SCULPTURE: FROM A DECORATOR’S POINT OF
VIEW
AN age in which the ornamental sense in art is so little understood—an age which cares only for superficial picturesqueness or photographic naturalism is certainly not favourable to any high development of sculpture, which in times past has been the noblest and most expressive of the decorative arts. We have to recognise the fact that sculpture, in common with all art and all forms of life, lives by its capacity of adaptability to circumstances. Perhaps she has a harder struggle for existence than her sisters, and in the absence of zeal for great monumental works it is perhaps not altogether surprising that she sometimes is content to furnish toys for the drawing-room, and finds the perpetuation of nonentities more lucrative than the pursuit of heroic design.
That love of picturesqueness, of naturalism, too, which in our day asserts itself in season and out of season, and, unfortunately, often quite regardless of material or place, has left its mark on sculpture, as in painting. Perhaps it would be truer to say that it has revolutionised, or at least made a formidable insurrection in both; so much so that sculpture and painting, in some instances, appear to be striving to change places—painters sacrificing everything for an altitude of relief which suggests departure from the canvas altogether, and sculpture vying with painting in the imitation of textures and scenic effects which cry out for the palette.
For in sculpture, at least in marble, despite all the resources of tangible relief and rotundity, it is curious that naturalism of treatment should be far less suggestive of nature than the same thing in painting. The most elaborate imitation of textures and surfaces (such as we see among the modern Italians) has, in the absence of local tint, an exaggerated and, consequently, unreal look; and if there is no strong element of design to counterbalance the elaboration—which, indeed, is offered in its place—the failure as a work of art is complete.
The importance of designing power in sculpture is obvious enough when we consider that a sculptor, in designing a figure or group in the round, has really to make, or ought to make, not one design merely, but a whole series, in order that his work shall be expressive from every point of view. This necessity, which is one of the difficulties, is also one of the advantages of sculpture, and develops its capabilities for expressive design to the utmost. Thus, while the witchery of imitative skill may lead painters astray, in sculpture we are forced back to what may be called the more purely artistic qualities of design of style; terms which imply much—which comprehend, perhaps, all the essentials of good art. Without distinction in these the craze for imitative naturalism, or whatever we like to call it, only ends, so far as I am aware, in attempts more or less unsuccessful to turn sculpture into portrait painting or tableaux vivants.
It is very much the difference between imitation and expression, or repetition and creation in art; and this means of course all the difference in the world, both as regards the artist and his public.
Imitation only requires industry, but design demands inventive power. Design might be defined as the constructive sense controlled by the sense of beauty. One may have plenty of energy, plenty of frank naturalism in a work, but if we have not the sense of beauty in art it profiteth nothing.
This is of course obvious enough as applied to art with a distinctly decorative purpose, but it seems curious that while it is taken for granted that you cannot do without grace or charm of some sort in this direction, as regards what may be called pictorial art, whether in painting or sculpture, given plenty of force and fact, grace and charm seem often quite secondary considerations, hardly missed if altogether absent.
To me, I confess, such distinctions seem artificial and injurious to art. A statue, or a picture, or a pattern must be an organic whole, whether it is itself a whole or a part. It must agree with itself, or it will agree with nothing, whether it be a frieze, a string-course, or a bust.
And after all it is this humanising and controlling sense—this sense of beauty, balance, decorum—this sixth or artistic sense, in short, manifested in so many different materials, methods, and styles, varying with climate and character, but articulate in every tongue—which is the really permanent quality. Without it you may have science, archæology, antiquarianism, imitation of nature—many things very useful in their way, but not art.