The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-04-11

is the sign of fraud. If the designs
are bad the work will be bad. What
is needed now is to bring the artist
and the craftsman together. AS the
Greek potter taught the sculptor, SO
shall the perfection of workman
ship instruct the artist of to-day, if
he only be true to himself and fur
nish designs of beauty. Decorative
workmen must be sought out, and
the virtue Of a workman is his
power of design, which is the accu-
mulated result Of long habit and de-
lighted observation. Surround your
workman with beautiful things.
The purely imaginative artist may
be able to call up lovely images
from his INNER consciousness, but
the craftsman works after nature.
In order that art shall live and
grow, the craftsman must be sur
rounded by beautiful objects, and in
q beautiful passage Mr.. Wilde de-
scribed the surroundings of the
artists of Pisa in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Such wealth
of color, beauty of form and design,
as were seen on every side, formed
a true school of art and design. Men
had before them always beautiful
objects. Our modern cities are full
of commonplace. The inartistic
style of the architecture and the
sombre dress of the people afford
neither form nor color. Not that
it is necessary that we should build
another city like Pisa; we can do
with art based upon the inventions
Of the nineteenth century. We
reverence machinery when it re-
lieves men by doing their work.
True, there is little ornament in ma
chinery, per Sc there is no beauty in
cast iron, no poetry in the steam en-
CINE. The value of the telephone is
The value of what two people have
to say. 1t is only noble, if nObly
used. If one only shouts scandal
into the tube and the other whiS-
perS folly to a wire, civilization is
not immeasurably benefited.
AS an illustration of the byways
into which the cultivator of art
strays, the lecturer said that one of
the first things he saw in
America. and which has followed
him with tragic persistence, was a
young lady painting moonlight
scene on soup plate, and another
young lady painting sunset on a
dinner plate. There can be no OBJ
lection to painting sunsets or moon
lights, but don't let US eat our can
vassbacks on mOOnlight,nor send our
sunsets down to the kitchen to be
scrubbed by sculliOn.
This brought the lecturer to ex-
plain the different purposes held by
the landscape painter and the decor
ator. The former StrOye to give to
a piece of flat canvass the appear
ance of light and Shaoe, form, color,
distance and life; In fact, to with
draw wholly from notice the simple
flat surface and original material.
On the other hand. the decorator
strove to draw out the beauties of
the original material by ornamental
ton. This movement in England,
of which so much has been said, is
to place the poor in q way to create
more beautiful things. The rich can
have them for their money: the poor
must create them. Here in America
we can create. We have the sur
roundings. We have the clear air,
the magnificent features of nature,
mountains, rivers, lakes, forests. We
care nothing for gods, and we are
right; we care nothing for kings, and
I dare say we are right. What we
have with US here in America can
be expressed by the magic of our
hands and the music of our lips, and
can be gloriously shown to Others.
Nature has been lavish; let art be
active. Art will do more than make
our lives joyous and beautiful. 1t
will become part of some new his
tory Of the world, and part Of the
brotherhood of man. Art, by ere
ating common intellectual atmOs-
phere, will make men such true
brothers that they viii no longer go
forth to Stay each other at the be-
hest of a monarch or any other
ruler. The good we get from art is
not what we derive directly, but
what improvement is made in US by
being accustomed to the sight OF all
comely and gracious things. Its in
fuence on children is cOnsummate.
The beauty of form and color Will
find their way to the child's heart,
and will produce noble and viz
tuOus conceptions. Give them no
record Of bloody Slaughters and bar
barous travis, as they call history,
or of the latitude and longitude OF
places which nobody cares to visit,
as they call geography; but give
them true art. In closing, the lee
turer spoke of the wealth OF this
country in materials for the study
Of art and, aud said: "Let there be
no flower in your meadows that
does not wreathe its tendrils around
your pillars; no little leaf in your
Titan forests that does not lend its
form to design; no curviDg spray
thar does not live forever III carven
arch or window of marble; no bird
il YOUR air that is not given the
irredescent wonder Of its color, the
exquisite curves of its flight, to
make more precious the precious
ness of simple adOrnment; for the
voices that have their dwelling in
80 o,,d mountain are NOT the chosen