Part 12

By G. F. Watts, R.A.]

Have we then changed so much, or is it only the figure-heads or brain-heads and their ideals which have changed? That “there is a tide in the affairs of men” we all know--a flood and an ebb tide, indeed, and it may be the tide of aspiration is now rather low, and some of us may sigh as we look seaward at the stately departing ships with their brave ensigns glowing in the fading light of sunset which has left the foreshore, encumbered with the drift and wreckage of disappointed hopes and disillusion.

We may have to wait some time for the flood and we know not what argosies of new hopes and thoughts it will bring us. In the meantime we must make shift with our _one_ hope, or our hope with _one_ string as best we may.

But if our young men have ceased to dream dreams, our old men have not ceased to see visions, and the great idealist-painter we have so lately lost must be counted as the foremost of such.

It will always be to his honour that through good report and evil report he steadfastly upheld the banner which proudly asserts the intellectual character of painting, and claims its right and its power, as a language of peculiar vividness, richness, and resource, to express certain typical and profound thoughts and emotions, and to embody by definite but delicate symbolism ideas and ideals not possible to be conveyed so succinctly, so suggestively, and above all, so beautifully by any other means.

Matter and manner cannot really be separated in any vital art. Form and spirit become fused in all its highest, even in all its genuine shapes.

Mr. Chesterton rather steps aside in one place to poke fun at Allegory (as I note literary men are, curiously enough, prone to do), although elsewhere he appears to admit that it has its due place and value in art, and he grows enthusiastic over Mr. Watts’s use of it.

But that is just the crux. Everything is in the artist’s use and treatment.

There is allegory and allegory. In its highest form it is a species of poetry, in its lowest it becomes a catalogue. We may go to Cesare Ripa and get a recipe for the correct make-up of any virtue we wish to symbolize. Fedelta (Fidelity), for instance, is given, “Donna vestita di bianco, colla destra mane tiene una chiave, ed ha alii piedi un cane.” Well, there you are--but it all depends upon the artist whether the emblem represents each item in the crudest form, or becomes a really fine design, full of refinement and inner meaning. To appreciate the allegory of a past age one must be able to read oneself into its spirit. The Allegories of Botticelli seem to belong to a different world from those of Rubens, and appeal to a different mood and even order of mind. I quite agree with Mr. Chesterton that a lady in classical drapery and a cornucopia, or caduceus, would quite inadequately represent modern commerce. (A bull and a bear playing see-saw across the globe would be nearer the mark, perhaps!) But the lady might have a place in a decorative composition, symbolizing things in the abstract, when beauty of treatment is again all-important. The spirit of Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” is more painter-like in allegory (which is always in Spenser perfectly definite) than that of any other writer, and it is perfectly blended with poetic and imaginative feeling, just as in a painted allegory the matter of it should be inseparable from its form.

We feel this to be so in the finest works of Watts, such as the “Love and Death.” It is strange, however, to find Mr. Chesterton writing of allegorical pictures as if they were as plentiful as blackberries. “Millions,” he mentions--I wonder how many he could count in any Royal Academy exhibition? I had supposed that allegorical design was almost a lost art, as well as a dead language, in the estimation of our people--except perhaps the species which goes to the making of political cartoons.

Mr. Chesterton’s discriminating appreciation of Mr. Watts’s portraits is excellent, and his remarks upon the affinity between Watts and Tennyson very true. In the comprehensiveness, but indefiniteness, of their intellectual view they are akin; but vastness involves vagueness, and vagueness is a characteristic in the painter’s work. In Mr. Watts’s cosmic and elemental designs great half defined shapes loom up out of vaporous space. His heroes belong to no definite historic time, though in his wide catholicity and sympathy his work embraces all human types. His eye is fastened on the type and slights the circumstance. The accident, the realization of the moment is nothing to him; but one never saw a drawing in pure outline by the artist, and the charm of clear silhouette does not appear to appeal to him, neither is essential to his art. And Mr. Watts himself cannot be outlined, and therefore it seems curious to find him set down as a Puritan in one place, and a democrat(!) in another. Although Mr. Chesterton speaks of clear outline or “hard black line,” as a quality not Celtic, and bases his argument that Mr. Watts is not Celtic upon the character of his line, his phrase, “sculptor of draughtsmanship,” is incisive, as it is certainly a grasp of _structure_ rather than outline which distinguishes Mr. Watts’s work; and in this quality it may be said lies the true reason of the difference between his portraits and much modern portraiture which seeks rather the expression of the moment and the accidental lighting, as in a landscape, rather than the type and the underlying structure, the expression of which establishes a certain relation, and that fundamental family likeness between very different individuals which Mr. Chesterton has noted. For, indeed, men and women are moulded in types far more than is commonly supposed.

After all, the great merit of Mr. Chesterton’s critical remarks consists in their not quarrelling with an oak tree because it does not happen to be a pine; and in that he does not think it necessary in order that his subject may be properly appreciated to make a pavement of all other reputations, or, like the irrelevant Walrus and Carpenter on the sand--with much virtue in that “if”--“if this,”--certain essential characteristics, say, of an artist’s style--“were only cleared away it would be grand.”

For the rest, Mr. Chesterton’s sparkling style and wealth of whimsical illustration make the book uncommonly readable, which cannot always be said with regard to monographs on artists.

INDEX

Abydos, Temple of Seti, 89.

Academic method of art teaching, the, 58–65.

Action, representation of, 52, 54.

Advertisements, the curse of modern, 77, 78, 84.

Allegory in art, 278.

Anagni, chasuble from the Cathedral of, 206.

Animal forms in decoration, 203–224.

Architecture, importance of, in art training, 44, 50.

Art, influence of economic questions in, 23; value of sound traditions in, 29; social function of, 32; the teaching of, 35–56; sympathetic atmosphere a necessity for, 36–40; connection between architecture and, 44; essential unity of, 44, 48; the imitative and imaginative sides of, 48; advantage of architectural over pictorial training in, 50; methods of art teaching, 58–68; academic methods of teaching, 58–65; dominated by the sculptor’s art and aims, 64; modern possibilities of teaching, 66–68; Tolstoi’s views on, 69–75; the social and ethical bearings of, 88–101; influence of, in the church, 93; not the monopoly of the rich, 95–97; refining influence of, 97, 98; change in the conditions of the practice of, 99, 100.

“Art Nouveau, L’,” 128, 129.

Art Workers’ Guild, the, 18, 31; device for, 251, 253.

Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, the: formation of, 20; first exhibition of, 21; objects and principles of, 22.

Assyrian reliefs, object and value of, 90.

Bacchus, visit of, to Icarius, Romano-Greek relief, 106.

Bamberg, Royal mantle from the Treasury of, 205.

Barron, O., 200.

Bell, R. A., 159.

Bellamy’s “Looking Backward,” quoted, 83.

Berthelet, Thomas, bindings by, 227, 229.

Birmingham, scheme for frescoes illustrating local history at, 120.

Blake, William, 5, 6.

Bland, J. P., specimen of calligraphy by, 65.

Blickling, ceiling at, 158.

Book-covers, designing of, 225–236.

Borgia apartments, decoration of the, 238, 239, 240, 248; model of, at South Kensington, 240, 248.

Bournville, 121, 148; views in, 123.

Brown, Ford Madox, 12; frescoes in the Manchester Town Hall by, 118, 119, 120.

Building Acts, the, 126; local bye-laws, 152.

Burges, William, 17.

Burne-Jones, Sir E., 20, 162, 175, 240.

Butterfield, William, 17.

Calvert, Edward, 7, 8, 9.

Carpaccio’s “Dream of St. Ursula,” 144, 147.

Crane, Lancelot, figure composition by, 37.

Crane, Lionel F., design for a collective dwelling by, 116; cottage at Letchworth designed by, 148–151.

Central School of Arts and Crafts, the, 28, 29.

Chesterton, G. K., his “G. F. Watts” criticised, 273–281.

Cleobury, W. T., 133–139, 141, 143.

Cobden-Sanderson, T. J., 230.

Collective dwellings, 115–117.

Commercialism, evil effects of, 84, 85, 94.

Cretonne, printed, 160–162.

Crivelli’s “Annunciation,” 142.

Crouchback, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, figure from the tomb of, 223.

Dalpeyrat, M. Louis, 27.

Day, Lewis F., 18, 203.

“Decorative,” meaning of the word, 267.

Decorative art, development of, in the nineteenth century, 2 _et seq._; modern revival of, 15 _et seq._; relation of the easel picture to, 265.

“Denoline,” 252.

Dress, absence of beauty in modern, 81–83; progress of taste in, 171–191; influence of the pre-Raphaelites on, 175; types of artistic, 177; types of children’s, 179; types of working, 181; modern and mediaeval, 185, 187.

Dunkley, Miss L. M., designs for embroidery by, 45, 46.

Eastlake, C. L., his “Hints on Household Taste,” 17.

Egyptian hieroglyphics, 89, 90, 103; decorative art, 112.

Enamelling, modern revival of, 26, 27.

Exhibition of 1851, the, 3.

“Fifteen, the,” 18.

Fisher, Alexander, 27.

Flats, effects of living in, 114, 115.

Flaxman, John, 9.

Fylfot, the, 104.

Garden City Association, the, 121, 148.

Genoa, Doria Palace, gesso decorations in, 248.

Gesso, origin of, 247; fine examples of, 248; methods of working in, 249; Gesso Duro, 249; “Denoline,” 252; system of modelling in, 257.

Gilding, use of, in decoration, 237–246.

Gimson, Ernest W., cottage designed by, 152, 153, 155.

Graining, 130.

Greece, the artistic sense of, 90, 91.

Greek, ornament, 104–107, 215; drapery, 173.

Harvey, Alex. W., cottages designed by, 123, 148.

Heraldic lions, 220–222.

Hill, Vincent, panel by, 67.

Holland Park, 1a, interior of, 131; gesso decorations in, 258–261.

Home Arts and Industries Association, the, 19.

House-decoration, Thoughts on, 110–170.

Howard, Ebenezer, 121.

Hungarian peasant costumes, 182, 183.

Hunt, Holman, 9, 12.

Kidd, A., stained glass panel by, 62.

Knole, ceiling at, 158.

Kruger, G. E., 195.

Lacey, Miss C. M., Heraldic studies by, 47.

Lanteri, Prof., 194.

Letchworth, Garden City, cottage at, 148–151.

Line, meaning of, in ornament, 107, 108.

London, some aspects of, 76–83.

Lucas van Leyden’s “Annunciation,” 144, 145.

Mackim, Meade, and White, Messrs., 242.

Manchester, frescoes in the Town Hall in, 120.

Mantua, model of the room of Isabella d’Este at, 240.

Martin, A. E., architectural design by, 42.

Millais, Sir J. E., 11.

Moira, Gerald, 159, 194.

Moore, Sturge, 9.

Morris, William, 15, 20, 24, 156, 162, 175, 272. “Municipal Journal,” the (New York), 81.

“Mural feeling,” 265, 267.

Muybridge, Mr., 52.

National Association for the Advancement of Art in Relation to Industry, the, 19.

New York, movement in favour of public beauty in, 81.

Ornament and its meaning, 102–109; analogy of to music, 102; origins of, 103; two sources of meaning in, 106.

Palermo, Cappella Reale, decoration of, 241, 242, 243.

Palmer, Samuel, 9.

Paris Exhibition, the English House at the, 162.

Parr, H., studies by, 38, 39.

Peleus and Thetis, Greek cylix, 105.

Pictures, background for, 142, 144; relation of, to decorative art, 265–272.

Pinturicchio’s decoration of the Appartamenti Borgia, 238, 239, 240, 248.

Plaster, treatment of, 158, 159.

Pomeroy, Mr., 159.

Pompeian decoration, 113.

Pre-Raphaelite movement, the, 12, 14, 15, 175.

Pugin, A. W. N., 17.

Ranworth rood-screen, 133–139, 141, 143.

Reynes, John, binding by, 233.

Richard II, figure of, in the Wilton picture, 219.

Rigby, H. A., pen-drawings by, 55, 57.

Rome, St. Peter’s, use of gilding in, 246.

Rossetti, D. G., 10, 12, 15, 175.

Royal College of Art, specimens of students’ work, 37–67.

Ruskin, John, 14.

Sandys, Frederick, 12, 13.

Scott, Sir Walter, 10.

Sevenoaks, Combe Bank, decorations at, 159.

Shaw, Henry, 16.

Shaw, Norman, 18.

Shea, J. R., cabinet designed by, 59; wood carving by, 61.

Sicilian Silk Patterns, 207–214, 218.

South Kensington Museum, formation and influence of, 16.

Southwold, rood-screen at, 247.

Spooner, W. G., studies by, 49, 51, 53.

Stencilling, development of, 136.

Stevens, Alfred, 4.

Stevenson, James A., frieze by, 63.

Stothard, Thomas, 10.

Street decorations, temporary, 192–202.

Sykes, Godfrey, 4.

Temple Bar, suggestion for temporary gatehouse at, 197.

Tennyson, the Moxon edition of, 9–12.

Thoreau’s “Walden,” 111.

Tintoretto, 270.

Tolstoi, Count, his “What is Art?” 69–75.

Tristram, E. W., design for Tapestry by, 43.

Van der Meer, 142.

Van Dyck’s “Jan Arnolfini and his wife,” 142.

Venice, St. Mark’s, mosaics in, 244; Ducal Palace, 271.

Voysey, C. F. A., 147.

Wall-paper designs, 163–169.

Walton, George, 158.

Watts, G. F., 240; Mr. Chesterton’s book on, 273–281.

Webb, Philip, 15, 16, 131, 258, 259.

Weeks, Harold, 250.

Weeks, Osmund, 251.

Westminster Bridge, decoration of, by students of the R.C.A., 194, 195.

Whistler, J. McNeill, 242.

Whitechapel, Wentworth Street, 79.

Wilton House, the Vandyke room at, 243, 244, 245.

Windsor, Lord, 200.

Wotton Binder, binding by the, 235.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

The original book repeated chapter titles on most pages as though they were sidenotes. This eBook does not repeat the chapter titles.

The original book placed captions to the left or right of illustrations. This eBook generally places the captions above or below the illustrations.

Scaling information in captions does not apply to diagrams in this eBook, and the sizes of the illustrations, relative to other illustrations, are not necessarily the same as in the original book.

Transcriber adjusted the brightness and contrast of many photographs in order to reveal more detail in shadowed areas, and did not restore many photographs to grayscale, although they originally were printed that way. Without access to a pristine copy of the physical book, it was not possible to know how those photographs looked when the book was printed.

Infrequent occurrences of ‘æ’ in ‘æsthetic’ and ‘mediæeval’ have been replaced by the more commonly occurring ‘ae’. Occurrences of the ligature in other words have not been changed.

Transcriber corrected errors in the Table of Contents.

The Index was not systematically checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.

Page 33: Transcriber added missing closing quote after ‘is our selection,’.

Page 71: Unmatched closing quote removed after ‘with which he infects the spectator.’

Page 129: Transcriber added missing closing quote after ‘As you like it’.