Criticisms of the School This modern decorative renaissance has a root in sound art principles, which promises for it a vigorous vitality; and perhaps the only serious criticism which has been directed against it is, that it encourages archaic crudities of technique which ignore the high development of the reproductive processes of the present day; and, moreover, that its sympathies tend towards mediæval life and feeling. While such a criticism might reasonably be suggested by the work of some of its individual adherents, it does not touch in the least the essential principles of the school. Art cannot be said to scout modernity because it refuses to adjust itself to the every caprice of Science. The architect rather despises the mechanically perfect brick (very much to the surprise of the manufacturer); and though the camera can record more than the pencil or the brush, yet the artist is not trying to see more than he ever did before. There are, too, many decorative illustrators who, while very distinctly confessing their indebtedness to old examples; are yet perfectly eclectic and individual, both in the choice and development of motive. Take, for example, the very modern subject of the cyclist by Mr. A. B. Frost, Fig. 61. There are no archaisms in it whatever. The drawing is as naturalistic and just as careful as if it were designed for a picture. The shadows, too, are cast, giving an effect of strong outdoor light; but the treatment, broad and beautifully simple so as to be reconcilable with the lettering which accompanied it, is well within conventional lines. That the character of the technical treatment is such as to place no tax on the mechanical inventiveness of the processman is not inexcusable archæology.
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| FIG. 61 | A. B. FROST |
A valuable attribute of this conventional art is, that it puts no bounds to the fancy of the designer. It is a figurative language in which he may get away from commonplace statement. What has always seemed to me a very logical employment of convention appears in the Punch cartoons of Sir John Tenniel and Mr. Lindley Sambourne. Even in those cartoons which are devoid of physical caricature (and they are generally free from this), we see at a glance that it is the political and not the personal relations of the personæ that are represented; whereas in the naturalistic cartoons of Puck, for example, one cannot resist the feeling that personalities are being roughly handled.
Relation A chief principle in all decorative design and treatment is that of Relation. If the space to be ornamented be a book-page the design and treatment must be such as to harmonize with the printing. The type must be considered as an element in the design, and, as the effect of a page of type is broad and uniformly flat, the ornament must be made to count as broad and flat likewise. The same principle holds equally in mural decoration. There the design ought to be subordinate to the general effect of the architecture. The wall is not to be considered merely as a convenient place on which to plaster a picture, its structural purpose must be regarded, and this cannot be expressed if the design or treatment be purely pictorial—if vague perspective distances and strong foreground accents be used without symmetry or order, except that order which governs itself alone. In other words, the decoration must be organic.
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| FIG. 62 | ALFRED G. JONES |
Classes of Decorative Design Decorative illustrations may be broadly classified under three heads as follows: First, those wherein the composition and the treatment are both conventional, as, for example, in the ex-libris by Mr. A. G. Jones, Fig. 62. Second, where the composition is naturalistic, and the treatment only is conventional, as in Mr. Frost's design. Third, where the composition is decorative but not conventional, and the treatment is semi-natural, as in the drawing by Mr. Walter Appleton Clark, Fig. 63. (The latter subject is of such a character as to lend itself without convention to a decorative effect; and, although the figure is modeled as in a pictorial illustration, the organic lines are so emphasized throughout as to preserve the decorative character, and the whole keeps its place on the page.) Under this third head would be included those subjects of a pictorial nature whose composition and values are such as to make them reconcilable to a decorative use by means of borders or very defined edges, as in the illustration by Mr. A. Campbell Cross, Fig. 64.
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| FIG. 63 | W. APPLETON CLARK |
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| FIG. 64 | A. CAMPBELL CROSS |
The Decorative Outline Another essential characteristic of decorative drawing is the emphasized Outline. This may be heavy or delicate, according to the nature of the subject or individual taste. The designs by Mr. W. Nicholson and Mr. Selwyn Image, for instance, are drawn with a fatness of outline not to be obtained with anything but a brush; while the outlines of M. Boutet de Monvel, marked as they are, are evidently the work of a more than usually fine pen. In each case, however, everything is in keeping with the scale of the outline adopted, so that this always retains its proper emphasis. The decorative outline should never be broken, but should be kept firm, positive, and uniform. It may be heavy, and yet be rich and feeling, as may be seen in the Mucha design, Fig.65. Generally speaking, the line ought not to be made with a nervous stroke, but rather with a slow, deliberate drag. The natural wavering of the hand need occasion no anxiety, and, indeed, it is often more helpful to the line than otherwise.
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| FIG. 65 | MUCHA |