No good work in any field of art was ever yet done in a hurry; it maybe done quickly, with the utmost energy, this will probably only give it vitality, but all outside pressure means death to art.
All true art work must always be done under the very keenest stress of mental effort; it cannot be slovenly, careless, or interestless in its smallest detail, but must be wrought with every faculty alert with an absorption and concentration amounting to abandon, and it must be done, can only be done for the love of it. Other motives there may be, and in greater or less degree there will be, but this must be first and paramount, or true art is impossible.
A very fruitful cause of failure is the effort to be original. In the loathsome distortions of fashion we see daily the result of this attempt to originate new forms, simply for the sake of novelty, without the slightest reference to any feeling for beauty or fitness. Originality has no value other than a purely commercial one, unless the original thing has advantages over the commonplace. Most of the things which we have about us show unmistakably that their designers went to work in the wrong spirit from the very first. We see at a glance that the position taken up was this. The designer has said to himself “This is generally done so and so, in such and such a manner; now how can I modify this to make it in some degree original: where can I introduce a little novelty?”
No good result was ever yet arrived at by any one who took up this position. No: the way to go to work is, to get clearly into your mind the functions, duties, requirements and limitations of the thing to be designed, then choose the material or materials which will enable it best to fulfil its functions, duties, and requirements, and keep within its limitations. Afterwards, with a full knowledge and candid recognition of the properties and characteristics of your materials and the best way of using them, set to work to evolve the form which will, in the simplest and most direct & at the same time most beautiful and decorative manner, fulfil the requirements, and the result will bear the impress of your own personality, it will have your own feeling, and will probably also have something of true originality.
You may if you like, with all this clearly in your mind, pass in review the customary forms employed to fulfil the conditions, retaining such characteristics as you see are valuable either because they advance the objects, or add to the comeliness, but this must come second not first.
I would like you to notice in passing that this right and true method of going to work in design is entirely inapplicable to all things having no functions to fulfil, by such a throng of which we are now surrounded.
The whole trend of modern civilisation would make the outlook for the artist one of blank hopelessness, were it not that there are signs of a reaction, due to the efforts of great men who have fought hard that art may not die.
We call the present the “Machine Age.” Now the influence of machinery on art is one of the most degrading we have to contend with, for every advance made by machinery must mean a corresponding retreat on the part of art.
When I have expressed the keen sense of pleasure given me by the beautiful variety of surface, the light and shade, the crisp, clean adze cuts, the vital human interest, of some old beam, the commercial mind has said to me “If the workman who wrought it had possessed the tools with which to get it up to a better surface, he would not have left it as it is.” This is probably true, but it does not affect the question of the relative beauty of the two beams, the absolutely square, smooth, machine planed one, and the irregular rough hewn one so full of character and interest. The artistic value of each is a question quite apart from such considerations. To-day, if we require a beam in our building, we take every bit of natural character out of it, and bring it, by mechanical processes, to as dead and flat, as lifeless and monotonous a state as possible, then we stupidly try to replace some of the natural and characteristic beauty we have been at so much trouble to get rid of, by some form of applied ornament, moulding, or what not, which probably has only this one result, that it obscures the one trace of natural beauty which has been able to survive the previous processes, that is the grain and figure of the wood. Afterwards we stand and look at it, with a sort of feeling that there is something wrong, and wonder why it was so much more beautiful before.
This is only one illustration, it would be easy to give hundreds. For beauty of texture and surface are nothing to the machine producer or the commercial spirit of to-day.