Imaginary Dialogue on Decorative Art

SOCRATES and DECALCOMANIAS, and afterwards CRITICUS.

Socrates. Where are you going, Decalcomanias, with those discarded wine bottles, those coarse and common jars, which, I judge, once contained ointments or pickles ?

Decalcomanias. I intend to decorate them; for you must know, Socrates, that everything is decorated now. Have you any old—

Soc. I have not. Come, put down your bottles, and let us clear our ideas on this new rage; for you will grant, Decalcomanias, that we should not spend time and energy without careful consideration.

Decal. I grant this, Socrates, and will speedily convince you of the utility of decorative art.

Soc. Doubtless, Decalcomanias, I shall begin to decorate to-morrow; but let us first ask, What is true decorative art?

Decal. By Jupiter! I find it very difficult to answer you, Socrates.

Soc. It is indeed difficult to answer that question, Decalcomanias. I think you will grant that the physicists are right in teaching that when we exert any action there is an exact equivalent in heat; in other words, that the doctrine of the conservation of energy is true.

Decal. This has been proved, Socrates, by men of science.

Soc. This law holds in every mechanical action throughout our universe. Every movement of our bodies attests its truth. When I speak to you the energy of my voice, so to speak, impresses motion upon the particles of air; they in their turn set the tympanum of your ear in vibration, and then the thought I convey acts upon your brain. Why does one thought agitate your mind, Decalcomanias, more than another?

Decal. The scientific men are not agreed, Socrates, on that point. I suppose it depends upon the energy of the thought; for great thoughts impress us more than the utterances of a feeble mind.

Soc. You speak well, Decalcomanias, and you have anticipated me in the conclusion. The greater the mechanical action, the greater the heat developed; and the greater the thought, the greater the impression upon tlie mind that receives it. This seems a good conclusion. Now, can we not maintain that that which has caused but little thought can, in its turn, awaken but little thought?

Decal. This seems to me probable, Socrates. Yet you do not consider the work of a genius thrown off with little effort; and also that decorative art does not aim at inspiring great thoughts. Its function is to please the eye and make the home attractive.

Soc. I will not discuss the action of the mind of a great genius, for you have granted that it is not likely that a great genius would find the best exercise of his mind in decorating bottles. Now to your second point, that of pleasing the eye. Will you tell me, Decalcomanias, how the æsthetic eye is best pleased ? I say æsthetic, for you will allow that the eye of the barbarian knows but little discrimination, and is delighted with gaudy colors which the cultured man rejects.

Decal. There is certainly a difference, Socrates, between the eye of a barbarian and that of a cultured man. In regard to your question how the aesthetic eve is best pleased, I will first say that I decorate to please the average eye, and not the finically æsthetic one.

Soc. I accept your limitations. How will you best please the average eye?

Decal. All decoration must be correct in taste.

Soc. Is it an easy matter to be correct in taste, Decalcomanias?

Decal. By Jove, no! It is a life study.

Soc. In order that the eye may be pleased it is necessary, is it not, that the impression we receive of outward objects should be a growing one?

Decal. I do not catch your meaning, Socrates.

Soc. Let us then dwell upon this point. Do you not reject statues and pictures which once excited pleasure, and which after a time ceased to delight the eye ? I know that this is so. In lesser objects of taste the same rule holds; we lose interest in that article which cannot hold our eye or evoke some thought.

Decal. This seems to be so. Yet you insist upon the thoughtful side of decoration, Look at this jar. I have given it a simple color; there is no thought in it, yet it is decorative.

Soc. You would find that color monotonous, after a while, and would desire, with a painful longing, some contrasts to exert your faculty of taste upon. Therein you would exert your thought.

Decal. There appear to be two kinds of decoration. Socrates: on one there is rich material and much thought bestowed, and on the other a happy, natural faculty for color and contrasts, — a kind of unconscious reception of nature.

Soc. How do we then surpass barbarians in taste? They are nearer to nature than we.

Decal. I think taste is a natural faculty, and in some more developed than in others; so that one can make the most beautiful objects out of these jars you see before you, while another, by the utmost study, cannot conceal the innate ugliness of this vase.

Soc. By your former remarks, Decalcomanias, you have barred out genius. Genius can rise to greater heights, but only at the expense of a corresponding greater accumulation of information and taste. Yet I will not discuss the case of genius. We have to do with the average æsthetic eye. You have granted that thought must be bestowed upon even the simplest decoration.

Decal. I grant this, Socrates.

Soc. It will not do, therefore, for us to evade thought by make-shifts.

Decal. Explain this to me, Socrates.

Soc. I understand that you intend to paste representations of objects upon these jars. Can there be much thought in this?

Decal. Not unless we work by the law of contrasts.

Soc. And you will grant that this law would require much thought from the average æsthetic mind.

Decal. I grant this.

Soc. Therefore, if you work without thought in decorating your jars, it is labor thrown away.

Decal. It truly seems so.

Soc. If we work with thought to obtain good contrasts, or to develop some connected plan, it is therefore better. Now, what do we say, Decalcomanias, when we see a slave carving curiously a perishable gourd ?

Decal. We laugh at him for his pains.

Soc. Yet his carving and decoration may be beautiful.

Decal. It is, however, useless, for it speedily perishes.

Soc. Then you will grant that a measure of permanence is necessary to decoration that it may satisfy the end of art. We must feel this in order that decoration may produce the most pleasurable æsthetic sensations. What do you say, then, concerning the perishable decorations which you are about to paste upon your jars?

Decal. I have to limit you continually, Socrates, in this discussion. My art is not the highest. I aim only to awaken artistic tastes in the people. I am an educator.

Soc. You are certainly heroic, Decalcomanias, for you aim to do good knowing that your students, as you yourself allow, will despise your works as they grow in knowledge.

Decal. Only as they despise primers.

Soc. No, not so; for primers are like the solid foundations upon which good and lasting decoration is raised.

Decal. You will certainly grant, Socrates, that it is better that the people should decorate than that they should continue to live without thinking of beautiful things.

Soc. Wrong teaching for a good end is baneful.

Decal. My teaching is not baneful! The worst that can be said of it is that it is hasty and perishable. It awakens interest in people, and sets their minds at work. It cultivates the eye, and calls forth latent talent.

Soc. I learn from you, therefore, Decalcomanias, that if you should found an academy of art which should aim to instruct the populace, you would have a course in the hasty decoration of jugs.

Decal. The theories in regard to the best course to be pursued in early art education are various. No two masters are agreed. For my part, I believe that the main thing is to interest people at first, and afterwards refine. In decorating one cannot fail in time to judge between the good and the bad. I think I could maintain, Socrates, if driven to extremity, that pernicious, work even, often awakens a healthy reaction.

Soc. And I, in my turn, will then maintain the moral necessity of swindlers and the advocates of soft money — but here comes Criticus. He will tell us of the progress of this new rage, for he has mingled much with the people.

Criticus. The world is given over to decoration. The aesthetic bulrush is found in every parlor, and there is a sound of groaning in the land because there are no new things to decorate.

Soc. I have been endeavoring, Criticus, to prove to Decalcomanias that decoration without excellence of mechanical execution, or without careful thought, is useless effort, and baneful to the progress of art.

Crit. And does he not see it, Socrates? Indeed, Decaleomanias, I will convince you by one of your own jugs. By what do we judge of the state of art among our ancestors?

Decal. Certainly by their works.

Crit. You say rightly. We judge by the excellence of the workmanship; by the thought displayed in enduring material. In some subsequent age to ours, Dr. Schliemann will dig up a few crude and homely bottles and jugs from which the ephemeral decoration had long ago perished, and will say, This nation during this period had no art, and, judging from their storing up jugs and bottles, were overmuch given to sensual enjoyment, and added nothing to the world’s art treasures.

Decal. You assume that a nation always leaves permanent records of its taste. I doubt this. There are many lost arts, and a nation may have worked most artistically in a perishable material. Why is it necessary for us to provide materials for future Dr. Schliemanns? The æsthetic enjoyment of the hour is not to be despised.

Soc. You will grant, therefore, that the decoration to which you devote yourself is ephemeral; for it does not gather force from the thought and study of previous generations.

Decal. Is an exquisite wild flower, then, to be despised?

Soc. You forget that a flower is the product of great genius.

Crit. Neither of you gives sufficient weight to my suggestion that we are doing nothing in decoration for the future. Decalcomanias says that we are not to provide work for future Dr. Schliemanns. For my part, I think it is our duty to do so. Who would not feel his degradation if he knew that the water bottle of the kitchen was all that remained of the decorative art of this age five hundred years from now; a discarded wine bottle with some stains upon it, where decorations had once been, giving rise to a learned paper, before some art club of the future, to be entitled, On the Affinities of a Problematical Jug of the Nineteenth Century! I do not need to live to that future period; I have already felt the degradation of which I speak. Last week I visited a loan collection, and beheld the contrasts presented by the work of the barbarian Chinese’ and Japanese and modern decorative work. Should I be willing, I said to myself, to allow that decorative work to represent us in comparison with the work of barbarians ? By Jupiter, no! On the one hand was careful workmanship,— the labor of weeks and months and even years; on the other hand, the hasty realizations of crude designs.

Decal. But it was very hopeful work. It gave great promise for the future.

Crit. It certainly betokened renewed interest in decoration.

Soc. I perceive continually underneath your discussion the questions, “ Can that which is done with comparatively little thought and labor avail in art ? Can the ephemeral artistic decoration advance true artistic decoration ? ’ ’

Crit. I maintain that the ephemeral artistic decoration is not only useless but positively immoral. At the best it is a make-shift. By looking at decorations of hangings in which careful embroidery is simulated by paint and the sewing on of pieces of cloth, we begin to despise careful workmanship, and the conscientious mechanic or artisan will give way to the rapidly working apprentice who learns his or her trade in three months.

Decal. Answer me one question, Criticus. Do you not see greater evidences of taste in your friends’ houses than formerly ?

Crit. I find evidences of great agitation and the conflict of crude ideas. Flowers and the æsthetic bulrush spring from the corners of the room. Japanese fans float down the walls. Blurred visions of sunflowers on panels and decorated sewer pipes meet one at every turn. I am nothing if I am not critical, and instead of finding much to admire in my friends' houses I find more to criticise. An increase in bric à brac and an increase in color do not constitute an evidence of increase in taste. No, Decalcomanias, thus I answer your question. If I could perceive a careful study of nature in modern decoration, I should be more hopeful. Let any young lady in painting on china make earnest studies of birds, or flowers, or reeds and rushes, and I should clap my hands.

Soc. The truth certainly cannot be found save by deep thought and study. Have you never thought, Decalcomanias and Criticus, of the psychological effect of this rage for decoration ?

Decal. By Jupiter, Socrates, I have noticed that the ladies are less given to roaming about; and you should see the happy faces bent over canvas and jugs.

Soc. I mean the psychological effect of living in much-decorated rooms. I lately visited a friend’s house, and could not reason in a connected manner, my eye was so distracted by bits of color and multitudes of forms. I could not move without feeling that my mantle was about to pull down some decorated utensil. There was no place to write, for the tables were covered with plates and jars. I thought to myself, How harmful such rooms would be to a person afflicted with a disordered mind! how unrestful to one wrapped in deep thought!

Crit. By Jupiter, I have felt that unrest of the mind which you speak of, Socrates. I cannot take dinner at a friend’s house without being called upon to admire butterflies upon my plate, various bugs upon my cup, and Japanese trade - marks — equivalent to Joseph Smith & Co., dealers in crockery — painted upon my butter-plate. If these decorations upon china were carefully and conscientiously painted and repainted, as they are in China and Japan, they would be meritorious; now they are for the most part meretricious.

Decal. I have noticed that critical people are generally non - producers. I believe that the present rage for decoration is productive of great good. Why, in my town it has brought two geniuses to light! They began by decorating flower-pots, and then advanced over panels to canvas ; now they have more orders than they can fill. Fashionable calls have become a delight. You are introduced to unique rooms, and behold what may be termed the original side of your host or hostess. Decoration has done all this. Notwithstanding all that has been said, I shall continue to decorate.

Crit. There he goes, Socrates, with his jugs and his bottles, which will soon be covered with imitations of majolica, faience, or Japanese ware. I fear that it is impossible to check this inordinate rage. It will burn out in time, and then people will realize that art can advance only by conscientious study and by working in more permanent material.

Soc. There is some truth in his remark that this interest in decoration may bring talent to light, and it is possible that this extravagance of taste is like that which often accompanies young talent. There may be a large residuum left which can be molded into proper form. I wish, however, that people would more generally recognize the truth that there is conservation of thought; or, in other words, that only work upon which we have spent thought can awake thought in its turn.

John Trowbridge.