Mr. Brangwyn has, among his multifarious activities, found time to produce quite a number of fans and designs for fans, which have found their way into various hands. In the Studio winter number for 1901-2 appeared a coloured illustration—a rich composition of young girls gathering roses—also painted on silk. In the article on ‘Der Moderne Fächer,’ in Kunstgewerbe-blatt for September 1904, by Frau Margaret Erler of Berlin, previously alluded to, appeared the first sketch for this Studio fan, vigorously drawn in chalk.
It is impossible at the present stage of a career having in the natural order of things so much before it, and in the face of such superabundant energy, to form any definite idea of the ultimate outcome of Mr. Brangwyn’s art; of his present accomplishment, his etched work, which ranks amongst the most remarkable produced during recent periods, seems likely, in the opinion of the present writer, to earn for him the most enduring fame. If we might conceive etched or engraved fans becoming again popular in the twentieth, as they were in the eighteenth century, it might be an interesting speculation as to how Mr. Brangwyn would treat an etched fan. The material of zinc, which he so much affects, and in which he has discovered such great possibilities, would, doubtless, be unsuitable for such a delicate object; nevertheless, we can imagine some rapid and characteristic note on copper, the print further enlivened here and there by a touch of colour, as a suitable thing to be fluttered in the hand of the fair. Such work would provide, in these days of lack of patronage, other artists also with a means of augmenting their too often, it is to be feared, but slender incomes, since there would be an additional incentive to purchase a print that might be applied to a definite purpose, or made the occasion of some graceful offering.
Mr. H. Granville Fell, whose Court of Love, a composition in the shape of a reversed heart, with Cupid enthroned in the centre, was illustrated in the Studio winter number above referred to, is another instance of an English present-day artist who has essayed fan painting or designing.
| The Blue Fan, silk, by Frank Brangwyn, A.R.A. | by permission of the Artist. |
Miss Jessie King, whose charmingly original style is admirably suited to the fan, was also represented in the same publication. The beautiful fan graciously lent for reproduction by H.R.H. Princess Henry of Battenberg, the wedding gift of Queen Victoria, is entirely of English workmanship, designed and painted by a lady student of the Training School at South Kensington.
‘What style of ornament is most suitable for the fan?’ asks Charles Blanc, who draws attention to the fact of the pleats breaking up or distorting the design or picture. Our author suggests as a possible way out of this difficulty ‘that each pleat or fold should have a separate subject, or, at least, that the subject be so arranged that the pleats have relation to each other, as, a Watteau harlequin kissing his hand to a columbine, a Leander quarrelling with Isabelle, these being placed on blades that in refolding would reunite the lovers and reconcile the disputants. But to develop a graceful subject on a series of projecting and retreating angles, all more or less acute, would be a waste of labour. Is it not better to use in these cases a different or a radiating ornament? Is it not better to scatter over a fan a charmingly discordant arrangement of pictures and colours, or even to place isolated subjects between the folds, in order that elegant women, in manipulating their fans, may have twenty opportunities of showing in each fancy group the artist’s talent, and at the same time, of displaying some special charm of their own—a pretty hand, a well-turned arm, or beautiful eyes?’[174]
Our author has drawn attention, in his light and charming way, to a difficulty which is practically insuperable; there is nothing new in this suggestion of decorating each pleat with a separate subject, or of a consecutive series of subjects. Many instances of its application might be cited; some are given in this work, notably the Italian fan of mica, in which subdivision is carried to its utmost limit. But we must not take our