River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1889-05-02
DECORATIVE ART.
Great AII-Around Progress Made During
the Past Twenty-Five Years.

Great AII-Around Progress Made During
the Past Twenty-Five Years.
Art that is essentially decorative has
a natural analogy with essentially Tyr
zeal poetry. 4 form of versifcation
once chosen, the necessary conditions
of meter and rhyme become to the
poet, as the qualities Of his material
to the artist opportunities, not re-
strictions; not only opportunities for
beauty Of meter and rhyme, but for an
emphasis on the utterance of his
thought not attainable outside that
form of verse. lie is no poet who finds
rhyme and meter hamper his imagin-
alton, nor is he who is not inspired by
the conditions of his material a deco
rator. From the exalted position as
sumed to-day by realistic painting,
decorative art seems to run some risk
of being shouldered into an altogether
secondary and insignificant place. 1t
can only be saved by its material, as
poetry by its lyrical qualities from the
assumptions of realistic prose. We
must sing, and have fresh words to
sing; and as a song may touch our
hearts as nearly as a novel, we shall
not care to think of it as on a lower
artistic level than the stories we get
from the circulating library. Less
deliberately initiative Of the details of
reality it will certainly be, but there
is room in it for as much of art, and
perhaps, in a more highly-distilled
form, for as much of nature too And
so with the adornment of our rooms
and the windows that we fill with color
in our churches: we should not, if we
can help it, wish th2t, though different
from, they should be Intellectually be-
meath. the pictures that we pay shill-
ings to look at now and then. Art,
then, can express itself not only in the
completely flexible media that admit
the so-called realism of representation,
but in materials that impose their own
limits. In art as in life, there is no.
bility in, and compensation for. self-re-
straint as well as for the wise acznowl-
edgment of external restraining neces-
sites. The actor for instance, who
reveals too soon the whole compass
of his emotional resources has lost his
hold over US, tire really impressive
man showing us that only at the cul-
minating instant-perhaps not the
whole of it even then. Many human
interests cling close to the productions
of the decorative arts of the home and
fireside, which enshrine memories of
happiness or sorrow, crafty innocent
vanities, recall pleasant Inequalities,
and tecm with homely everyday assoc
Citations. u is to their advantage, "a
well as to their possessOrs', if, beyond
this. the art in them is Of Il vital and
clear-speaking nature that is intelligi-
BILE, not only after death, as it were, TO
the connoisseuf VIII entombs them in
a collection, but during their lifetime
to the people who possess and live with
them. In this direction we have made
great all-round progress in the last
twenty-five years, having struggled
pretty clear OF the worst period Of dec
Grafton that ever existed. A comparison
of the furniture. curtains carpets, and
the like in general use now with
those Of a quarter Of century ago has
been too often made to need repeti-
ton here, but one vital point in the
change is well worth noting. People
not only use better colors than they
did, and more graceful furniture. but
they appreciate them, taking real
pleasure in the soft cOlors of their
curtains and dress materials. The
artistic reviv@i has run its course,
gained its nickname. been taken up by
society. satirized and dropped; bat the
preference for delicate color over
crude survives it and remains a per-
manent possession. Not now, in the
most out-of-the- way country place. do
the least sophisticated natives walk TO
church clad in those CHASTITY anilins
colors that once shocked the land
scape. abashing the sober tints Of
nature. Contemporary Review.