by Philip Webb-buildings whose simplicity and dignity stand out alike from the stone and stucco of the earlier part of the century and the cheap villadom of later days. All credit must be given to him and to the younger men who have made an effort to bring a new life and interest into our streetarchitecture. Difficult as it is to make quite a fair estimate of any move- Contrasts. ment near the time in which we ourselves live, one may safely say that out of the experiments and the mistakes of the century some lesson has been learnt, some feeling has arisen for the decorative arts, with some perception of their importance in our daily life. Twenty or thirty years ago, if a woman with educated tastes went into one of the big London silk-mercers', it would have been impossible for her to make a satisfactory choice from among the colours and patterns shown her; she must either have been content with black or white dress-stuffs, or have turned to one of the Oriental houses where fine colours and traditional patterns were still to be found. To-day, she is no longer condemned to be isolated in a desert of ugliness; she can dress well in handsome stuffs and fine colours, and can, by paying highly, have her rooms harmoniously fitted and decorated. But only by paying highly; the "popularising of art” is at present one of those abstract phrases dear to the sentimentalist art cannot be had cheaply, and is as much out of reach of the poor as if it were non-existent. While the newspapers were exhausting their flowers of speech over the Great Exhibition of 1851, a few men here and there, writers and artists, were producing work whose influence has coloured, one way or another, the life and surroundings of the later years of the century. The first volume of Ruskin's "Modern Painters" was published in 1847, the "Seven Lamps of Architecture" (of which one critic said that "Mr. Ruskin had left one lamp out of account, and that was the Lamp of Industry ") in 1849. In his writings, and notably the chapter in the "Stones of Venice" on "The Nature of Gothic "-one of the finest pieces of modern writing existing-Ruskin is the first critic of authority and note in England to draw attention to the fundamental characteristics of Gothic architecture and ornament. It is unnecessary to comment on the influence his treatises on this subject have had on modern work, no less than his pregnant The New tion. Decora Rossetti and the P.-R. B. William and often-repeated comments on the "Lamp of Industry" of the nineteenth century. The names of artists like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox-Brown, Holman Hunt, Edward Burne-Jones, Walter Crane, to mention no others, are associated not merely with picture-painting, but with a movement embracing every side of creative work in art and literature, finding its first and temporary expression in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (p. 408 seq.). The movement developed some ten years later into one involving all the decorative arts, bringing into modern life something of that beauty of detail in costume, in colour and form of decoration and furniture, whose absence had been so if indistinctly, felt during the century. Brotherhood,' as such, had a short life, but the movement that inspired it and the enthusiasm of the young men who formed it gave it much more historical significance than such youthful associations among close friends usually have. The ridicule and somewhat scurrilous abuse that greeted the exhibition of their earliest work have long since given place to admiration and to the serious criticism which is due to serious art. painfully, The Pre-Raphaelite In 1860 the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. began business with the intention of producing everything necessary for house-decoration; materials were to be the best procurable, the work to be done by hand where the process permitted of it, designs to be original and without reference to the prevailing public taste. Furniture, wall-papers, stained glass, painted tiles, woven hangings, tapestry, embroidery, carpets, silk brocades-everything was attempted sooner or later, and with marked success. Both Rossetti and Madox-Brown made at first cartoons for the stained glass, but even then the greater part were designed by Burne-Jones. The furniture in the hands of Philip Webb took the characteristics of his architectural work, in a certain mixture of austerity and elegance which harmonised in all details with the decorative work produced by this group of artists. William Morris's designs for applied ornament (wall-papers, carpets, hangings, etc.) were an entirely new departure. Carefully restrained within the convention prescribed by the different processes for which they were intended, they 1 The P.-R.B. was formed in 1848 by D. G. Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and J. E. Millais, who joined the names of four other friends to their own. manifested a keen sense of the beauty of natural forms and a remarkable power of translating that beauty into inventive and characteristic ornament. Perhaps his most remarkable undertaking has been the Arras tapestry made in the high-warp loom by the same simple process as the famous Gothic hangings of four centuries ago. Apart from the fact that this has been the only permanent production of the kind in England (the Windsor Tapestry Works are no longer in existence), it will probably be held the most notable and enduring decorative work of the century. Influence. The decorative movement whose history has here been Japanese slightly traced has been the principal influence of the latter part of the century, and nearly every production with any claims to distinction shows traces of it more or less defined. The most important influence apart from them has been the introduction of Japanese art consequent upon the breakingup of the feudal empire in 1868, and the dispersal of its treasures of art on the introduction of Western civilisation.1 Before TAPESTRY REPRESENTING SCENE FROM THE "MORTE D'ARTHUR," EXECUTED BY THE WINDSOR, TAPESTRY WORKS, AFTER A DESIGN BY H. A. BONE. (By permission of the Right Hon. Lord Aldenham.) Japanese work was vulgarised (an outcome at once of the modern craving for novelty and of its comparative cheapness) the beautiful colour of this Oriental china, these silken stuffs and glittering embroideries, and the charm of a strange traditional art hanging about them, made such wares-in moderation -a valuable addition to English home-decoration. But their very cheapness and effectiveness became a snare to the amateur decorator. 1 Since that date a "young" movement of decorative art has arisen, whose growth, genuine and hopeful, it would be interesting to follow, were it not excluded by the limitation of the period covered by the present volume. Position in 1885. The success of these decorative movements has not been The universal. The praiseworthy attempts of the manufacturers to improve the decorative quality of their goods by establishing schools of art in connection with their works have been the means of stereotyping traditions out of touch with the modern movement. The tendency is towards reducing everything to a machine-finish. Thus, in china-ware, for example, the attempt to obtain purity of line and smoothness of material overwhelms the boldness of touch essential to good work; a rough piece of Breton pottery is a more pleasant object of daily use than the carefully-painted and elaboratelyfinished productions of our celebrated potteries. Briefly, then, at the close of our period the position of decorative art stood thus: important branches of our manufacture, such as pottery and gold and silver work, seemed to be unaffected by the modern movement. In textiles there was a marked improvement in design, and a wide range of often beautiful colour and texture had been achieved. Decorative metal-work had not yet begun to exist. In furniture the influence of the eighteenth century was perhaps paramount, though conditioned largely by the new style of architecture. As a result the representative English house of 1885 differed completely from the dreary and hopeless residence of 1850. Persian rugs, blue china, and fresh chintzes had taken the place of horsehair and mahogany and moreen curtains; some form of decoration had succeeded to a mere blind contempt of anything outside strict utility. If this attempt resulted very often in calamitous failure, that failure was due to an attempt to make out of cheap material and hurried work what can only exist as the result of wealth and leisure. SUTHER- EDWARDS, Music since the As regards symphonic music, it would scarcely be too much to H. say that its history in England for the last seventy or eighty years has been the history of the Philharmonic Society. This body had been established seven years when, in 1820, the conductorship, previously divided, according to the fashion of the Georgian time, between the "presiding" pianist and the first violin, was Philharentrusted to Spohr. Cherubini had previously, for the sum of monic. £200, furnished the Society with a new symphony and other Era: The |