to which he has devoted the whole of his fine artistic life. For
ourselves, we cannot help feeling that in bookbinding art expresses
primarily not the feeling of the worker but simply itself, its own
beauty, its own wonder.




THE CLOSE OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS


(Pall Mall Gazette, November 30, 1888.)

Mr. Walter Crane, the President of the Society of Arts and Crafts, was
greeted last night by such an enormous audience that at one time the
honorary secretary became alarmed for the safety of the cartoons, and
many people were unable to gain admission at all. However, order was
soon established, and Mr. Cobden-Sanderson stepped up on to the platform
and in a few pleasantly sententious phrases introduced Mr. Crane as one
who had always been 'the advocate of great and unpopular causes,' and the
aim of whose art was 'joy in widest commonalty spread.' Mr. Crane began
his lecture by pointing out that Art had two fields, aspect and
adaptation, and that it was primarily with the latter that the designer
was concerned, his object being not literal fact but ideal beauty. With
the unstudied and accidental effects of Nature the designer had nothing
to do. He sought for principles and proceeded by geometric plan and
abstract line and colour. Pictorial art is isolated and unrelated, and
the frame is the last relic of the old connection between painting and
architecture. But the designer does not desire primarily to produce a
picture. He aims at making a pattern and proceeds by selection; he