WORKS BY WALTER CRANE
THE BASES OF DESIGN. With 200 Illustrations, manydrawn by the author. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. net.
LINE AND FORM. A Series of Lectures delivered at theMunicipal School of Art, Manchester. With 157 Illustrations.Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. net.
THE DECORATIVE ILLUSTRATION OF BOOKS, OLDAND NEW. With 165 Illustrations. Fourth Edition.Crown 8vo, 6s. net.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
IDEALS IN ART
IDEALS·IN·ART:
PAPERS·THEORETICAL·PRACTICAL·CRITICAL·
BY·WALTER·CRANE·Author·of·“Line&Form”.Et
LONDON:GEORGE·BELL·&·SONS:1905
v
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
vi
PREFACE
The collected papers which form this bookhave been written at different times, andin the intervals of other work. Most of themwere specially addressed to, and read beforethe Art Workers’ Guild, as contributions tothe discussion of the various subjects they dealwith; so that they may be described as thepapers of a worker in design addressed mainlyto art workers. They are not, however, whollyor narrowly technical, and the point of viewfrequently bears upon the general relation ofart to life.
Some of the papers were delivered as lecturesto larger audiences, and others have appearedas articles, mostly in journals devoted to art.
Of the former, the one upon the Arts andCrafts movement was prepared for and read asone of a series of lectures given during a recentexhibition of the Arts and Crafts ExhibitionSociety, and is now for the first time printedin its entirety.
The “Thoughts on House-Decoration” wasread before the convention of the NationalAssociation of Master Painters and Decoratorsrecently held at Leicester.
vii“The Influence of Modern Social and EconomicConditions on the Sense of Beauty” wasthe substance of an address at the opening ofa debate on that question at a meeting of thePioneer Club.
The paper on “The Progress of Taste inDress” was written for “The Healthy andArtistic Dress Union,” and appeared in theirjournal “Aglaia.” The article on Mr. Chesterton’sbook appeared in “The Speaker”; thaton “The Teaching of Art” in “The ArtJournal.”
The notes on “Gesso” work appeared in anearly number of “The Studio,” and I have tothank the editor, Mr. Charles Holme, for kindlyallowing me to reprint it here, and also for theloan of the blocks used for the illustrations,both for this and others of the papers.
My best thanks are also due to Mr. ErnestGimson for the loan of photographs of his cottageat Stoneywell; to the Earl of Pembrokefor enabling me to obtain those of the doublecube room at Wilton; to Mr. Charles Rowley,and Mr. Charles W. Gamble of the MunicipalSchool of Technology, Manchester, for photographsof the Madox Brown frescoes; toMr. Augustus Spenser and Mr. FitzRoy, thePrincipal and the Registrar of the Royal Collegeof Art, for their help in obtaining for methe examples of the work of the students given;and to Mr. Arthur P. Monger for the carehe took in photographing them; al