the first was the influence of other countries. I believe that much may be attributed to Japanese art. We know that the art of China was introduced to Japan a thousand years ago, and we know also how it became assimilated by the Japanese, and so the art of Japan has been (more or less) assimilated by us. One very interesting characteristic we have adopted, if not in the letter, yet in the spirit, is the strong quality which had been so rare in ancient decorative art, that is the quality of sentiment.

May I be allowed for a minute to digress, to to explain what I mean by sentiment? I mean by the term sentiment, not exactly the expression of human emotion, such as is expressed in pictorial art, wherein the option of the designer, which is a human quality, enters into his work, and the suggestion that there is something further than a mere expression of a mathematical conclusion, something not arrived at by a series of forms of equal size displayed at equal intervals, but of unequal forms so placed that the ensemble is satisfactory, conforming to the desire for symmetry and balance.

May I remind you that the straight line and curve form the bases of all pattern, that the straight line treated as a symbol expresses no sentiment, because it is a definite thing. It suggests nothing beyond itself, it has no irregularities, no sense of movement, it is dead, and admits of no question. It depends upon one simple fact that it is straight. Not so the curved line-continue this, and you make a completed figure. No figure can be made with a straight line, it requires a series of straight lines in contact or conjunction to produce a figure, whereas a curve has, within itself, an element of suggestion. Now this is my point, that the arc of a curve is at the discretion of the designer and can be modified and increased to serve the purpose of his decoration. It is not so with the straight line, which is not amenable to any such use, for a straight line expresses death and the curved line, vitality. The field for decoration with straight lines is a very limited one, except by the addition of lines which may form angles, but that of the curve is practically unlimited. Where the two are used in conjunction there is opened out to the designer the whole possibility of change, by which the personality of the designer may be fully manifested. Let us take, for the sake of illustration, two panels, one decorated by patterns arranged in geometrical order, the

spaces between each, and the edges of the panels are equal. That expresses no sentiment, it might continue, like a straight line, ad infinitum, but take another panel of the same proportions, and place upon it a curved line of unequal direction, you will at once open the door for a hundred possibilities of form.

The Japanese has taught us the value of this inequality which we call sentiment-when he describes a synthetic line in his design and refreshes it with a counterpoint of some intense colour, you may ask where does the principle of symmetry enter-where is the satisfaction that the space is perfectly decorated?

How can it satisfy the observer that it is just? Will you please notice that in this Japanese design there is included the same element of proportion as in the classic form, although so differently expressed; as I said before, the one admits of few variations, while the other admits of many. You will see that the area covered by the half tone of the Japanese design is much larger on the one end of the panel than the other, and the counterpoint is so placed that there is a perfect sense of balance. You will observe that the aggregate of displayed half tone is equal to the small condensed

These figures are reduced from rough sketches made by Mr. East at the meeting.

counterpoint, thus establishing a perfect sense of the balance of parts. We might compare it with a pair of scales, in one scale is a weight of iron and in the other a bag of feathers. The bag of feathers must of necessity be larger in bulk although it balances the iron— but the mathematical distribution of ornament may be compared with the weight in the one scale and a piece of metal in the other. The balance being obtained without disproportion of bulk. This decorative arrangement of bulk (that is light and dark) is called by the Chinese Notan," a quality for which we have in English no specific name.

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In this difference of bulk arises the idea of sentiment, a quality that fine art shares with applied art. For a picture so composed that it gives one a sense of unrest in its arrangements of quantities, is not good. In landscape painting this inequality of quantities is accepted almost as a principle, for we seldom see a picture that is satisfactory in its composition that repeats the same forms without variation across the canvas; this element of inequality forms the foundation of the expression of sentiment in decoration.

The artist has the option, like the designer, of choice of all material things; to him is given authority on the whole earth. If he doubts his authority, and with a timid heart takes what comes first to his hand, he exerts no authority of choice. He is permitted to select what he requires from nature that will best serve his purpose. We laugh at a man who deliberately selects wood when iron would be better, or vice versá, therefore we may give to the artist or designer the same freedom of choice. If the artist desires this or that, it is his, he can take it, and in this freedom he must recognise his responsibility. There is no excuse for him to say that what he produces is like nature. That is not enough, the camera will do that; but he has so to use his opportunity that it will become the medium of his own expression of love or praise, or in the case of the designer, if he has not the ability to select those forms which best suit his purpose, be that purpose what it may. Herein lies his responsibility, and herein lies hls pieasure also. I claim that no matter how well a picture tells its story, if it offends this principle of fine composition it is not great, there is no reason why a picture should not be equally true to nature, and yet be so composed that it may be called decorative. I do not quite like this word decorative as applied to fine art, because I think it is generally used

in a wrong sense: fitting contains I think a better meaning. If the artist or craftsman deems a certain quantity of lights and darks, or a certain quantity of colours in conjunction, to be fitting for his purpose, no matter if he be designing a carpet or a landscape, then he may call it decorative, but there is a feeling abroad that the decorative picture should lose something by the fact that that it is decorative. I wish to protest against the acceptance of the word in that sense. I would rather have the one which is conveyed by the word fitting, because then it will be more easily understood that the landscape painter is perfectly within his rights when he selects his trees from nature, which will be the most fitting and suitable for his composition. The result will be, in the best sense of the. term, decorative. There is also the feeling abroad that this quality in some way or other detracts from the qualities we should look for in a fine work of art, such as fine feeling and high sentiment. May I ask you if it is so in the case of Turner and Titian? In the case of Turner, not only is his black and white admirably arranged, but his other colours conform to the same arrangement, and yet we cannot say that they live by the merit of being decorative only.

This sentiment or movement is the predominant quality expressed in modern applied art. The decorative artist is not satisfied by merely covering his surfaces with ornament, but he has created forms that harmonise and support the useful purpose of the article upon which he has placed them. There is no doubt that the materialistic features were unsuitable for decoration; they offended the sense of the fitness of things. We are not, now, pleased to put our slippers upon the recumbent tiger, however peacefully he may be disposed on the woolwork of the rug, the gentle lamb upon the ottoman, which seems so unconcerned by the proximity of the tiger, raises no enthusiasm in our hearts, and we have condemned them to. the limbo they deserved, there was an attempted revival of bad taste a short time ago in the way of painted stools and iron pots, and long drain pipes for umbrella stands, but they have succumbed to sensible and rational things; if in this new art it becomes extravagant or outré, these extravagances will disappear before the common sense requirements of a useful purpose. A chair is beautiful when it is constructed on fine lines, but, if, in its construction, it loses its useful purpose, it cannot be considered beautiful. The

and there is no reason why they should lose one jot or tittle of these qualities which we have hitherto considered as fine art. As I have said before, the fitness of things is a quality which ennobles a work of art, and no picture, no matter with what technical skill it be painted, and no matter how well it may tell the story it seeks to illustrate, if it is not fine in composi tion, with a perfect expression of balance of parts, it cannot be a great work. Many of our younger painters are satisfied with painting a "bit" from nature on an extravagant scale, and no matter how large, it still remains a "bit" and not a completed thing. It is as useless to expect to find a ready-made composition for a noble landscape in nature as it is to expect to find the pattern for an iron stove. Man must come in with his undoubted authority, and take from nature what he wants for his purpose, and mould it to his use, be it a design for a wall paper or a picture, and all that which suits the purpose of his intention, and I should make this answer if any one asked me how am I to know a good design from a bad one. I should reply that all good design assists the purpose of the article upon which it is placed, and bad design spoils that purpose.

DISCUSSION.

The CHAIRMAN said that he felt himself very generally in agreement with Mr. East's interesting and suggestive paper, but he might be allowed to offer one or two criticisms from his point of view. In the first place, Mr. East seemed to fall a little foul of the definitions of "fine art" and "applied art." These always appeared to him (the Chairman) to be unsatisfactory. Still, he must not say much as applied art was the very title of this section of the Society. But applied art always suggested to him a postage stamp moistened and stuck on to something else. Of course all art was applied. The real difference between one kind of art and another was the way in which they were conditioned. All art was conditioned in some way. Even the painter at the easel was conditioned by the size of his canvas, and by his colour-scheme, and, of course, by his subject. This seemed to point to the necessity of a rather more subtle classification. The term applied art was not sufficient to cover the immense varieties. He would not presume to offer fresh terms, but persuaded as he was of the essential unity of all art, he strongly objected to the present definitions. It seemed to him that the decorative side must come in some way into all forms of art. It might be called the euphony of art. It was connected with the power of expressing what an artist had to say, and it would be called euphony

in literature. Art must be put in some pleasant form or no one would look at it, and it could hardly avoid being decorative. The very finest art was strictly decorative. Mr. East spoke of the designers of textiles and wall-papers, as being very free, but he (the Chairman) did not feel that they could quite career along the wall as they liked. They were, after all, controlled by what might be called structural conditions. The proportions or appearance of a wall could be made or marred by a pattern, and the designer could not disregard considerations of construction. This, he thought, held true throughout the whole region of decorative art. He was glad to hear Mr. East say that he thought that our conventions had been derived from the best of ancient time, but he wished that he could himself think so. Mr. East had said that the straight line did not convey sentiment, but it appeared to him (the Chairman) on looking at the massive simplicity of the structures of ancient Egypt and Greece, principally composed of verticals and horizontals, that they conveyed the sentiment of repose and stability; and the mural decorations of the Egyptians, arranged in horizontal lines, accentuated this, and conveyed a sentiment of mystery, apart from their representations of daily life which, of course, were full of variety and interest, and were, in fact, pictured stories. Mr. East had effectively pointed to the measured balance of symmetric art represented by the Greeks, but here again there were more or less structural necessities. The ornament of the ancient Greeks was really the human figure. It was a living and vital ornament which expressed their ideas, and he believed that they intentionally kept the architectural framework moulding very forma and restricted and measured for the same reason that a modern artist would object to the frame of his picture being of such a character as to take the interest away from the picture. Mr. East had spoken of freedom in art. Well, of course, there was a difference between freedom and licence. In ages when there was a loss of faith and a general break up of traditions, of course the balance was apt to be lost, but he thought that it was not so much liberty as licence that was indulged in at this time. Real freedom seemed to be rather represented by a state of growth in art such as was found in the middle ages, when there was a sound tradition of structure and design going on. This tradition by no means enslaved individuals, and artists designed quite freely, without feeling any restriction from the style of their time, just as a writer nowadays could write freely without bursting beyond the bounds of grammar and the ordinary understanding of our speech. Without disallowing the element of sentiment in design, he would suggest that design looked at as a whole was divided into formal and informal, and that both had their proper means of expression. Where a thing was absolutely measured and scientifically exact, it failed to convey any human sentiment. The great point of course in all art was selection, He did not know how the idea

got abroad that decorative art was necessarily less naturalistic than any other, but of course the mind of each period required a new interpretation of nature, and saw nature through certain spectacles, the colour of those spectacles being gained from all sorts of curious subtle sources. He believed that every age would continue to require that re-interpretation. But still as regarded decorative art, he believed that it was merely a difference of selection. The designer of a floral pattern might be able to embody in his design quite as many facts of nature as the pictorial artist who gave the effect of light and relief. It was very interesting to have Mr. East's opinion upon the design of the motor car. To his (the Chairman's) mind all the forms which he had seen, left much to be desired. As to the suspension bridge, he thought that he had become convinced by this time that there was a proper attachment. The power of association was, after all, everything with regard to these things, and that was the great difficulty in the way of introducing anything new and convincing people that it was all right. He supposed that in time people in towns would get to admire the style of architecture that was now prevalent. The magnificent plate-glass upon which apparently rested the whole of the structure above, might in time strike people as being very fine. He did not want to live to see that day.

Sir GEORGE BIRDWOOD, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., said he was in no way entitled to say whether he agreed or not with the views put forward by Mr. Alfred East. He had, however, been charmed with Mr. East's paper as a great intellectual treat, for it dealt with a quite original text, and was impressive by reason of the earnestness with which Mr. East had supported its thesis, and, so far at least, it seemed to him convincing. He entirely agreed with what their distinguished Chairman had said regarding the arbitrary definition of the terms used in art. They were but rule of thumb definitions, and as such they were absolutely necessary, but they had little philosophical basis, and should not be used for the purpose of drawing any hard and fast lines between "the fine arts," so called, and the so called "applied arts." It was very remarkable how many words expressive of all kinds of energy were radically one with the word art. They all go back to an Aryan root, ar or er, signifying "to move," "propel," "lift up," "arise," "grow," "join," "fit together," achieve," "excel" :- the first historical derivatives of which are the Sanskrit arnoti, "lifts up," "succeeds,” aretram, “an oar," "a rudder" ["i.e. scull"], aranyas a growing" wood, arya "a plougher," aryas, "worthy," "true," "friendly," and the Old Persian areta "high," excellent,' virtuous," and ratu "law," "order," [and "rates" and taxes!]. Branching away from these off-shoots we have: A, through areta, such words as the Greek ornis "a bird," arotron a plough," eretmos "an oar"; the Latin "origo" a start, the beginning, "oriens" rising, “arum the Lord and

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Lady lily, "arundo" a reed, "alere" to nourish, make grow, "arare" to plough, &c.; and the English to ear, e., to plough, earth, earnest errand, April ["aperire"], row, rudder, rullock, &c.: and B, through arya, such words as the Greek Ares, the "brave" God of Arms, armozo "I construct armos masonry "construction," harmonia " a fastening," "harmony"; the Latin "ars" art, "iners" inert, "sollertia" skill, "arma" arms, "ratio" proportion; and the English artist, artisan, artillery, armada, aumbey, aristocracy, arithmetic, artery, rhyme, &c. The very etymology of the word art therefore indicates that it was a common term for all the arts, the theoretical and practical, and the fine and applied, and the mechanical: -of which Cicero has told us [Oratio pro Archia I.] that they all have a common origin, and that each one in itself contains every other. The word art is indeed a common term for all the energies of nature engaged in the evolution of cosmical order and beauty, whether operating through the laws, i.e., the properties, of the so-called elements of chemistry, or the genius of statesmen, conquerors, poets, painters, and sculptors, or the grace, and good works of godly men and women. The word encompasses, and is encompassed by, and interpenetrates, and is interpenetrated by, all such words as theos, "deus," "numen " [Pliny II., 1, 1], divinity, divine, &c. and in its highest significance refers directly to, and is identical with, the self-existent, self-contained, creative force [the principle of movement, "causa efficiens "] in which the universal frame [matter and form] of Nature has its eternal being. Aristotle, illustrating the four kinds of causes, observes, “in a house the principle of movement is the art of the architect, the matter the stones and cement, the form the plan, and its final cause [to agathon, "goodness," "nobility"] the serviceability of the work." Cicero says of Nature, "non artificiosa solum, sed plane Artifex.” Dante refers to the Deity under the beautiful epithet of the "Eternal Gardener" ortolano eterno. Nature is not only clothed in beauty, but her very head spring and source is the divine instinct for order and beauty. In theological language:- -"the whole

:

The word element is also generally derived from the root ar or er, like the word aliment. But the Romans really made it up of the three letters of the alphabet, 1, m, and n [el-emen (fum)], and they used the word for the alphabet; the word alphabet being a Low Latin formation from the Greek names of the two first letters of the alphabet. The elements are the abecedary, or rather the syllabary-" the mysterious 'A O,'" "Alpha and Omega," of creation. The Romans drew on any land they had to survey two transverse lines ["crux decussata "] along which they traced the letters employed by them as numerals ["numerorum notæ,""n: signi"] in casting up its area and circumference. This is the origin of the archaiac Christian" Ceremony of the Alphat,"te still observed in the Catholic Roman Church; that is, the tracing of the alphabet. from alpha to omega, in the figure of a St. Andrew's Cross, on any land solemnly dedicated to the service of Christ: and this ecclesiastical rite is the explanation of the phrase "Criss-Cross-Row" or "CrossRow" applied to the alphabet. See Donne's Polyderen.