Be it understood that the question of decorative instruction is not under discussion. More tenaciously, perhaps, than others, we hold that the student must know the historical conventions, his grammar of ornament, just as a writer must know his alphabet, not in order to use them subsequently, but to profit by their lessons. What concerns us now is the golden mean between the use and abuse of accredited conventions. Certain simple decorative motives, such as dentils, egg and darts, pearls, frets, etc., have become part and parcel of our decorative conceptions. They are valuable accessories, almost as essential to artistic syntax as the unimportant, yet necessary, conjunction is to rhetorical syntax. In literary composition no objection can be made to a timely quotation as an auxiliary to the subject-matter, but very serious objection would be made were citations forced to do the author's work vicariously. It is only when architects make their conventions bear the sole brunt of ornamentation and call it "art" that complaint is made. Did we not constitutionally object to the thoughtless use of the superlative so much in vogue, especially when æsthetic themes are under discussion, we should say that in the use of classic conventions, the discretion and taste of the della Robbia were very nearly supreme. The founder of the clan, Andrea, was, perhaps, less influenced by the antique than any decorative artist of his time; still he was influenced by it, as every Italian of his date must have been. Take one of his famous tondi as an example. The expressional picture is in the centre, architecturally framed as it should be by a fillet or two, or an egg and dart, perhaps, confining a decorative border of great beauty, inspired by the fruits of the earth, largely treated. Here we have a composition firmly framed, well suited to structural needs, sufficiently architectural, yet immensely interesting. This is the very acme of decorative excellence.
Archæology and chance have recently conferred one benefit, not to mention others, for which we must be truly grateful. They have clearly demonstrated the inventive faculties of the ancients. They have proved to us that the architects and decorators of classic times were always doing what artists will ever do—the unexpected. Familiar with the reproductions of certain consecrated monuments, students have been too prone to believe that the art of the Greeks and Romans was highly conventionalized; that it moved in very narrow and prescribed channels. The rendering of these monuments in the authoritative works has aggravated the belief. Actually, the ancients worked with great freedom, doing what we should never look for. Suppose it had been required to "restore" a Livia's villa, not knowing the original, would it ever have entered the restorer's head to paint a freehand landscape on its walls? Suppose the task was to make a patera à l'antique, would it ever have occurred to the designer to plant a portrait head in its centre with a meagre line or two about it? Yet just such a patera was found at Bosco Reale a few years since. The problem being to build a Roman arch, who would ever have dreamed of constructing such an one as we find at Timgad, dedicated to Trajan, with its lateral bays crowned by curved pediments? It is very well known in these days that the ancient Greeks and Romans were creative artists, whether they diademed an Acropolis, or carved the throne of a Zeus, or "hit off" a Tanagra figurine, or colored a Palatine wall, or a Pompeiian villino—not to mention the myriad household utensils, some the most humble, exquisitely designed. In plain English—they invented.
The failure of the architect as a decorative designer is a logical sequence of commercialism. It is not to be expected that the breadwinner should make superfluous sacrifices—that would be "bad business." While in every profession there are philanthropic enthusiasts capable of high and costly flights of altruism, the rank and file cannot be called upon to immolate themselves to an unremunerative idea. One must live, and live well, too, in these days. Taking his long and expensive training into consideration, and his multifarious requirements, it may be boldly asserted that few, if any, of the professions are so poorly paid as that of the architect. He is not bedecked with the trappings of wealth. His range of theoretical knowledge must be wide, and his practical experience very considerable. Probably no class of men is more roundly abused for its pains. The client has usually a pack of complaints against his architect, and makes it a point to air them. On several occasions we have heard men, high in their respective callings, irritably denounce, on the flimsiest grounds, all architects as "frauds." It is needless to say that our sympathies have invariably been with the latter, for, as a profession, we believe them to be high-minded, cultivated, conscientious, and efficient. The reason that they are not decorative designers is because they are not paid for original design. Yet, with all their diversified requirements in these days of novel and necessarily tentative construction, they would quickly acquire the lost habit, if it were worth their while. Yes, the habit is lost, has perished of inanition, temporarily, at least. The client does not want original design at the price exacted. He is not a Mæcenas; he prefers the mechanical reproduction of stale forms at a lower figure, i.e., the shopworn conventional. Moreover, he is rather inclined to the habitual as being safer. Under these conditions, fresh thoughts cannot be looked for. Even those men whose lives are devoted to architectural decoration alone, the decorative painters and sculptors, are frequently forced by the client to use the wearisome ornaments of the past, much to their chagrin, because fresh thought is too expensive. Not much objection seems to be made to a lavish outlay on mere barbaric material, but a vigorous stand is taken against an outlay on artistic invention. What is the result? Unable to evolve fresh motives, the architect, perforce, turns to his portfolios and copies. He must have ornament, for ornament is part and parcel of his profession as well as solid construction and harmonious proportion. Therefore, he purloins it. There is no sin in it, for it is done overtly and no one is deceived. Any man in the other professions would do likewise under similar conditions. It would be reprehensible if he did not. Only this road does not lead to new ideas—to a new style. Artistic invention cannot thrive under such conditions.
F. C.
It is not many years since a wealthy New Yorker, a man who employs builders a good deal, and architects somewhat, objected to arguments and appeals similar to those printed above, by demonstrating that a good old building was certainly fine, whereas a proposed new building only ran small chance of being fine, and that it followed (for so it seemed to him)—it followed that it was wiser for an architect to copy the old building rather than to try to design a fresh one. This was a fin-de-siècle idea, indeed! Surely, the decadence can hardly go farther than to embody itself in a declaration that it was less troublesome and more satisfactory to take your designs ready-made from fine old things of the past! The rich New Yorker in question was, undoubtedly, quoting his favorite architectural practitioner; but that same practitioner would hardly have been willing to have said as much among artists. Assuredly he would never have stood up at a meeting of artists and have declared his gospel in any such terms.
The difficulty in the way of expense may be thought by some not so great as Mr. Crowninshield has made it. When the present writer was a pupil in an architect's office, the head man, the designer, the real maker of the drawings, a workman prolific and able in his way, allowed this confidence to escape him—"Yes, I used to think I would get a mountain of tracing-paper and trace everything [photographs were not so cheap in those days]—and then I would never be out of material! But I found by and by that it was too much trouble to find what I wanted; it is really much easier to design it; what you want, is a knowledge of the style, and what may be done, and what cannot be done; and there you are! Besides the time lost in finding your 'material' you lose another infinite lot of time in fitting the material together—and then it does not fit!" That is as true now as it was a good many years ago. The only reason why a modern designer finds it easier to copy than to invent is that he is not really familiar with the style, nor really in the habit of designing in it. He is not really familiar with the style, because he has accustomed himself to go straight to books where all his details are to be found complete, and with their relative dimensions figured, and to copy them. He is not in the habit of designing in the style (whatever it may be), because, again, he has done nothing for years but patch together copied details. He is not in the habit of inventing, because, as Mr. Crowninshield has shown, he has too much else to do and too much else to think of; and because invention is not required of him by his clients, nor even delicate, choice, and careful treating of what he has chosen, nor even seemly combination of what he has chosen into new resulting wholes. If he really knew his style so that he felt at home in it—so that he felt it to be plastic in his hands; so that he dared play with it and alter its details in absolute conviction that he would not abandon its essential characteristics in so doing—then he would find it easier to invent than to copy, provided always he had the habit of freehand drawing and of simple modelling, and the habit of using either or both of those familiar arts for the ornamentation of objects large and small.
R. S.