ART IN THE HOME.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1734, 26 April 1913, Page 11

ART IN THE HOME.

SIMPLICITY .THE EETNOTE. At' the Architectural League exhibition in. New York this year there are more cf the by-products of household, arts even than'm 1912 (states a writer in the Now York "Evening Post")- These numerous things emphasise, tho demand for the individual product. It is not only the shell of the house which must be distinctive, but everything in it, from the wall decorations, which may bo painted on—and often ore—by a successful painter, to .the book plates in the library and the sculptured book-ends standing on the reading table. This last is a form of decoration which has attracted a number of clever young sculptors, both men and women. The' making of individual pieces of pottery has become a well-defined industry also. As Miss Penman, whoso jars mako a considerable showing at the exhibition, explained:'"Each has to be just one of its kind, for as soon as you get too many- helpers and duplicate there is less publio interest in your 1 work. Human nature is always like that: the things one can get easily are not wanted." This desire for individuality has made it possible for numbers of small studios to exist where, two or three women do their own designing, moulding, and firing. To Meet a Definite Need. Delight in a few appropriate things is the mark by which the cultured and aesthetic housewife of to-day knows hereolf. She must not havo too much, but she may have inexpensive things so long as they are exactly fitted to the need of the corner where they are to stand. Line and colour, with restraint in their expression, she takes as' the essentials; but chaste simplicity sets her apart from the woman of a too catholic taste and of a too riotous yielding thereto. Each vase or bowl or jardiniere should be of the exact shape to meet a definite l need, and tho soft thumb marks showing that it is made without the potter's wheel are an added charm. Colour is the essential, of course, not crude blues and greens which are'definitely one thing or the other, but as the enthusiastic potter puts it, "a perfect blue with a glaze to catch the lights in sombre corners ar.d reflect back greens or violets, or a mellow thing of bronze or dull gold that suddenly shows lurking purples like the leaves of . a velvety brown pansy' or of an iris." Taste In House-furnishing.. . ■This is the era of the single piece of work and of the hand-made product. *'It is also the era of perfect adaptation of the thought to a concrete form, says the designer; and, in spite of much jargon and dilettante following" afted*. fads, - that it would seem should be a good thing. Connoisseurs can 1 show you how, by a slow spiral, household taste mounts up from

the department store bargain, counter through costliness to .simplicity. The .iconoclasm which painted the mahogany highboys or our unoesiors to match the pink or green bedroom sets of last century, and. used hand-woven blue-and-white bedspreads for ironingrbcard covers, has at last bscomo a thing of the past. Many- a beautiful thing has been sold or destroyed along this, pathway of taste, but the reaction haslet in so hard at last: that every old sampler is being dragged from its hiding jjlace, and even hana-illumination of choice bits of poems has beoome aii art again.

Squeezed Out by Motors and'Bridgo. Strangely enough, the same moralising tendency which coerced little early Victorian girls into embroidering warnings against heir and tho judgment, interwreathed with flowers and cupids, is ».n all-pervasivo habit of mind, and crops out injthe embellishment of verses which have found a new mode of treatment at the present day. At tho studio where several women, artist-craftsmen make art pottery, * woman jeweller explaiaed that tho <'emand for the hand-mado product in metal work was also increasing. "Is it true,'' the potters were asked, "that the general overwhelming interest of women in civic betterment ana suffrage, and in social work generally, has led them so far afield that their aesthetic interests have awfferei?" With one voice they all declared that only upon tho surface was this true. Underneath, the aesthetic interest is only slumbering; and will awake. "It is the automobile which really handicaps art," said one; "tho automobile and bridge. These two interests get so initense that many people don't seem to care for anything else for a time. Of course automobiles are also taking the money from every other pursuit just at present. But people will always come back to art eventually, and in the mcantimo tho general level of good taste is higher than it ever was."

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