistically and pra( 5 tically speaking; in England, with a chilly average temperature, -especially so. So important do I consider the chimney-piece to be, architecturally, that I am going to tax your patience with the consideration, historical and general, of chimney-pieces. HISTORICALLY, not to take up too much of your time, I will begin with the sixteenth century. The sixteenth century 11 2 was, perhaps, par excellence , the age of chimney-pieces—in England at any rate, for it was the age of exuberant carving. And it was at the end of its first quarter that the classical renaissance began to get real hold upon English art, producing: at first a blend or medley, hybrid it is true, but almost always picturesque. This blend, or English early renaissance,, is known as the “ Elizabethan ” style. THE beginning of the sixteenth century is characterised by what is called the Tudor or late Gothic style. The chimney- pieces of this style differ little in essentials from those of the- latter end of the preceding century which I have noticed. THE tracing I have here of a fire-place is from Coulston’s house, Bristol, and is a good example. The form of the shields shows the beginning of the renaissance feeling. Those of any importance were generally characterized by the depressed arch, as in the Magdalen College example, and frequently bore, above the opening, coats of arms or carved panels. IN large halls the opening was sometimes of extreme width, and considerable depth, so that two or three people could sit inside the arch upon benches or settles, and warm themselves at the log fire on the hearth. IN small houses—farm houses and the like—the fireplace of the kitchen, which was always also the living-room of the house, formed almost a small room of itself. It was flanked by walls extending into the room, or built in an angle of the room, with a wide arch overhead, and sometimes even with a window pierced through the outer wall. Settles were placed inside this ingle nook as it is called. Many instances of this form of fire¬ place exist, and they are of all dates, from this period to about the middle of the last century, or perhaps later, and are found all over England and Wales, but are commoner in the North of England than elsewhere. 0 r?£ C THESE great open fire-places from which, as you sit on the settle inside, you can see the sky through the wide chimney, have, from a modern point of view, many objections. Even sitting close to the fire, while your face is scorched, and your clothes perfumed by the wood smoke, your back gets cold from the tremendous draught, and a roaring fire must be kept up ta throw much heat out into the room. £ &%T(L BUT while the forests lasted, and logs could be got for burning, they answered well enough, and, at any rate, secured ample ventilation, and then our ancestors were hardy, and could stand draughts. &rrc. &*T(L THE succeeding, “Jacobean” style differs so little from the “ Elizabethan ” that, though it properly belongs to the seventeenth century, I will speak of it here The lecturer before noticing sixteenth century work in other roundwith countries. It is, upon the whole, ruder than the comments a Elizabethan work; the carving shows a distinct series of photo- falling off in delicacy and refinement of form, but ifhTstrations ^ * s generally picturesque and pleasing from its quaintness. JACOBEAN fireplaces are quite common in all parts of England, and are often-times of considerable size and pretension in smallish houses. A VERY characteristic example of a Jacobean fire-place in a small house is that from Kingston-on-Thames. The quaint rudely carved oaken mantel, and stumpy fluted Kingston-on- oak pilaster below, enclosing the stone jamb, and Thames. t b e head with its quaintly cut frieze, are extremely typical of the period. BEFORE quitting the subject of English Elizabethan and Jacobean fire-places, I should wish to draw your attention to the faCt that from the beginning of the sixteenth century many Italian artists were employed in England to execute various works in marble, stone, and plaster, and to instruct English workmen in the Italian renaissance style then in vogue. The revival of classical literature went hand-in-hand with the revival of classical art. There was a great desire amongst men of wealth and cultivation to be in correct taste. It was the fashion to patronise the arts; in a word, to be dilettante. Italy was the home and cradle of renaissance art, and its professors were accordingly invited to our shores. This faCt accounts for the entirely Italian works one so often discovers in English churches or mansions, sometimes the aCtual work of Italian hands, sometimes of those of English disciples. Fire-places, as a matter of course, shared the attention of these Italian artists. &*TC A VERY pretty instance of a fireplace in the Italian manner, probably the work of an Italian, is that from a room in Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire; a room that is known by the singularly unattractive name of “ Hell,” on account of the subjects of its mural decorations. This fireplace is placed across the angle of the room, a very pretty plan, by-the-way, and one common in all centuries after the fifteenth century, especially common in the Queen Anne and Georgian eras. It is a scientific plan, as well as a picturesque one, for the heat is reflected diagonally into the room, and is thrown against walls at right angles to one another, instead of against one wall opposite the fire, which reflects it back again into the fire-place. This plan also saves space and material, and is, in every way, worthy of the consideration of modern builders, many of whom adopt it. This Bolsover fire-place is constructed of light brown stone, and white alabaster, with panels of grey marble, and bosses of purple fossil and spar. if if if AS the forests disappeared before the axe, and logs became more difficult and expensive to obtain for burn¬ ing, coal was more and more used, and, during the sixteenth and seventeenth- centuries, the form of grate called a basket-grate, was in general use. ★ ★ ★ ★ THE tracing which I have here represents a typical basket-grate which I found in a Jacobean fire-place, in an old house at Bristol. The tall cast-iron back reflected the heat, attracted the smoke to the back, and prevented the back of the fire-place from being smoked. It is a form which is coming very much into vogue again. ^ ^ ^ THERE are four fine chimney pieces now in South Kensington Museum, of all of which I am able to show representations, and which I hope you will go and see for yourselves. They were all in a house in Lime Street, London, destroyed for the erection of the Law Courts. The fire-place is of stone in each case ; the mantel of oak. Their effeCt is extremely good ; some of the small bosses are in ebony. The pilasters and the form of the panels are most characteristic of the period, if 'fa if A VERY characteristic form of fire-place of the end of the seventeenth century is that of the boleCtion moulding. Examples of this abound in Hampton Court, and are of the time of William and Mary. This form was in use from the n6 time of Charles II. to that of Queen Anne. There was usually one shelf over it. I give two instances from Hampton Court. They are contemporary with the introduction of Dutch tiles : for lining fireplaces, backs and sides, a most charming treatment—quaint Bible subjects, horsemen, &c.—and all these things came in with sash-windows and the other Dutch elements, and made up what is called the Queen Anne style— out of compliment, perhaps, to William of Orange.^^s^N^^ TOWARDS the middle of the eighteenth century, Greek Architecture was much studied ; Greek forms came in with Chippendale Furniture, the Greek honeysuckle, and the fret Pattern. ^#N#N#N#N#S#S#S#S#N#N#S#S#^ THE Adams style, as it is called, came next, springing from this; but in form often too slender. The best instances of Adams chimney pieces are carved in wood, but some¬ times are ornamented with composition, sometimes with lead fittings. You will see some among my sketches. AND now, having tried to interest you in the fire-place of the past, I trust you will bear with me if I say a few words about those of the present and future. And under the head of present I shall ask you liberally to allow me to include the last sixty years. There have been dreadful things done in the way of fire-places, as well as in some other direc¬ tions, during that period. THE jerriest of jerry build¬ ers generally embellishes the parlours of his jerriest villas with white marble mantel¬ pieces, usually of a simple but extremely ugly design. One long flat piece of marble laid horizontally upon the tops of two shorter flat upright pieces, upon the very top ot which a thin flat slab is insecurely fastened with cement. THE fire is contained in a cast-iron grate, also of the cheap and nasty order. THE introduction works, has brought about a sad state of things in fire-place architecture by rendering the importation and the working of marble so cheap and easy, that the speculative builder has been able to introduce marble mantel-pieces of the cheapest, nastiest, ^#N#S#N#N#S#S#N#S#S#N# k> of steam machinery into shops, and marble and most ready-made description into all sorts and conditions of houses. x#S#S#S#S#N#N#N#N#S#N#N#N# k WHEN the modern builder, of the average type, an honest and well-meaning man, wishes to ornament a marble mantel-piece, he procures two ready-made, heavily, clumsily contrived marble brackets, and places them, one on each side, to support the shelf, and in either case, jerry or not jerry, he makes the shelf absurdly low, often-times not more than three feet and a few inches from the floor. ^#N#N#S#S#S#S#S#S#S#^ YOU will observe that, by a kind of instinct, the British householder, artistic or inartistic, invariably regards the fire¬ place as the chief point in the room for ornamentation, and in this, I need hardly say, I think he is perfectly right. Indeed, the instinct is most natural, for the family circle for six or seven months of the year is grouped around the fire-place. And a further instinct guides him to adopt some arrangement which tends to increase the imposing effect of the fire-place, and give it height, and some attempt at dignity. He often fixes a large mirror, resplendent in curly gilding of composition frame, immediately over the mantel-shelf, not I think with happy effect; or he procures somewhere a curious combination of little shelves, tiny balustrades, looking-glass and cheap mouldings, in ebonised or, highly polished wood, and fixes that over the fire-place. This is called an over-mantel, and its owner usually regards it with great complacency—a very mistaken complacency !x#N#S#N#N#N#N#S#S#S#“' NOW the fire-place is the domestic high altar of our homes, and should be the most dignified point in the room, the focus of decorative effect. In a high or moderately high room, it should be tall, the mantel shelf placed 4 or 5 feet from the floor. If an arrangement can be made to carry the lines of the fire-place up to the ceiling by panelling and shelves, so much the better ; but a very good and effective substitute is a piece of needlework, rich and soft in colour, hung flat and even, not in folds, upon the wall, and extending from the mantel-shelf nearly or quite up to the ceiling, as circumstances and proportion may dictate. Upon this background—which is much like the dossal of an altar— may be hung mirrors, small pictures, miniatures, or candle sconces; while it makes an admirable backing for the china, brass, or silver candlesticks or other ornaments that find their way naturally to the mantel-piece.^^s^N^N^s^N^' FOR the hearth itself, the prettiest arrangement I think is the open hearth lined with tiles ; modern Dutch tiles can easily be obtained, and are not costly. So*S*^ &G* §& So* THEN a basket-grate is placed in the middle of the hearth; when lit its heat is reflected off the tiles into the room ; this makes a bright and cheery looking hearth, and if the tiles and grate be well chosen, is a pleasant arrangement even in summer when there is no fire. S So> So* So* So* So* So* So* SE¬ THIS being the case, and as the practical requirements, which are, on the whole, very well met by the best of modern grates, will remain what they are, and as the artistic treatment is im proving every day, I think we may regard the fire-place future as hopeful. Already, in new homes, one sees less often the heavy gloomy marble abortion which does duty for a chimney- piece, and which—so similar is its design to the works of the monumental mason,—suggests rather the entrance to a sepul¬ chre than an apparatus for imparting warmth and brightness, the suggestive resemblance being heightened by the dismal cavern of black-leaded cast-iron which fills its interior. $&■ So* ng AFTER THE PAPER THERE WAS A DISCUSSION. AND THE ILLUSTRATIONS WERE GONE INTO IN MORE DETAIL.^^^^^^&^^^^&*So*S ^ So* §&> QUESTION : “ You spoke before of some composition having been put over the mantelpiece. I have often wanted to try experiments of lead-work on wood. Do you consider that lead was put up for the purpose of decoration itself, or as a basis for working on ? ” So* §& S^S^S^-S^-St^S^S^S^-S^ REPLY : “ It was put for the purpose of decoration. I have seen it worked up for medallions.” S<* So*- S<* So* So* So* QUESTION : “ Then the decorative effedt was given by the grey lead on the wood ? ” So* So* §&■ So*- S<^ REPLY: “ No, the lead with the wood and the other ornaments; and I once worked in a room in which the cornices were carved and then decorated with medallions in lead. These ornaments were often used by ship builders, because they resist sea water and inserts.” S<*- So* S<* So*- So* 121 RECIPES <§• NOTES. A RECIPE FOR GESSO CONTRIBUTED BY MR. G. F. WATTS. THIS recipe was used by the late Mr. Osmund Weeks, who wrought for Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Burne Jones, and Mr. Richmond; it has been used in work now standing some three years. §&■ §&> §& §0 OUT-DOOR GESSO. $*$*$*$■*$* OUT-DOOR Gesso may be used on brick-work which is first thoroughly wet, or, if more convenient, on a panel of Portland cement, very easily made by pouring the cement into a rough wooden frame work of the necessary size. §0 §0 §0 §0 THE Gesso is merely of Portland cement (rather wet), three parts ; slate lime, one part; and a sufficient quantity of tow, cut about a quarter of an inch long ; very carefully mixed with water with a strong fixat, on a small hawk-board. So- So* TO colour the cement, a small quantity of oxide of iron, or other mineral colour, may be used, as the Portland cement is a rather cold grey. Si** So- Sfr- THE panel, or work on the wall, may be left for any length of time, but must be wetted very thoroughly before additional cement is applied. So- So- So- S«* So- So So So So So So So So ON no account should fresh cement be laid on a part of the work already dry without this thorough wetting. So So So So MATERIALS are very simple and inexpensive—Portland cement, lime, oxide of iron, hawk-board, fixat, and tow. So So 122 THREE RECIPES FOR GESSO CONTRIBUTED BY MR. WALTER CRANE. VARIOUS ways of mixing according to scale, object, and style of work ; for small fine work with the brush, the best is §&> Sc* Sc* GESSO DURO. No. i.—BOIL one part powdered resin in four parts linseed (boiled) oil; add six parts melted glue ; soak whitening in water till soft through, and add to above with sufficient hot water to mix to consistency of thick cream. §&* S®* Sc* Sc* Sc* Sc* No. 2.—FOR rather bolder work, mix fine Italian plaster of Paris with thin glue or size, to a creamy consistency, and lay on with a fine pointed brush, say a “ rigger.” So* Sc* Sc* So* No. 3.—FOR larger relief work, the mixture No. 2, but in working, take cotton wool, and pulling off pieces, and pulling it out free of lumps, dip it into the plaster and lay it on to your panel, and so model up your design. This works well on Gibson’s plaster; but for all Gesso work, whether on wood or plaster, or other grounds, it is well to coat the ground with shellac. Some wet the ground, some use lime water. The great danger of Gesso work, is the peeling off when dry. Sc* S^ 123 THE FOLLOWING NOTES FROM MRS. MERRY- FIELD’S “ TREATISES ON PAINTING,” VOL. II., PAGE 638, MAY SERVE AS AN INTERESTING COMMENT ON THE ABOVE, AND AS A FURTHER ILLUSTRATION TO THE METHOD EMPLOYED BY MR. RICHMOND IN HIS STUCCO WORK, ON THE PRINCIPLE OF JULIO ROMANO, THE FELLOW PUPIL OF GIOVANNI DA UDINE. $*$*$*$*$* THE extract is taken from a manuscript of the 16 th century entitled “ Secreti Diversi,” in the Library of S. Marco at Venice. TRIED by Master Jacopo di Monte S. Savino , the sculptor. Admirable stucco for making and modelling figures, and for colouring them, and it resists water. §0 So* So* So* §0 S«^- So> “ TAKE of finely powdered travertine lb. v., and if you would have it finer and more delicate, take fine marble instead of travertine, and 2 lbs. of slaked lime ; mix them together with water, and stir and beat them well together like a fine paste, and execute what works you please with it, either by forming it with your hands, or in moulds, and dry it in the shade. And if you wish to colour it white, when the work is dry enough to be tolerably firm, but not quite dry, grind white lead with water in the same way as colours are ground, and flower (or finest particles) of sifted lime, and apply it with the pencil, and it will be very white, and will effetflually resist water. And if you wish to colour it with other colours, let the work dry perfectly, and then colour it; but these colours will not resist water, like the white, because they do not incorporate or unite so well as that does with the materials of which the work is composed. If, then, you wish the colours to resist water, apply on the work the above-mentioned composition (which is to be used in the manner described), and paint on it with oil-colours. So* §& So* §& S<* So* YOU may also colour the stucco with colours ground up dry, but these will not be so bright as if they were applied after wards.’’So* S<*> So* So> So* S^ §& S<* So* §&■ S<* THE invention of this stucco is ascribed to Giovanni da Udine, on the following authorities :—Morelli in his description of the Marciana MS., observes, S^ S^ S<* S^ S<* So* S^ So* S<^ S^ So* “M. JACOPO DA MONTE, whose method of making varnish 124 and stucco is there shown; the stucco is the same as that which, on the authority of Raffaello Borghini (Riposo, p. 402) and of others, was invented by Giovanni da Udine, and by him employed in the celebrated Loggie of the Vatican.” §&■ BORGHINI’S account of the invention of this stucco is as follows: “While Giovanni was working with Raffaello at Rome excavations were made in search of antiquities among the ruins of the Palace of Titus, and some apartments were discovered decorated with grotesque paintings and small historical figures and ornaments in relief, composed of stucco. Giovanni and Raffaello went together to see them, and were lost in admiration. Pictures of this kind being found in grottoes, were called ‘ Grotesques.’ They were carefully copied by Giovanni, who made many imitations of them in various places, and nothing was wanting but to discover the mode of making the ancient stucco; he, therefore, tried so many things, that at last he discovered that he could make the ancient stucco with lime made from white travertine, mixed with white marble in the finest powder; and so, these stucchi, with beautiful grotesque ornaments, and many new and rare designs, were employed by the order of Pope Leo (X) in the Loggie of the Vatican.” ^ §0 §&■ £©*• §&■ §&■ VASARI , in his life of Giovanni da Udine , mentions these experiments at greater length , and informs us what materials he tried before he succeeded in imitating the ancient stucco. §& 125 ENVOI FROM THE GVILD THE original notice as to the objects of the Guild and School of Handicraft issued some three years ago was as follows:— “THE Guild and School ot Handicraft has for its object the application of Art and Industry. It is a Co-operative Society of Workmen, working out original designs, either of their own or such as may be submitted to them from without. In connection with, and dependent on it, is a School of about ioo working men and boys. Its effort is to apply the Guild System of Mediaeval Italy to modern industrial needs, and to the movement for Technical Education.” ^ §&. fo. THIS object has been adhered to, and the three main lines of work, wood-work, metal-work, and decorative painting, have been developed by the different members of the Guild. §& §&■ AMONG the work executed has been work in copper, brass, wrought iron, silver and bronze, founded, hammered and chased; wood-work of all kinds, in its relation to the furniture and the fitting of houses ; work in embossed leather, in plaster and in gesso, and the decorative treatment of interiors. Among more recent lines of work taken up by new members of the Guild, is work in stone, and in book illustration; and at present experiments are being made in the treatment of gems and precious stones in their relation to jewellery, plate, and the precious metals. It is hoped, that in the course of the following year, some of the results of these latter will be offered to the public. §&■ WITH regard to the School, its object, as stated at the School Report of 1889, by the governing body of the School, was as follows :— §0 §0 So- “THE School of Handicraft does not attempt to cover quite the same ground as the ordinary Technical School. Its object is to create a living interest in, and a feeling for, beautiful work in various materials, and in connection with various industries. The essential feature in the scheme is the dependence on a self-supporting Guild of Workmen, who, it is 126 hoped, may ultimately be entirely responsible for the School, and implant in the pupils the sound traditions of a workshop.” THIS objedt has also been adhered to, and will, in the forthcoming move into larger and more convenient sur¬ roundings, be furthered and advanced, &©* §&> &©*• && §& && THE constitution of the School, which was drawn up at the meeting of the Subscribers and Donors at the Office of the Society for the Promotion of Technical Education at West¬ minster, and under Lord Ripon’s presidency, as patron of the School, on June 23rd, 1890, indicates the lines of its development on the above announcement; and at the next annual meeting of the Subscribers and Donors, the School may, it is hoped, be shown to be virtually independent of public support. ^ THE names of the members of the Guild are given here : those with a star having taken part in the educational work of the School. THE GUILD OF HANDICRAFT. FOUNDED, MAY 1888. GUILDSMEN. *C. R. ASHBEE, B.A., ARCHITECT & HON. DIRECTOR.£#b%®b%*b%»b£«b *JOHN PEARSON, FIRST METAL WORKER. 5 ^«b^^&»b£*b^%»b&»b *C. V. ADAMS, FOREMAN & FIRST CABINET MAKER.%»b^%«b£®b%«b ♦JOHN WILLIAMS, METAL WORKER.^^^^^b^^^i^^ *H. PHILLIPS, CABINET MAKER, ♦R. G. PHILLIPS, CABINET MAKER. ^^*b^®b^ 9 b^b^^»b^b^«b^®^b W. CURTIS, CABINET MAKER.^^^^b^Sb^b^b^bS®^^^^ W. A. WHITE, METAL WORKER. ^bS^b^b^^b^S^b^^^ W. A. ROSE, JOINER (RESTORATION WORK).^WbS^»^ ♦J. EADIE REID, DECORATIVE WORK & BLACK 6- WHITE. $^&lb£*b APPRENTICES & FRANKLINS OF THE GUILD. ♦CHARLES ATKINSON. ^b^b^b^b^^^^^^^bS^^S^b ♦WILLIAM HARDIMAN. ARTHUR CAMERON. ^•b^b^b^b^b^bS^b^^S^^bS^^ WALTER BAIN. ^b^^^ 3 ^>^^b^b^b^b^S^b^^^ AFFILIATED MEMBERS OF THE GUILD. R. UNDERHILL, FOR WROUGHT-IRON WORK. ^&*b&«b&ib&^ib&«b H. WARREN, FOR WOOD-CARVING. R. HOWLETT, FOR POLISHING STAIN IN G.^fb^b^b^^^^ 0 b^b H. DANCEY, FOR DECORATIVE PAINTING, J. H. ROBINSON, FOR FOUNDING BRAZING.^b^b^b^b^b^b^b W. TURNER, FOR STONE WORK & CARVING. FRANK PROUT, Secretary of the Guild. ^^^'^bS^^b^S^^b^^b^b WILLIAM FLOWERS, Steward 0 Essex House ^b^%^b^b^b^b^b^’^ 127 THE hope of the members of the Guild of Handicraft, either in their combined or in their individual work, is to give expression to the unity of art, to the belief that the various forms of art and handicraft which they pursue, shall not stand alone, but in relation to one another and to the Mother Art of Architecture. Even as she is desolate without the children who support and grace her, so do they grow ill-tutored and reckless without her guidance. It is only in the right harmony of the artistic family that a worthy end can be attained.^ §&■ 'ILLUS- -TRA- *TIO* ■N mmms