Identifier: examplesofhouseh00smit (find matches)
Title: Examples of household taste
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: Smith, Walter, 1836-1886 Smith, Walter, 1836-1886. Industrial art of the International Exhibition
Subjects: Centennial Exhibition (1876 : Philadelphia, Pa.) Decorative arts
Publisher: New York, R. Worthington
Contributing Library: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library

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, where they break into a network of curves andangles, which, though they change with every movement of the observer, neverbecome confused or cease to convey that sense of richness combined withlightness which is one of its chief excellencies. Here indeed is an example ofAmerican industrial art-workmanship which Europeans can look at with pleasureand profit. If the question is asked, What is it that makes a work of this kind sothoroughly satisfactory? we answer, without hesitation, the fitness of the orna- INDUSTRIAL ART. 309 ment to the material^ the use for which the object is designed, and the excel-lent taste displayed in the treatment of the design. The great fault in theornamental work usually produced by gas-fitters is the exaggerated imitationsof the florid French styles which the designers affect. These objects are showy,flashy and generally overloaded with ornament, often consisting of foliage andflowers, copied after nature and presented without any constructive arrangement
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Group of Silver-ware : Elkington &■ Co., Birmingham. whatever. Thus they present a tangle of leaves, flowers and branches, in whichall characteristic form is lost, and which indeed simply adds weight withoutstrength. In this corona the very reverse of all this is true. The artist hasgiven his fancy play in his design, but has always kept within those limits inwhich mere decoration is made subservient to a unity of style and the needsof construction. Such work as this is in itself an incentive to the study of theprinciples of design and ornament in manufacture. Nor must the blame forthe inartistic work before referred to be placed on the designers. They areemployed to produce works that will take with the public and sell rapidly; and 3io THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. until the public iseducated up to anappreciation of truehonesty in construc-tion, fitness of orna-ment to material anddecorative subordi-nation, we must ex-pect to see the art-istic sense of thedesigner submit

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