Art-Studies from Nature, as Applied to Design / For the use of architects, designers, and manufacturers

As applied to Design: FOR THE USE OF ARCHITECTS, DESIGNERS, AND MANUFACTURERS. COMPRISED IN FOUR PAPERS BY
Reprinted from the Art-Journal. WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD. LONDON: VIRTUE & CO., 26, IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1872.

LONDON: PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., CITY ROAD.

ATURE may be studied in many aspects; her wealth of service and beauty is freely open to all who seek; and while the man of science, by patient study and assiduous toil, may learn something of her mystery, and gather from her not unwilling hands rich treasure of knowledge for the benefit of humanity (for without the midnight watch and the elaborate calculation of the astronomer navigation would yet be in its infancy; without the enthusiasm of the botanist as he toils in the tropic forest the virtues of many a healing plant would be unknown; without the keen perception of the geologist the miner’s task would be in vain), so the man of art in no less degree may find in her study richest elements of beauty, loveliest suggestions of colour, forms of infinite grace. A delight in the study of Nature, a desire to realise something of its grandeur, is a source of unbounded pleasure to its possessor, for to him no walk can be a weariness, no season of the year dreary, no soil so sterile as to be barren of interest:—
“The meanest flow’ret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening Paradise.”

The lichen on the rock, the wayside grass, the many-coloured fungi, are no less full of beauty than the forms that more ordinarily attract attention, and are no less worthy of study. “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein;” and Nature has ever to the devout mind, from its own inherent beauty and its testimony to Him its creator and sustainer, been a study of the deepest interest. Some who glance over these opening remarks before entering upon the search for such material in the body of the book as may seem available for their immediate purpose, may consider that this view of the subject is unpractical; but we would remind such that all art, pictorial, sculptural, decorative, or what not, is only noble and worthy of the name so far as it affords food for thought in the spectator, and testifies to thought in the artist, and that the nobility of the work is in direct proportion to such evidence of inner life. Art that is æsthetic and sensuous, though pleasing to the eye, must ever in the nature of things hold a subordinate place to that art which is symbolic, to those forms in which an inner meaning may be traced; and though one work of art may perhaps necessarily contain less of this reflected thought than another, yet this proposition we think will hold good, that no work of art that does not in some way testify to this can be altogether satisfactory, for while pleasing for a time to the eye, it yet leaves the mind unsatisfied: the reverse will equally hold good, and we may safely repeat that in proportion to the thought bestowed and expressed by the artist will be the enjoyment and profit to be derived by others from it. The true artist will not consider with how small expenditure of trouble he may attain his end; he will, on the contrary, have a heart full of sympathy with all that is beautiful. This will become a wealth of knowledge, will prove a precious possession to himself, and the result must be visible in his work, and stamp it with Promethean fire. To the artist then who is worthy of the name, nothing can be too petty for regard, nothing that the Creator has pronounced “very good” too insignificant for notice; for in Nature beauty is scattered with a lavish hand, and the fungus that passes through all the stages of its existence during a summer’s night, and the snow-flake still more transient in its duration—