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THE BASES OF DESIGN
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THE BASESOF DESIGN
BY WALTER CRANE
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1902
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First Edition, Medium 8vo, 1898.
Second Edition, Crown 8vo, 1902.
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
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TO CHARLES ROWLEY, J.P.CHAIRMAN OF THE MANCHESTERMUNICIPAL SCHOOL OF ART, TOWHOSE ENERGY, SYMPATHY, ANDENTHUSIASM THE SCHOOL, IN ITSNEWER DEVELOPMENT, OWES SOMUCH, AND TO MY FORMER COLLEAGUESOF THE TEACHING STAFF,AS WELL AS TO ALL STUDENTS,I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
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PREFACE
THE substance of the following chapters originallyformed a series of lectures addressedto the students of the Manchester MunicipalSchool of Art during my tenure of the directorshipof Design at that institution.
The field covered is an extensive one, and I amconscious that many branches of my subject areonly touched, whilst others are treated in a veryelementary manner. Every chapter, indeed, mightbe expanded into a volume, under such far-reachingheadings, to give to each section anything likeadequate treatment.
My main object, however, has been to trace thevital veins and nerves of relationship in the artsof design, which, like the sap from the central stem,springing from connected and collective roots, outof a common ground, sustain and unite in oneorganic whole the living tree.
In an age when, owing to the action of certaineconomic causes—the chiefest being commercialcompetition—the tendency is to specialize eachbranch of design, which thus becomes isolated fromthe rest, I feel it is most important to keep in mindthe real fundamental connection and essential unityof art: and though we may, as students and artists,in practice be intent upon gathering the fruit fromthe particular branch we desire to make our own,we should never be insensible to its relation toother branches, its dependence upon the mainstem and the source of its life at the root.viii
Otherwise we are, I think, in danger of becomingmechanical in our work, or too narrowlytechnical, while, as a collective result of suchnarrowness of view, the art of the age, to whicheach individual contributes, shows a want of bothimaginative harmony and technical relation withitself, when unity of effect and purpose is particularlyessential, as in the design and decoration ofboth public and private buildings, not to speak ofthe larger significance of art as the most permanentrecord of the life and ideals of a people.
My illustrations are drawn from many sources,and consist of a large proportion of those originallyused for the lectures, only that instead of therough charcoal sketches done at the time, carefulpen drawings have been made of many of thesubje