bad architecture unfortunately does last. And so our insurance offices and banks, with their

It will, I think, be conceded that ornament is at present in general debased, and is in a confused state. The conscious efforts made by craft societies and schools of design, to raise the quality of artistic work, sufficiently declares this to be so. But while this is true, there are an increasing number of individuals producing admirable work of the highest technical finish, and of original if sometimes eccentric design. There is, however, no living style, or expression of our time, which can be named as a period in the sense in which we speak of the distinctive periods of ornament.

Perhaps I should make a partial exception in favour of what is called L'Art Nouveau. But such modern movements do not appear to have that element of permanence-a central relation of style to architecture-which marks an epoch. On the contrary, there is a sense of feverishness, a constant forcing of the pace in the chase of novelty, so that modern ornament comes to be ranked as fashion rather than style.

Then there is the constant cheapening of original work by commercial copies, till what comes from the hands of the artist rare and beautiful straightway is made common and tedious. Thus the artist hardly dares to give his most delicate thoughts form, lest he should find them shouted in the streets the next day.

Perhaps this must be so, since the sceptre of the arts has passed from architecture. The absence of representative style in architecture, and consequent decline of monumental art, has led to the loosening of control in ornament; and in an age of advertisement and display, has produced that overloading of ornament so evident on all sides. The feeling for proportion and power of decoration has been lost.

Bad painting, bad music, does not last. But

generations.

The result of the absence of a living style is necessarily a confusion of styles. At the present moment buildings in Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance may be seen rising up side by side in any considerable town, and an architect is supposed to be able to supply a In design in any style that may be asked for. earlier times, when art was still an expression of national life, this was not so; from the temple or cathedral to the humblest dwelling style ruled. The craftsman worked in a living style, was, as it were, part of it. Art expressed life in the sense that it was natural, unconscious, like a language the style of the period was the common speech, was the only style. So much was this the case that a building begun in the style of one period was continued in the style of the next. This fact that the same building may exhibit two, three, or more styles, so incomprehensible to us, and impossible in modern work, is explained when we realise that in the periods in which art was a naturali expression, it was unconscious. The builder or craftsman spoke the thing he knew and that only. Hence the disregard for work that was not of their time. Think you the villagers who built the 16th-17th century cottages, set themselves to build beautiful cottages ? They built the only cottages they knew, and they were beautiful because they did not know what was ugly. These same people would probably have thought the modern villa residence much finer.

The bane of decorative art in the present day is its self-consciousness, and the end is reached when it comes to be advertised as a commodity. Formerly you bought the furniture you wanted, and the designs and work were good. Now you have your choice between furniture and art furniture. You now buy your art as something added, something over and above the article.

It is not surprising then, that the power of decoration has been lost. Now objects appear to exist for the purpose of showing off the cleverness of the ornament. The ornament no longer appeals to the faculty for joy, but to the purse and the intellect. Everything seems to be done with effort. It is no longer the caress of the hand or enrichment of imagination, but painful invention. The designer speaks consciously and with difficulty a language that does not come freely to the tongue.

living style, we must rely on education. We must replace tradition and style by education.

Now while much time is spent in our schools of design in training the eye and hand, too little attention has, I think, been given to the training of the mind. For this purpose the historical method appears to be the only one now possible. It does not so much matter what particular style of ornament is taken in the first instance. But the student should, I think, be kept to one style until it has been

ORNAMENTAL PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF DURROW: COLOURS-RED, YELLOW, GREEN, BLACK AND

WHITE.

mastered like a language, that is, until he can think in it. Only thus, I believe, can the power of decoration be developed. It may be doubted whether our museums and schools of design in which we find everywhere a babel of styles, have been, from this point of view, wholly beneficial.

We cannot hope to see again a national style. Art in the future must, I think, be individual, not an expression of national life but of the individual, and in that sense a

luxury. Hence education must aim at excellence and not averages. The average is of no importance, the individual artist is everything.

The following series of slides have been selected with a view of illustrating the line of thought I have endeavoured to put before you. Mr. Coffey then showed a number of examples of late Celtic ornament, chiefly in metal work, selected from specimens from the Danube, Rhine, and north-east of France districts, also from England, Scotland, and Ireland.

He first threw on the screen a map showing the distribution of Celtic sites in the period preceding that which he proposed to deal with, extending across Europe from the Danube to the west coast. About 400 B.C. the Celts burst the barrier of the Alps and overran Italy. In 390 B.C. they took and burnt Rome. Later they plundered Delphi, and in the 3rd century B.C. passed into Asia Minor, where they founded the colony of Galatia which still retained their name. In contact with the Mediterranean civilizations, the meander and anthemion patterns of Greece and Italy had influenced their ornament. The characteristic S-turn, a simplification of the running spiral, dividing the circle into two comma-shaped spaces, appeared early in the Danube area. Uniting with the meander and anthemion it determined the distinctive form of Celtic scroll work. The restraint of Greek ornament was not acceptable to the Celts. Their search for energy and life in the line led to the absorption of the Greek elements of the pattern, and in the west, especially in Britain and Ireland, a stylisation of the forms was effected in which the Greek elements were so completely transformed as to be no longer apparent.

Examples were shown from Hungary, Switzerland, France and Britain, in which the essential unity of the Celtic scroll patterns was demonstrated, ranging from the 4th to 1st century B.C. (Fig. 1.) The examples on the left side of the figure were from a small Celtic cemetery at Aylesford, Kent, and that at the bottom on the other side, part of a sword-sheath from a Celtic site at La Tène, on the Lake of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The figures above the latter illustrate the bossing-up in metal of this characteristic Celtic form, and show how three or more segments can be introduced, leading to the Celtic whorl. We thus saw that a long way from the starting point we found the forms fully developed, and taking the beautiful swinging curves depicted. An interesting point was then made. The S-curve developed as a style in the Celtic lands went out completely under Roman influence. After the Roman occupation of Gaul that style ceased, and did not re-appear in art until we came to Flamboyant Gothic. It seemed that yet again in France, that land of the Celtic mind, in what is called l'Art Nouveau, we found in our own day the same feeling for the curve prevailing.

Another series was then shown, what is known as the Trumpet pattern, so called from the trumpet shape of the leading element. It was traced to the filling in of the turn back and turn forward of the scrolls of the anthemion pattern. Examples of ornaments were shown from Celtic graves in Germany, in which the development of the form could be traced. Numerous examples were then shown of combinedscroll and Trumpet patterns, chiefly in metal, from England, Scotland, and Ireland. The illustrations included a beautiful boss of a shield found in the Thames, the original of which was in the British Museum; a very fine collar found in Roxburghshire, in the National Museum at Edinburgh; a tankard found in Wales, now in the Liverpool Museum; the work on the metal handle of the tankard was exceptionally fine, and strongly resembled late Gothic. It had, indeed, been supposed, for a long time, to be Gothic, but was now recognised as really Celtic, of a preChristian style in these Islands. Some bronze discs from Ireland were then shown, one of which was unfinished, and showed the process of manufacture. A bronze conical-shaped object, in the Petrie collection, Dublin, was also shown. It had been supposed to be a portion of a radiated crown, and had been considered by some authorities the most exquisite relic of the period known. Some sword sheaths from the Co. Antrim were much admired. The engraved ornament on them recalled the earlier form of the style (Fig. 2). Some carvings in stone recently discovered in Ireland were also shown. These latter were the first specimens known in stone of early style. The use of enamel was a feature of the later period of the Celtic style, especially in the West of France, Britain, and Ireland. In the earlier period, from about 400 to 200 B.C., settings of coral were frequent in France, and a few examples had been found in Britain. The coral had been traded to Gaul from the Mediterranean. After about 200 B.C., coral was replaced by enamel, and a remarkable development of that art was found in these islands. Slides were exhibited showing examples of Celtic enamel work from pre-Christian times. The art had continued without break into Christian times, and many beautiful examples were known in which enamels formed an important feature, such as the Ardagh chalice, which might be dated about 900 A.D. The survival of the pre-Christian scroll and Trumpet patterns in the early Christian art of Britain and Ireland was then dealt with. In all ornament there is a tendency, when a form has been developed, and, as we may say, determined, for it to be in time set free and become an element in itself. We saw this in the case of the so called trumpet endsof the pattern. The small pointed oval, which resembled the trumpet mouth, was in metal and became more and more important, as the style became more conventionalised, until it might be said to be, in its later stages, the signature of the style. In the Christian period it was a conspicuous feature. In the illuminated manu

bossed up

scripts it was effectively used as a sprinkling, though always organically worked into the pattern. Fig. 3, a page from the Book of Durrow, in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, dated about 700 A.D., was a good example in point. Examples were shown on the screen from the Gospels of Lindisfarne, the books of Durrow and Kells, the Ardagh Chalice (Fig. 4), &c. By the year 1,000 A.D. the older scroll patterns had become rare, and were finally completely displaced by interlaced patterns.

the design. He did not know whether the author quite clearly showed how, in the Christian period, closely-coiled spirals of the Bronze Age were combined with long sweeping curves of the Late-Celtic period. During the long Celtic period, from 400 B.C. to the time of the departure of the Romans, one got nothing but long sweeping curves; but after that, with Christian ornament, one found closely-coiled spirals which were characteristic of the Bronze Age. So there seemed to be a com

DISCUSSION.

Mr. ROMILLY ALLEN said he was sure everybody present had listened with the greatest possible interest to the extremely lucid explanation of the evolution of Celtic ornament given by the author. Everyone who had studied the subject of those so-called Late-Celtic designs had necessarily been puzzled to understand their origin, and the meaning of those long sweeping curves, curved almond-shaped projections, and so on. They must have originated either from direct copies of nature, or have been the result of successive copies of designs. The number of slides shown by Mr. Coffey put them into such definite order, that one was able to trace from the original spiral and the long sweeping curve, the whole evolution of

bination of the two styles. With regard to the Trawsfynydd tankard of which a slide of the handle was exhibited, that was one of the most curious examples of similarity between the Late-Celtic flamboyant ornament and the Flamboyant ornament of the Gothic period. He was given credit by the author for having discovered that, but he must disclaim the honour, as it belonged to Dr. Arthur Evans, who found that it was a LateCeltic specimen. Previously to that it was described as Gothic. It was now in the Mayer Museum at Liverpool, and was one of the most beautiful and perfect specimens of the kind. The woodwork of the tankard was absolutely perfect, and the bronze covering also, with its handles. He thought it was