AMERICAN DECORATIVE ART.
BY COLEMAN E. BISHOP.
Among the many so-called “booms” that followed the civil war, as the result of the wonderful intellectual, moral and material impulse that it gave the country, one of the most marked and promising of influence on the national character is the advancement in decorative art that this generation has seen and felt. Its presence and influence are observable in the general demand for more artistic interior finishing and furnishing: for better form and coloring in wall paper, frescoing, painting, floor-coverings, upholstery and drapery, and in that broader study of the harmonious wholes of which these are related parts.
It is not an art renaissance, so much as a new birth of popular art feeling; a creation, rather than a revival. Facts seem to indicate the beginning of the long-talked-of American school of art. It is a peculiar, and peculiarly-encouraging circumstance that this new development is native and popular instead of imported and select.
For, we may be very sure that any movement that is to abide and have much power over our people must be one that touches the average citizen. To reach him it must be American. It need not be divergent from, and it should not be antagonistic to established art principles; but, not the less, in its sympathies, subjects, and methods it must be national. An art that is to live with any people must be of that people. With us this requirement of popularity is doubly strong, because we are so intensely national; because all institutions live and move and have their being in the commonalty, and because the citizen is the only source of living patronage of art here, where the state does not foster art as foreign states do. The artist must eat, and the people must feed him. Before they will pay for art, they must have sufficient culture to care for it dollars’ worth, and it must be of a nature to reach their sympathies. Even in monarchial England, Ruskin perceives the necessity for beginning at the bottom to upbuild national taste, and he addresses volumes of letters upon art “To the Workmen and Laborers of Great Britain” (see “Fors Clavigera”).
We have not much to hope for in the way of education of American taste from imported art, for this can never reach or touch the people. A few dilettanti in our cities can do very little toward creating, or even influencing a national taste. They have no rapport with true American culture; they offend national sensibilities by unreasoning rejection of everything undertaken here; and, above all, if they be brought to the test, it will be found that they generally have no fixed art principles back of their opinions and—prejudices. If the average American could not appreciate foreign works, he was not much helped to a better understanding of them by their admirers; and he came to think himself at least quite capable of correctly estimating devotees who could no more give good reasons for worshiping everything foreign than they could for scorning everything indigenous.
The most hopeful augury for this new interest is in the fact that it relates to that department of art which goes most directly into the lives and the homes of the people: and that it has been the first to take on marked American characteristics. Moreover, its commercial features will be potent influences for its spread and growth. It is capable of being at once the refiner, the educator and the almoner of thousands.
Confidence in the inherent genius of my countrymen, led me years ago to predict that all that was needed for the establishment of a school in any art was (1) the foundational training of mind or hand; (2) a belief that it can be done; (3) a market for it. The last most important of all, because demand inspires originality and creates supply, and because recompense is the great stimulus to inspiration. Genius in this age is pretty apt to have an eye to the main chance.
For all these reasons we are prepared for the conclusion that the impulse given to decorative art by the organizations known as the “Decorative Art Society,” and the “Associated Artists,” all of New York City, is the most valuable of anything that has been done since the nation’s new sense of the beautiful awoke. These are the parts of one movement possessing these characteristics:
It is distinctively American.
It has compelled recognition at home and abroad as well of its indigenous originality as of its artistic correctness and merit.
It has begun the production of exclusively American materials, designed and manufactured in this country, which are unequaled by anything foreign.
It is commercially successful.
By virtue of all these achievements, it is doing a missionary work for American art by encouraging similar efforts in other cities and other countries; by demonstrating that “good can come out of Nazareth;” by putting in the way of thousands of talented women, suffering under repression and lack of opportunity or for inspiration of hope, the opening for culture and compensation combined.
It is to celebrate what has been accomplished, and haply, to suggest the opportunities open to others, that this narration is essayed.
The movement was, indeed, patriotic in its birth. It was inspired by the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. The specimens of decorative art from the South Kensington School in the English exhibit impressed Mrs. Thomas M. Wheeler, of New York, by their lack of originality and freedom, insomuch that she declared, “We can do better than that in this country without any school!” and she set about doing it in genuine American spirit. The first organization, The Decorative Art Society, which she instituted, was composed of several hundred ladies of New York. The plan was national, philanthropic and commercial—to serve art, help women, beat the British, and make money. Ladies in a large number of cities were influenced by correspondence and other efforts to form auxiliary societies. The seed of the new art interest thus widely sown is still bearing crops.
From this nucleus there were before long offshoots in two directions—in a higher and in a more rudimentary line. The Woman’s Exchange was organized to provide a market for the large surplus of handiwork of all kinds that was pressed upon the society; and a less numerous, more compact organization was originated to attempt a higher development of the work—this being called the Associated Artists. Thus they had three efficient agencies occupying ground in this order, artistically considered—The Woman’s Exchange, The Decorative Art Society, The Associated Artists. Each of these is still doing its appointed work, but our present purpose has to do only with the most advanced—The Associated Artists.
It should be said, however, of the Woman’s Exchange, that it has spread the most widely; because it deals with the simple forms of ornamentation which require but little training, but it produces articles that are salable. Thus it has become a bread-and-butter enterprise to a large mass of women. Not only do all of our leading cities now boast of Exchanges, but Princess Louise, after her first visit to this country, caused one to be formed in Canada. This “Yankee notion” has also been transplanted to Germany and Sweden.
The Associated Artists, as first organized, was directed by Mrs. Wheeler and three gentlemen, artists like herself—Mrs. Wheeler having charge of the needlework department; one gentleman, of interior wood decoration; another, of glass painting, and the third, of the color scheme, painting, etc. They undertook the interior finish of rooms and houses upon entirely new decorative notions. Among their public undertakings, also, were the entire interior decoration of the Madison Square Theater, including the drop curtain; the finish of the “Veterans’ Room” in the Seventh Regiment Armory, and parts of the Union League Club House.
The business success of the Associated Artists grew on the managers. The educational and philanthropic aims were in danger of being overshadowed by the commercial consideration, and New York gave them abundant employment without their going into all the world and preaching the gospel of beauty and self-help to all women. Moreover, Mrs. Wheeler’s department in the work grew so rapidly and opened out possibilities of development and creation so great, that she decided to make it a special and separate enterprise. This she did three years ago, retaining the name, Associated Artists.
Success has vindicated the wisdom of the segregation, while the other members of the older organization have not suffered by the separation. From that time to the present the enterprise has been managed and worked by women only.
The gentlemen formerly of the Associated Artists are working on independent lines. The decoration of the new Lyceum Theater, New York, is the latest and greatest triumph of one of them.
The Associated Artists now have to do with decoration as using or applied to textile fabrics, including as well all upholstery as the hangings, draperies, tapestry and applied decoration of any part of a room. In the building which they occupy in East Twenty-third Street, there are large exhibition and salesrooms, the studios or designing rooms, the departments of embroidery, of tassels, fringes, etc., of tapestry, and the curtain department—an entire floor. There are about sixty employes.
This is an art school as well as a business house. Many women come to them with no other preparatory training than the drawing lessons of our public schools afford. The best talent is furnished by the Women’s Art School of Cooper Union. Aside from such preparation, the Associated Artists furnish the education of their own designers and workers. Unendowed, small, modest and young as it is, we shall see in what respects this American school has outstripped the great English institution.
One of the most serious obstacles that the effort to create American design has had to meet, is the lack of suitable materials to work with. All imported textiles were found to be, in color, texture and pattern, unsuited to the new uses and ideas; and American manufacturers were so much under tutelage to European tastes, that nothing different was to be had from them. It is a fact as lamentable as it is astonishing, that a carpet, wall paper or textile mill in this country rarely has an American designer of patterns and colors. The schemes of color made by the Associated Artists were out of harmony with French, English and American fabrics and embroidery materials. The colors of these were too sharp, strong and cardinal for the blending of tones that was sought.
To meet this case a Massachusetts silk mill was engaged to manufacture, first embroidery silks of the desired shades; and, that being accomplished, to undertake the coloring of fabrics. The greater step to the manufacture of special fabrics was next taken. Now the Associated Artists use only materials made for them in this country.
There are three different mills engaged on their work, one of which last year supplied them with $30,000 worth. The work is a great advertisement to a mill—such recognition have these fabrics gained, here and in Europe, for fineness, design and beauty. Several European decorators of first rate have sent for samples of them. Foreign artists and designers visiting this country regularly have in their note-book memoranda to see the wonderful new American fabrics at the Associated Artists. These goods have also been used for garments. Mrs. Langtry, Mrs. Cornwallis West and Ellen Terry bought largely of them for their wardrobes. Felix Moschelles, artist, and son of that Moschelles who was the biographer of Mendelssohn, declared that there was nothing in Europe to compare with these joint products of American artists and artisans. Truly, there is nothing on the shelves of dry goods men on either continent to match them; they revive the traditions of the wonderful products of Oriental looms.
Another chef d’œuvre of these artists is their tapestry work. It has the definiteness and freedom of drawing, and the delicacy and feeling of color of an oil painting; nay, deft fingers with a needle and thread can produce effects in colors that the painter’s brush can not, because colored threads reflect and complement each other. This work is done upon the surface of a canvas, the stitch being similar to that used upon “honey comb canvas,” all surface work. To make it more effective, a fabric has been woven with a double warp, the embroidery being run in under the upper thread, somewhat like darning. The process and fabrics were invented by Mrs. Wheeler and are protected by letters-patent in this country and Europe.
A portrait was woven in this way, thread by thread, so faithful as to be preferred by the family, to the best work they had of photographer or painter. A piece of this tapestry has been under the hands of from one to three embroiderers—or darners, if you please—every day for nearly a year. It is one of ten large needle-work pictures of American subjects now in preparation. One of them is a Zuni Indian girl, by Miss Rosina Emmett, and another, “Hiawatha,” a typical Indian girl of the North, by Miss Dora Wheeler. (These two artists are directors of the Association.) The pictures are life size, and are very characteristic studies. The remaining eight tapestries are mainly upon events of American history. Only close examination would convince any one that they were not oil paintings. After seeing this work I am inclined to think less of the famous Bayeux tapestry and all other pictorial needlework. William the Conqueror was unwise not to have deferred his exploits until Yankee girls could embroider them. The best we can now offer William is to invade and conquer England over again—with American tapestry.
These high-class works are mentioned simply to show the height that this line of decorative art has reached, in a short time, by the efforts of native genius and mechanical skill.
Nor is the story yet all told of the relation of design to manufactures. One of the largest manufacturers of paper hangings in this country not long since offered prizes amounting to $2,000 for the best four designs for wall paper. The competition was great, sixty designs being entered by European artists, and many times more by American. When the awards were opened the examining committee, as well as the donors, were astonished to learn that the Associated Artists had taken all the prizes, the European trained talent none. Now, the freshest, best-selling patterns for wall paper are of American design.
There is more still to tell that is gratifying to patriotism. These efforts have discovered to the world, as a fact, what was before the cherished theory of a few, viz.: that an American school of art already existed, dominant in brains and hands, waiting to be awakened to activity. There is a distinctive character in all that has been done in decoration, different from anything seen in other people’s work. It has a nationality in choice of subjects and materials, an originality in conception, a freedom and freshness in treatment, that fairly mark the beginning of a new school. More than that, when the work of native designers has come in comparison with that of the Kensington or other schools, it has justified the opinion that was expressed at the outset as to the ability of our women to surpass the latter.
When the Decorative Society was organized, it sent to Kensington for a teacher, and employed the one that was the most highly recommended by the management there. At the close of the very first lesson that was given by this instructor to the leading ladies of the society, she was overcome by the reception her teaching had met. “Why,” she said, ruefully, “these ladies have got from me, in a single lesson, all that I know. I have nothing more to teach them.” This incident reveals the reason for the contrast in work—gives the explanation of the stereotyped forms and stiff designs of the foreign school. The difference is in the human material that enters into the work in either case—the difference of development and general culture back of special art training. The English girl who is forced to earn a livelihood by needlework, and qualifies therefor at Kensington, represents a different order of preparatory training, general culture, social position and aims, from those leaders in art who engage in the work con amore in this country. But there is, also, a race difference that runs through all society in both countries. The American woman is a thinker—the English an observer; the American woman is by nature an innovator, the English conventional; the one an originator, the other an imitator. The same climatic, dietary, social and political influences that make the American artisan the most inventive and free handicraftsman in the world; the American business man the most daring and rapid, have conspired to make their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts the most original and apt pupils of art in the world. We may confidently look to them, and the sons that they shall give their country, to go on and create for it a school of art as free and as characteristic as are all our institutions.
The movement is but in the embryo stage. All this is the result of a single effort, and it is still young. Time is of the essence of art culture, and the United States offers ample verge and scope enough for a wonderful work in the future. The field for invention in decorative art is boundless, because genius may touch every item and phase of home and carry into the innermost life of the whole people the refining influence of Beauty.