Decoration & Crafts Essays
“If today’s arts love the machine, technology and organization, if they aspire to precision and reject anything vague and dreamy, this implies an instinctive repudiation of chaos and a longing to find the form appropriate to our times.” — Oskar Schlemmer Through the history of art, Two important art movement influences almost everything in our…
The Textile Collection has recieved as a gift from Miss Louise M. Nathurst seventy-four THE Textile Collection has received as a gift pieces of Italian towels, some of them dating, possibly, from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. These towels are of white linen loosely twisted and woven in diaper patterns with many plain and ornamental…
The simultaneous stage setting of the Middle Ages, with its freedom in regard to the number and situation of scenes, which was in vogue in Paris in the early years of the seventeenth century, was in direct opposition to the rule of the unity of place. The Middle Ages and classicism were at swords’ points….
La Mesnardibre, as late as 1640, is still advocating the old system which had come down from the Middle Ages, for, as he says, since the stage generally represents a whole city, often a small country, and sometimes a house, it must show as many scenes as it marks different places. It must not present…
Tive and therefore charming small canvas by D. W. Try on, “Evening—Septem ber”; J. Francis Murphy shows a small work delightfully interpretative entitled “Showery Day”; J. Alden Weir is seen at his best in “Autumn,” and William Lathrop in “A Stretch of Salt Marsh land.” Emil Carlsen’s “Wood Interior” has decorative quality aside from pro…
The decoration of walls and lloors was used to structure thr spare in Hellenistic houses, by means of hierarchies which would have been easily tradable by a contemporary observer, but which need to be elucidated before we can understand their workings. I shall propose possible structures for these hierarchies in the design of mosaics and…
The identification of possible hierarchies in wall painting is rather more speculative, as wall plaster tends to survive in poor condition, if at all. The houses on Delos were built in stone, and the walls are often preserved to a considerable height with the plaster still attached. However, the excavators’ reconstructions above frieze level usually…
The splendiferous monument Borobudur which stands surrounded by volcanoes in the middle of the Kedu plain in central Java is indubitably one of the noblest buildings to have sprung from the Buddhist faith and is one of the world’s finest religious founda tions. It stands to convey an extraordinary impression of the ultimate tranquility which…
“Art” and “craft” arc two contrasting kinds of aesthetic, work orga- nization, and work ideology, differing in their emphases on the stan- dards of utility, virtuoso skill, and beauty. Activities organized as craft can become art when members of established art worlds take over their media, techniques, and organizations. Conversely, through in- creased academicism or…
As a work ideology, an aesthetic, and a form of work organization, craft can and does exist independent of art worlds, their practitioners, and their defini tions. In the pure folk definition, a craft consists of a body of knowledge and skill which can be used to produce useful objects: dishes one can eat from,…
Another typical sequence of change occurs when members of an established world already generally defined as “art,” people involved in the typical ac tivities and ideologies of a contemporary art world, invade (and the military metaphor is appropriate) an established craft world and especially its art segment. The sequence begins when some fine artists look…
Bamboo crafts of the northeastern region of India have developed over centuries to reach a high level of structural and aesthetic sophistication. This is amply illustrated by the vast range of products currently being made and used by several tribes living in this region. A study of these products reveals a vast repertory of forms,…
A glance at the decadence of any decorative art is apt to engender a feeling of regret.
In some instances its secret has died out with the last of the traditional workers; in others it has been crowded but by new requirements and tastes. The exquisite iron work of the Renaissance period is no longer produced, for who would pay the cost of such elaboration, or what modern forger at the anvil could be found equal to the task of producing those delicate tendrils and leaves and exquisite interlacings.
The art of enameling has been revived by the demand for it in jewelry, but in former times there were methods and processes that mod- ern practice does not approach, and which involve buried secrets. The Spaniards of old prod used de- scriptions of light fictile ware scintellating with colored light and which varied w|th every change of position, specimens of which now exceed in value their weight in gold because rarely obtainable.
The last report of the U. S. Consul at Barcelona gives evidence of the painted, glazed and enameled tile industry, ancient samples of which awaken modern admiration, and which were scattered as far as the Philippine Islands. With their wonderful arabesques, they were a heritage from the Arabs. Simii* larly, the Spanish embossed leather hangings can no longer be approached. In an old Spanish book describing ihe process of making them, the writer declares the process to be so difficult that he hud never met with a workman absolutely faultless in his productions.
These were citirs (lores of Cardova and Seville, gilded leather stamped and painted, and which were used as hangings as well as for upholstery coverings. No modern skill can approach the excellence of antique~speci mens. Lo, too, with Venetian glass and silk embroideries. But why further enumerate. If old arts die, new requirements evolve others in their place. No preceding century approached the pre sent in beauty and variety of decorative enrichments. If we have lost some secrets, we have recovered others, and th.e spirit of inventiveness is ever at work.
