Arbor Vite. By Godfrey Blount. (Dent and Co. 12s. 6d.)—The
author's aim is to turn aside the art of the world from picture- making to decorative handicraft. In trying to do this he is follow- ing William Morris. Mr. Blount considers that painted pictures which represent natural objects naturally are played out. Pictures which are painted for the sole purpose of representing things seen without any emotional purpose can never be of any permanent value. It is to rush to the other extreme to say that a diaper pattern of grapes and leaves is "the most satisfactory symbol of a subject that no realistic rendering could accomplish," because the sym- metrical arrangement of fruit and leaves makes you enter into the feelings of the tillers of the vineyard. Does Mr. Blount really think that he could devise a diaper of potatoes which could make us feel the sympathy for toil, as well as the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," as strongly as does Bastien-Lepage in his great picture of the "Ramasseuses de Pommes de Terre " ? Mr. Blount, like Morris, regards all the perfecting of technique, which has enabled artists to express complex emotions, as so much loss, because this perfection makes the practice of art more difficult. Apparently, he would prefer art to remain in a heraldic stage, so that we might have much of it diffused in our daily life. It seems to us that there is no reason why we should not have great pictures and good crafts- manship as well. Why must we consider the " Angelus " of Millet the work of a " moribund " tradition because we have got our furniture from the exhibition of "Arta and Crafts" ?
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