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Mr. LEWIS DAY said that he must protest against the Chairman's protest against the use of the term "applied art." He was sorry that he should give the weight of his authority to the common idea that applied art was "something like sticking on a postage stamp." It was true that art was one; but art manifested itself in very different ways, and, as Sir George Birdwood had said, we must have something like working definitions; we must have terms to distinguish between the graphic art of the man intent on presenting a portrait or a record, and the art of the man who was decorating something. Though art might be one, different artists looked at it from different points of view. Referring to Mr. East's paper, Mr. Day said that he seemed to be under the impression that he was saying something rather revolutionary about decorative art; but really he had enunciated the most respectable sentiment, and had said nothing even a bigoted ornamentist like himself could find fault with. He was delighted to hear him say that to urge that a thing was like nature was no excuse. He thought that a great deal of the unsatisfactoriness of art arose out of artists supposing that when they had made a thing like nature the trick was done. He agreed with what the Chairman had said in referring to the straight line. The straight line did express something, repose and strength, and so forth. Mr. East had seemed to fall into the old fallacy about "The line of beauty." The longer he lived the more he saw what pernicious nonsense that theory was-the advocacy of Hogarth notwithstanding. Straight lines had an enormous value in decoration. He thought that the Greek ornament had more to recommend it than the sketchy ornament of the Japanese. The Greeks knew what they were about when they drew the old key pattern. Perhaps people got sick of that pattern, but he believed that they got much more sick of the modern squirm. The mathematical distribution of design of which Mr. East spoke was not mathematical in the sense that it was done mathematically. The man who worked on formal lines did not necessarily start mathematically, but he fell into symmetrical lines. Mr. East had spoken about modern art, and our freedom nowadays from trammels; but he (Mr. Day) did not think that we needed to be very proud about that freedom. He believed that the trammels helped the men of old to do the good work they did. We had greater freedomfreedom to go wrong-and we went wrong. We had

• See Henry Vaughan's hymn, "Etenim res Creata."

no standard, and there was the pity of it. As to the modern artist's freedom to express their own opinions, how many of them had any opinion to express ?

Mr. HUGH STANNUS said that he had listened to Mr. East with great interest. When Mr. East was enunciating his principles, he was carried back in his mind to something like twenty-five or thirty years ago, when he began lecturing on this subject, and when he spoke very much as Mr. East had been speaking this evening. Mr. East had spoken about lines, but he had omitted what was far more important than the line, and that was the attitude of the line. The Chairman dealt admirably with that subject in a series of articles in one of the illustrated papers in which he showed that the attitude of the line was of the greatest importance; and any judgment would be certainly incomplete without considering whether the line was vertical or horizontal or oblique. He did not altogether like Mr. East's distinction between fine art and applied art. Applied art was fine art, and the finest art in the world was applied to the Parthenon. He would prefer to use the two terms "applied art" and "movable art." Art applied to a building was applied art, but the art which was painted on a canvas which could be hung in different places was movable art. The same consideration applied to a piece of sculpture. The movability must naturally detract from the highest nature of that art. It was, he thought, much better to speak of applied art and movable art. He was reminded of a saying of Ruskin that the greatest art was that which was done for its place in its place. He also felt that they had been agreeing all through the paper, only he would wish to alter some of Mr. East's definitions. He had spoken of Symmetry and he had referred to Japanese design, but he (Mr. Stannus) would suggest that that was not an example of Symmetry, but rather an example of Balance. He did not like Mr. East's expression about supporting the character" of an object. He took it that what was meant, was that the decoration had to "suggest the use" of the thing to which it was applied and that that would be a better expression than "supporting the character." The decoration might co-exist with the use either congruously on incongruously, or neutrally. He might take for his example the splash-cloth which was put behind a washstand to protect the wall. If the picture on the splash-cloth had anything to do with water there would be a certain congruity about it, but if it had anything to do with birds in a nest, the design would be incongrous. And, so it would be, if it represented kittens. He remembered that some years ago, there was a great run on kittens. They had them on everything. For instance, one would be painted on a coal-scuttle. Decoration should further be congruous with the material and not disguise it, and it should be arranged so that when the article had to be repaired the decoration would not have to be pulled to pieces. He did not agree with the

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manner in which Mr. East spoke of festoons. He (Mr. Stannus) had tabooed festoons because they were such an easy expedient for hiding one's want of thought, but in the old days, the festoons in the temple had a symbolic value. The symbolism of one age became, no doubt, the stock in trade of the next, but whenever we saw symbolism we ought not necessarily to decry it. He thought that the corrective for the swinging of the pendulum in art first towards one craze and then towards another would be the establishment of small well-administered museums which would refuse to receive anything that had not teaching in it. To his mind the great value of Mr. East's paper was the delightful freshness with which he had approached the subject from the pictorial standpoint or the standpoint of the picture maker.

Mr. ALFRED EAST, in reply, said he was not aware that the principles he had enunciated in his paper had been discussed before, and he was interested to learn, on Mr. Stannus's assurance, that something had been done in that direction so long ago. He said that Mr. Stannus touched upon rather dangerous ground when he complained that a picture was degraded on account of its movability. His reply to that remark was that a picture was painted for a man and not for a room, just as a book was written for a man to be read by a man, and not merely to have a place in a library. He could not agree with him in supporting the imitation of flowers and fruit in festoons in marble. He preferred that such representations should be connected with the right thing or not used at all. He objected on broad lines that imitation was not art no matter whether it had the respectability of age or not. The artists of to-day ought to have the courage of their opinions, and when they saw the wretched and miserable designs of the past they ought to have the courage to say what they thought about them. Sir George Birdwood had referred to Japanese art. He (Mr. East) had not said a word in its praise, and on the other hand he did not condemn it. He only spoke of its influence upon English art. That was the only aspect of Japanese art with which he was concerned nowJapanese art was as conventional in its own country as English art was here. The so-called Greek key pattern was used in Japan as much as in Greece. The geometrical order of design in Japan was more common than what might be called the emotional order. He thought that it was quite possible that it might have been a spontaneous suggestion, as many of the orders of decoration were throughout the world. They were not to be traced to any particular influence, but had been evolved independently in their several countries. He protested against the assumption that painters were not designers. Those things which imitated nature, such as the festoons of marble which had been so much admired, did not come into the category of art at all. As far as art was concerned, man would be helpless

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without nature, and nature would be helpless without man. He was not there to say one word against decorative art. He thought that all art was one; personally speaking, he had much interest in decorative art. He thought that all art was "fine." It was only a matter of degree. He wanted to say a few words with regard to Mr. Day's remarks. He thought there was some misunderstanding as to what he meant by a line or a figure altogether dissociated with solidity. They could not let the designers have it all their own way. There was a point which the designer might take to heart, and that was the emotion or the sentiment expressed by a certain conjunction of certain areas, or rather, the emotion or sentiment expressed by colour of certain areas in conjunction. He took it that colour in certain areas in conjunction could express an emotion. The main thought which he wished to express in the paper was, that when people saw pattern, whether it be in the spacing of a page of a book or in the design of its cover, or in the design of a wall paper, or anything that man touched, there was an emotion aroused, and we took a deeper interest in it. It made life a wider and more beautiful thing to feel a human interest in the articles that were of daily use. A man's character was felt in his painting, in his poetry, or in his music. They could not get away from the decorator. If he was a bad man he might drive them into a lunatic asylum, or if he was a good man he might give them something worth living for. He wanted to wake a decorator up to his responsibilities! They were all waiting to appreciate the decorator if he would but give them the opportunity. When ornament was applied to anything it ought to support the construction. If it did this it would add a charm to the thing. He hoped that artists would be willing to accept the responsibility of their own day. He did not think even the Greeks or the Egyptians took full advantage of their opportunities; they produced very fine decorative work in the embellishment of their temples. But, we ought to have the courage to express our own opinions. It ought to be remembered, that in the service of art there was perfect freedom, and that the objective of art was man's appreciation. The architect was the person who set the note and who struck the key, and to that all the other art must conform, if it was to be decorative. The designer of the wall paper must accept the conditions laid down by the architect. It was not the fault of the designer if the wall paper did not suit the area which it had to cover. The fault often rested with the person who selected the paper, and not with the designer; but the designer should remember that people did wish to have pictures on the walls, and he had no right to discourage them by putting a paper on the wall that would make it impossible.

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The meeting was concluded by a vote of thanks to Mr. East.

TWENTIETH ORDINARY

MEETING.

Wednesday, May 11, 1904; SIR WILLIAM ABNEY, K.C.B., D.C.L., D.Sc., F.R.S., VicePresident and Chairman of the Council, in the chair.

The following candidates were proposed for election as members of the Society :

Clews, Henry, LL.D., 11, Broad-street, New York City, U.S.A.

Cole, Professor J. Abayomi, Percival-street, Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa.

Davis, Charles, 147, New Bond-street, W. Fleischmann, F. N. A., F.C.S., 6, Collinghamgardens, S.W.

Gardiner, James, Molyneux-park-mansions, Tunbridge Wells.

Tween, Charles Nelson, M. Inst.C.E., Goddards, Widford, Ware, Herts.

The following candidates were balloted for and duly elected members of the Society :Bell, Mrs. Jeannette, Rotherby-hall, Leicester. Bright, Miss Agnes, Winton-house, Leamington. Chester, Arthur, A.I.E.E., 26, Balmoral-chambers, Commissioner-street (P.O. Box 3817), Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa.

Hindley, Oliver Walter, B.A., Assoc.M.Inst.C.E., care of Messrs. King, King and Co., Bombay, India.

MacCarthy, John Leader, B.A., Assoc.M.Inst.C.E., Compass-hill, Kinsale, co. Cork.

Vare, William Edmund, Mem. San. Inst., Bodorgan, Mayfield-road, Weybridge, Surrey.

The paper read was

EARLY PAINTING IN MINIATURE.

BY RICHARD R. HOLMES, C.V.O. While reading Walpole's "Anecdotes of Painting," I was many years ago much impressed by the high estimate he formed of the extraordinary ability of Samuel Cooper. He says, "If a glass could expand Cooper's pictures to the size of Vandyck's they would appear to have been painted for that proportion." I have long wished to try this experiment, not only on the works of Cooper, but on those of painters in little, many of whom are hardly, if at all, inferior to Cooper in portrayal of character or in technical excellence. Till very recently this was impossible, as the methods of reproduction were imperfect, and enlargements in monochrome were not satisfactory. Now, however, we are enabled, by

the adaptation of new processes of colcurphotography, to give in life-size the actual facsimile of the exquisite work produced by the great masters of miniature painting.

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I presume, by the way, that I need hardly explain to my present audience that the term, 'miniature," originally had nothing whatever to do with smallness, but is derived from minium-the red paint known as vermilion. This was used in the earlier MSS. for capital letters, for headings of chapters, and so forth. The capital letters, in process of time, received decoration, and as art progressed they were used to contain small pictorial representations of subjects in the text. The headings of the chapters and explanatory notes still remained red, and have retained the name of rubrics. The pictorial decorations of the MSS. gradually assumed more and more importance, but retained this original name, which has since been given to all paintings in little, and now is generally adopted as expressing almost exclusively something reduced in size minimised.

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Some of the earliest and finest of existing portraits of personages of note are to be found among the little pictures or miniatures which adorn the illuminated books of the Middle Ages. One I would specially mention, as the unique portrait of an Englishman of renown in his day, John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France, after the death of his brother, Henry V. This is of the date of 1433, and is, therefore, one of the earliest of existing portraits. It is preserved in the British Museum, and I hope to include it some day in the series of illustrations which I have in preparation, and of which I am showing you the first selection this evening. We cannot unhappily claim the painter as a countryman, and this evening the illustrations are confined to portraits painted in this country.

Apart from the illuminations in service books of various kinds, we may generally assume that the art of portraiture in miniature began with Holbein, whom, though not an Englishman by birth, we may claim as partly English, as here he did most of his fine work; here he lived as servant of the King, and here he died and was buried. Of his merits as a draughtsman or as a painter it is impossible to speak too highly. He ranks as equal with the greatest masters of all time. No eye was ever more observant to see form and character; no hand has ever excelled his in delineating with accuracy and precision what his eye had noted; and no lens has ever equalled his accuracy in portraiture.

Of his works in the particular form of art which is our subject this evening, there exist, perhaps, a score. Of these, there are four examples in the royal collection at Windsor, of the highest excellence, and reproductions of these will now be shown to you in colour, and magnified to the size of life.

The first of these is Henry Brandon, the eldest son of the great Duke of Suffolk, the husband of Mary, sister of Henry VIII. This miniature was painted in 1535, on his fifth birthday, the 6th of September. He died in 1551, having succeeded his father in the dukedom. He fell a victim to the falling sickness, and must always have been of a weakly constitution, as may be noticed by the pathetic look in his eyes.

The workmanship of this painting is of the most marvellous delicacy, and the lines of the features, though the face is only half an inch wide, are of a strength and firmness equal to those in the drawings still preserved at Windsor, of which the facsimiles are known over the whole world of art.

The next slide is the portrait of his younger brother Charles, who was born in 1537, and died on the same day and of the same sickness as his brother, whom he succeeded, though he held the title only for a few hours.

This miniature was painted also on his birthday when he was three years old.

These two miniatures have been always in the Royal collection, and are well known from the facsimiles published early in the last century with the other works of Holbein in the Royal library.

Of the Lady Audley here represented little is known. The same head occurs in crayon, the flesh only slightly tinted; in the same collection of drawings the dress and ornaments in both are identical.

This portrait, also by Holbein, is of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She was born in 1520, and was executed at Tower-hill in 1542.

The next slide is a fine and not wellknown portrait of Queen Elizabeth, taken when first she came to the throne.

It is a most characteristic work of Nicholas Hillyard, the earliest of our native miniature painters, and the real founder of that great school of workers in this branch of art, which has flourished here without rivalry, till the advent of photography extinguished it altogether.

of the county which has given birth to so many of our great masters. His father was Richard Hillyard, of that city, and afterwards High Sheriff. Nicholas, his younger son, was born in 1537, and was originally apprenticed to a goldsmith, but he left this trade for miniature painting. At the age of thirteen he painted a miniature of himself, which was formerly in the Harleian Collection, and may be the one still preserved at Welbeck with the rest of that collection. He was appointed goldsmith, carver and limner to Queen Elizabeth, of whom many portraits by him exist in the various great collections of this country. He survived the Queen sixteen years, and till his death in 1619 had the exclusive right of making and engraving all portraits of his Majesty James I. In his treatise on the art of limning he says, "Holbein's manner of limning I have ever imitated and howld it for the best." He painted miniatures with little shadow, and gives in the same treatise the reasons for this practice in a conversation which he had with Queen Elizabeth, where he explained that pictures painted with "grosse shadows"

"Show very well afar off which to limning work needeth not because it is to be veewed of necessity in hand neere the eye. Heer Her Majestie conseved the reason and therefore chose her place to sit in for that purpose in the open ally of a goodly garden, where no tree was neere, nor any shadowe at all.

"This Her Majestie's curious demand hath greatly bettered my judgment, besides divers other like questions in art by Her most excellent Majestie, which to speke or writ of were fitter for some better clarke. This matter only of the light let me perfect, that no wise man longer remain in error of praysing much shadows in pictures which are to be viewed in hand."

The picture now shown may well be the one to which he refers in this short extract from his treatise, for there is certainly no trace of a shadow in it. As might be expected of one who was a goldsmith and jeweller, the objects of jewellery are represented in his work with extraordinary care and precision.

I have included in this series one miniature by a French artist, Francis Clouet, known as Janet, because it is as interesting histori cally, as it is from its merits as a portrait. This is one of Mary Queen of Scots, taken before her widowhood. It is identified by an entry in the catalogue of the limnings in the collection of Charles I., as "Queen Mary of Scotland," and is fully described among the portraits of His Majesty's progenitors. The dimensions

Hillyard was born in Exeter, the capital city of it are given, three inches by two, It agrees

entirely in feature with the drawings by the artist preserved in Paris, and may be accepted as an undoubted portrait of the Queen, and a standard by which the authenticity of any attributed likeness may be judged.

Following this, I now show another reputed portrait of the same unfortunate Queen. This is from a beautiful specimen of the work of Isaac Oliver, and has been engraved as Mary Queen of Scots, by Houbraken, in his series of Heads of illustrious personages. In workmanship and detail it would be almost impossible to surpass this, but there is no doubt that though the miniature was called Mary more than a century ago, it is quite wrongly so-called. It is more probable that it is the portrait of that Countess of Nottingham, of whom the legend-by no means authenticated -runs that she detained the ring given by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Essex, and thereby prevented the stay of his execution.

Of the painter, I now show a portrait painted by himself. This is one of the smallest miniatures I know, and it is a great triumph for this process of reproduction that all its minute details are given with such accuracy-for the oval is not much more than an inch in its widest diameter. Like most artists Oliver was fond of keeping his hand in practice by painting himself, and I have lately seen another, on a larger scale, in the private collection of the Queen of Holland at the Hague.

Oliver was born about 1536. He may have been of French origin, but has always been looked upon as an Englishman. He was pupil of Nicholas Hillyard, and at first always used the same ultramarine background, which had been introduced by Holbein. Later, he relieved his heads against crimson curtains, and occasionally resorted to landscape.

Of this, there is a remarkable example in the portrait of Sir Philip Sidney, one of the most celebrated of all his works. This, formerly in the possession of Dr. Mead, was among the many objects of art which the Royal collection owes to one not generally credited with so much taste or generosity Frederick Prince of Wales.

Time does not permit me to give a full account of the life of this painter, or to enumerate even the best of his works-they are to be found by scores in the collections of this country, and they have always been esteemed abroad.

He was much patronised in his time, and painted nearly every one of note. His drawing

of Queen Elizabeth for the well-known engraving by Crispin de Pass is preserved at Windsor; but I have not reproduced it here, as it is in pen and bistre, and my principal object has been to show only works in

colour.

Henry, Prince of Wales, was a frequent sitter to Oliver, and the picture you now see is one of the finest portraits of that lamented Prince, and one much cherished by his brother Charles, who succeeded to his heritage. It is mentioned in the catalogues of his works of art, and of those of James II., and remained always in the royal collection. It mysteriously disappeared, and was discovered by the late Sir John Cowell, Master of the Household to Queen Victoria, hanging in one of the lodges in the Great Park, whence by his means it was restored to its proper place.

Isaac Oliver's son Peter followed in his father's footsteps, and was, perhaps, even more dexterous. His copies of pictures by Correggio, Titian, and Raphael, which he made for Charles I. from the originals in his gallery at Whitehall, are still preserved at Windsor. He seems to have been regularly employed as Court painter in little during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. The latter monarch he painted often as Prince of Wales and as Sovereign.

The portrait selected for exhibition this evening is one of the earliest, and it may be noticed how closely the features resemble those of his elder brother, which we have just seen. They both inherit from their mother, Anne of Denmark, the peculiarly heavy chin, which in Prince Henry is more pointed, while in Charles I. it is broader, and was so prominent that the King grew the pointed beard with which we all are familiar, to hide what became almost a deformity. This peculiar formation of the jaw may be noticed for many generations in the later Stuarts.

This characteristic feature will be readily discerned in the portrait of the King now produced. This is the work of John Hoskins, a miniaturist of great merit, though, perhaps, surpassed by Peter Oliver, and certainly by his pupil, Samuel Cooper. It has been sometimes asserted that there were two miniature painters of this name, as the letters of the signature J. H. are combined in different ways, but there is no evidence further than this in support of the theory.

Hoskins had two brothers as pupils, Alexander and Samuel Cooper-of the former, the elder brother, not many authentic works

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