Art and Life; And the Building and Decoration of Cities a Series of Lectures by Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, Delivered at the Fifth Exhibition of the Society in 1896 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 Excerpt: ...and Flemish schools, and do not form part of a concerted scheme. But a picture, after all, may be the finest piece of decoration in the world. There are terra-cotta animals on the Natural History Museum (which suggest the stuffed ones within), and stone lions at the gate of the Imperial Institute, apparently waiting for suggestions as to a use for that building. South Kensington Museum, with its untold Of the treasury of decorative art, yet waits for Decoration a fitting roof_tree. of Public...., Buildings Nothing, however, is more remarkable, and sometimes apparently unaccountable, than the change of direction of interest in the arts. It is as if the centre of social gravity shifted from age to age, and as forms of art, being evolved out of, or rather being the expression of, social life, shift and change with it. The decoration of public buildings should be the highest form of popular art, as it was in the Middle Ages, when a town-hall, or church, was no bad equivalent for a public library storied with legends and symbols--histories, as they were, which impressed themselves upon the unlettered, through the vivid language of design. At present, the highest form of popular art appears to be the poster, which, if it does not always decorate our buildings, at least often covers them. The hoarding is the really public picturegallery, and many clever artists contribute to it. Some have shown a thorough understanding of the treatment proper to bold mural work produced by simple means, but very few seem to be aware of the decorative value of lettering, which is often vulgar, coarse, and debased. The worth of the poster as a field for design is the essentially vulgar idea with which it is hopelessly connected, of pushing somebody's wares. If it does not push or sh...