“The Library of English Art.” A. & C. Black. Price 7s. 6d.
“The Library Of English Art is designed as a series of popular books for the large majority of educated people who appreciate good design in the utilities of life, but who wish for specific information to guide them in their choice, or who lack the necessary historical knowledge which will enable them to identify the styles of different periods of design, probably no better writer could have been secured to deal with furniture than Mr. Gloag. He is not too weighty or technical in his information, and he knows how to present it in a readable style. Indeed, at times, some readers may feel his writing to be unnecessarily colloquial; the subject has a natural interest which could survive more serious treatment.
The opening chapters give a brief outline of the historical background and origins of furniture in this country, which is filled in with detail in the body of the book.
Mr. Gloag finds that the periods of finest design in furniture have always followed closely the finest periods in our architecture, and that the architect’s influence has nearly always been to the good.
But he quotes Professor G. M. Trevelyan as saying: —
“There is nothing more striking than the inability of the English to stand by their native traditions in art”, and adds as his own comment: —
‘‘ This is perhaps because the English are not given to originating great movements in art or design. They absorb and adapt; but they use their borrowed ideas with such dignity, such restraint and simplicity, that what began as a copy may end as a thing of great original beauty. There is in England an undying impatience of grandiose ideas and effects.”
Nevertheless a strong family resemblance runs through all the work of English craftsmen. It has an individual character and a traditional manner as easily recognised to-day as at any period in the past.
“The character of the wood itself has always appealed to the English craftsman, and although he has used gilding and inlay, he has always made embellishment uncompetitive with the colour and texture of his basic material. The direction of furniture design by the taste of architects never deranged the craftsman’s ability to use to the utmost decorative advantage the natural beauty of wood.”
The perpetual enemies of good design in this country are combined in “That dread English Trinity, Ignorance, Indolence and Individualism” (otherwise described as “Knowing what you like”).
The bad periods of furniture have always occurred when the power of dictation over design has lain with uneducated tradesmen (who knew what they liked). In the past power came to them only when the wealth of the country was in their hands; today it comes in another way: —
“The average retail furnisher, or head of the furniture section of a big department store, is not even passively ignorant of design; he is aggressively ignorant. He says he knows what the public
wants. He knows what he fancies himself and his lack of education and taste obstruct every experiment that furniture manufacturers make — not that they make many”.
“Nearly always, when you go into a factory and talk to the men who are in control of the machines... you discover that those men are much better than the jobs they are doing. There is so much pride in good workmanship that wastes its nobility on unworthy things. Only rarely, when industrial production is directed by a designer, can the output of a woodworking factory be worthy of the peculiar and intensely national gifts of the operatives.”
Abroad, our designers, such as William Morris, have been taken more seriously.
“In Sweden his work was such a source of inspiration that the great contemporary flowering of Sweden’s arts and crafts, which has enabled that talented country to produce such exquisite things in furniture, textiles, metalwork and glass, and to promote such effective partnerships between designers and manufacturers, may be attributed in part to Morris’s influence.”
But “How can good design emerge from a business that is fuddled with finance to such an extent that its power of creating anything has almost departed?”
There is hope for us, however, in the genuine and growing interest in, and study of, design. Possibly we are now on our wav to such a period as that of the second half of the eighteenth century, when the general level of taste had become so high that poor design was intolerable and impossible. The book concludes with some practical advice on buying furniture to-day.
It is excellently illustrated with a number of detailed line drawings to which constant reference is made in the text, and a number of delightful photographic plates of specimens of furniture from different periods.
THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF BETTER DESIGNS IN ENGLISH SHOES
Encouragement is being given to shoe designers by Mr. C. H. Rayne, whose own work in this field has had important results. Under the auspices of the Royal Society of Arts, he is presenting two Gold Medals to be competed for biennially — one for the best design for women’s shoes, one for the best design for men’s shoes. That, in this competition, the emphasis is laid on design and not on the mere artisan work of producing a shoe, is shown in the note that the pullover or finished shoe which has to be submitted need not be the student’s own handiwork.
The notes which are given for the guidance of competitors suggest that “good shoe design means arriving at one of the accepted shoe styles in a new way. Well-designed shoes ought not to have complicated straps, overlays or underlays. In fact, a jig-saw puzzle in pattern cutting is definitely to be avoided. Any straps, etc., should have a logical reason for being on the shoe.” The student is urged to study the special qualities of different objects, so that he may come to realise how effects are obtained by particular associations of lines. “A knowledge of how such effects are produced is often very useful in designing a shoe, as it enables the student to modify or overcome an effect caused by a dimension which may be necessary from a technical standpoint, but is not pleasing from an aesthetic standpoint.”
