CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
PREFACE
The collected papers which form this book have been written at different times, and in the intervals of other work. Most of them were specially addressed to, and read before the Art Workers’ Guild, as contributions to the discussion of the various subjects they deal with; so that they may be described as the papers of a worker in design addressed mainly to art workers. They are not, however, wholly or narrowly technical, and the point of view frequently bears upon the general relation of art to life.
Some of the papers were delivered as lectures to larger audiences, and others have appeared as articles, mostly in journals devoted to art.
Of the former, the one upon the Arts and Crafts movement was prepared for and read as one of a series of lectures given during a recent exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, and is now for the first time printed in its entirety.
The “Thoughts on House-Decoration” was read before the convention of the National Association of Master Painters and Decorators recently held at Leicester.
“The Influence of Modern Social and Economic Conditions on the Sense of Beauty” was the substance of an address at the opening of a debate on that question at a meeting of the Pioneer Club.
The paper on “The Progress of Taste in Dress” was written for “The Healthy and Artistic Dress Union,” and appeared in their journal “Aglaia.” The article on Mr. Chesterton’s book appeared in “The Speaker”; that on “The Teaching of Art” in “The Art Journal.”
The notes on “Gesso” work appeared in an early number of “The Studio,” and I have to thank the editor, Mr. Charles Holme, for kindly allowing me to reprint it here, and also for the loan of the blocks used for the illustrations, both for this and others of the papers.