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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ial art. The example of successful manufacturers and the masterpiecesof designers have influenced the enterprise and skill of those whose success,through want of sufficient skill, has not been what they desired. The objection which some manufacturers have raised against InternationalExhibitions, that they gave opportunities for the weak to imitate the strong,and placed the accumulated experience and success of the few at the serviceof the many, must be regarded as a powerful argument in favor of suchdisplays, from every point of view, including that of the successful manufac- 502 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. turer. With a knowledge drawn from observation of many such exhibitions,we do not hesitate to say that, whatever progress may have been made betweenone exhibition and another, by those who may have found need for improve-ment, those who have held a leading position in any one have seldom forfeitedit at a subsequent exhibition, except by their own consent. The general eleva-
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Cloisonne Enamel Plaque. tion of taste has created a higher and sounder appreciation of really goodwork, and it is as possible for those who have done good work to advance tobetter and best, as for those who have done bad work to progress into goodand better. The highest success in any branch of industrial art is never the result ofa secret that can be kept from the rest of the world by its inventor, and allefforts to conceal any detail or process characteristic of good work must beunsuccessful if the work itself is to be generally appreciated. Even in fine INDUSTRIAL ART 503 art, faith in modes and processes, as influencing the production of excellentworks, or accounting for their excellence, may be reckoned amongst the lostcreeds. Sir Joshua Reynolds making a section of a picture by an older master,or successively removing each coat or painting of it, from the varnish to thecanvas, in order to find out the processes by which it was produced, is only arefined imitation of the boy who

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