EVERY-DAY ART.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 7, 1 May 1906, Page 165

EVERY-DAY ART.

By F. de J. Clere, f.r.i.b.a

Does it ever strike the ordinary man that art, either good or bad, enters more or less into almost every part of our every-day life ? Take, for instance, a man's bedroom, in which we may suppose he begins his daily round. Every thing about him has had thought spent upon its design ; the wall paper, the carpet, the quilt, the furniture, the basin and ewer are all made with a view to being a little more than mere utilitarian objects. Then let him glance round his breakfast table. The plates probably have a pattern on them, the table cloth is not absolutely plain, and his silver, if electro-plated, ventures some little attempt at ornament upon it. Wherever he goes his mind will be more or less influenced by art in some form or another. An artistic instinct or faculty seems to be inborn with some, is to a certain extent acquired by others, but is entirely wanting m a few. As mere animals these last are probably the happiest, for they go through life enjoying its gross pleasures, and feeling little of the pain which the prevalence of bad art is constantly giving to the more cultivated. A great teacher has written that without law there would be no sin, but this has never been advanced as a reason for no law. Without knowledge there would be no ignorance, for the latter is purely relative to the former ; but for the reason that knowledge proves our ignorance no argument can be advanced that we should reject it. It has been argued that as a knowledge of what is pure and right and best in art would only make us dissatisfied with what is about us — in our architecture, in our pictures, in our sculpture in our dress and other things — such knowledge had better not be attained because there is so very little pecuniary advantage to be gained by it. There might be some reason in this if we could entirely efface our sense of art ; but this we cannot do. Moreover, we annually pay large sums for art, so why should we not get the best value possible ? For instance the wall paper costs more than mere brown or white paper, and m nearly everything else we pay more for decoration. It has always been difficult to decide what is good and what is bad art. I doubt whether any educated man would dare to say authoritatively that any particular design is wholly good ; but he may say that it pleases him. On the other hand, it is quite reasonable that all schools of artists — this word is meant to be taken in its widest sense — could agree that certain things are bad art. Wellington and some other New Zealand centres are full of such things — in buildings, in furniture, in decoration, and, to a lesser degree, in dress. In buildings, for instance, it may be taken that all design is bad which expresses no idea. A primitive building is a mere shelter, and consists probably of a simple roof, as is exemplified in the Arab tent or the Indian wigwam. Walls were introduced so that the space covered could be used to greater advantage. Then the materials became of a permanent nature, and openings were introduced for the admission of light ; and so on. till art was introduced and architecture was born. Now, in all good architecture every feature is supposed to express something. The pediment, for instance, is the gable formed by the inclination of the two end rafters supported on and tied in at the feet by a beam ; therefore, to put a pediment where a roof would be an impossibility is bad art. Then again, as the rafters must meet or fall down, to break the pediment before its members meet is also bad art, and the same may be said of the tie beam which should certainly remain unbroken. To introduce a pier, or buttress, presumably to strengthen the wall, and not to carry the same to the ground or otherwise give it support independently of the wall it is to strengthen, is about as bad as can be imagined. Error, too, is illustrated in a parapet with pinnacles — the natural terminals of a pier or buttress — only supported by weak corbels a few feet below them. Similar instances are unfortunately only

too numerous in our street architecture, and they may be seen daily by those who have eyes to see and a mmd to reason with. The common English idea is that art is a disguise — artificial m fact ; but in all probability the use of the adjective m its modern sense has come about from the fact that m later times art, as usually practised, is more or less a sham. It need not be so ; and 111 this respect in the making of many things of every-day use America is far ahead of us. American articles generally are simply ornamented m a natural way and are not designed to look like something that they are not. In English work it is not at all unusual to see some material taking a cross strain — the rail that supports a table or the lintel to a window — and so ornamented as to appear like a series of cubes placed side by side, merely sticking together and having no possible strength with which to withstand a downward pressure. Surely common sense should teach the designer to make the mam lines of his ornament, m a case like this, lateral. Nearly every writer for many years past has condemned the use of shaded decoration on surfaces that are plainly flat, and yet it is still common to see carpets looking like a garden of flowers, and wall papers against which pictures are to be hung, covered with designs that stand out boldly from the surface. The art education of the present generation is happily higher than that of the last. The question of every-day art, which has been so ably discussed by Ruskm and others, is founded on the enlightenment of the layman. As a natural sequence there would follow the preservation of the true forms of architecture and those arts which are inseparable from every-day life.