UTILITY AND BEAUTY

Evening Post, Issue 6, 8 January 1935, Page 6

UTILITY AND BEAUTY

Opening the winter exhibition of the Royal Academy (which this year features artistic1 manufactures of the present as. well as art treasures of the past), the Prince ,of Wales asked ihe support of the public for British manufacturers who, in co-operation with British artists and designers, produce in all branches of industry articles combining artistic form and utility with sound workmanship. The marriage of beauty and utility is devoutly to be desired, and much value lies in what "has been said on the subject by the Prince of Wales and also on various occasions by the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe. Without great expense, and with no loss of utility, articles of everyday use can be made beautiful and capable of brightening everyday life, like sunshine on clouds. The sound-, ness of this general principle is not impaired by its. occasional exceptions, such as tables with so much undergear that you cannot stretch your legs, and shaving brushes^made so narrow in the base that they fall over and lather the table. When Ophelia asked Hamlet, "Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?" Hamlet replied in effect that beauty would pervert honesty before honesty could "translate beauty, into his likeness." But Hamlet just then was in a Hamlet mood. In fact, he was a supreme lover of beauty, and would probably say today that beauty and utility may go hand in hand (certain apparent exceptions notwithstanding). Can utility, then, have better commerce than with beauty? Art says no, and commerce agrees.