^ 'i ; •. v-v;^r7' ♦' 't. ■■!;! :':iii:!l; ■ HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS ■ / / .M.-rt. \ . HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS By W. R. LETHABY Reprinted from and Published by ''HOME AND COUNTRY” THE N.F.W.I. MAGAZINE 26 EGGLESTON STREET, LONDON, S.W.i First Edition^ 1923 Second Edition^ 1924 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY HEADLEY BROTHERS 18, DEVONSHIRE STREET, E.C .2 ; AND ASHFORD, KENT CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I INTRODUCTION - - . j II DRUDGERY REDEEMED : BEAUTY IN COMMON THINGS - - - l8 III DRAWING FOR EVERYONE - - 25 IV DESIGNING AS A GAME - - 34 V SEWING ARTS - - - - 45 VI SEEING LONDON . _ _ 5 ^ VII VILLAGE ARTS AND CRAFTS - 77 VIII WORK FESTIVALS _ . _ IX FARMS AND COTTAGES - - IO9 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/homecountryartsOOIeth ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE PAGE 1 From Windmill Hill . . . . . . . . 2 2 Road across the Common . . . . . . . . 5 3 Road to the Green . . . . . . . . . . 7 4 The Green . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 5 Cottage Gate . . . . . . . . , . . , 19 6 Oxfordshire Waggon . . . . , . . . . . 20 7 Farm Buildings .. .. .. .. .. 21 8 A Northumbrian Loaf . . . . . . . . 22 9, 10, II, 12 Butter Prints .. .. .. .. 23 13 A Cottage Chair .... .. .. .. 24 14 Drawing of The Snow . . . . . . . . 26 1 5 Drawing of Nasturtium . . . . . . . . 27 16 Drawing of Petunia . . . . . . . . 27 17 Drawing of The Steeplechase .. .. .. 29 18 Drawing of The Horse . . . . . . . . 31 19, 20 Drawings of Tulips . . . . . . . . 36 21, 22 Paper Patterns . . . . . . . . . . 38 23 Design of Coloured Papers stuck down . . . . 39 24 Braiding Patterns . . . . . . . . . . 40 25 Knot-work Patterns . . . . . . . . . . 41 26 Letter form Patterns . . . . . . . . 42 27 Birds in a Bush . . . . . . . . . . 43 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE PAGE 28 Alphabet Card Design 44 29 Children’s Embroidery Designs 47 30 A “ Blanket ” Star 49 32, 33. 34 35 Quilting Patterns 50. 51, 52, 53, 54 36 Embroidered Quilt 56 37 Specimens of Old Bucks. Lace 60 38 Hand-drawn Patterns of Lace 61 39 Thames Embankment, a Wet Night 65 40 St. Paul’s Cathedral 68 41 Westminster Abbey 73 42 Westminster Abbey — Stone Roof of Henry VH’s Chapel 75 43 A Country Waggon . . 79 44 Country Waggons 81 45 Blacksmith’s Fire-Shovel 82 46 Brass Horse-Trappings .. .. 83 47 Unloading Hops at the Oast House lOI 48 The Fox and Hounds Inn, Barley 106 49. 50 Hayricks at Blatherwyck no. Ill 51 Old Weaversden 112 52 Idenden Farm .. 113 53 Cole Farm .. 114 54 Child’s Armchair .. 115 55 Simple Chair . . .. 115 56 Land Girl Milking .. 117 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS I INTRODUCTION “The old education supplied a scanty schooling for its young people ; but apart from school it afforded a discipline of circumstance to nourish the spirit and sustain the energies.” The Children of England. The little chapters which follow were written in London. Now I have been staying for two months in the pure country of the Wessex land during the amazing burst and rush of the early summer and it is all infinitely more wonderful than the memory had held. I am on Windmill Hill,” a high, rough common with an outlook over a wide, flat, agricultural vale. The plain is a vast, crazy patch-work of various greens and yellows, with trees running along the seams and collecting here and there into knots or covering whole patches by themselves. Some of the grass fields are only partly cut and have a broad lighter margin of smoother surface around the central space. Farm-houses, cottages, hay-ricks are sprinkled about with smaller dots of cows, showing dark or white, in between. Short lengths of roads appear at intervals, some of them climbing 2 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS the hills towards the distance. The grey-blue edge of visible things is so far away that I am led to think of the sea in that direction and then of Fig I. From JfindrniU Hill. the whole of England as a real map of the land set down in the real sea. And it comes into my mind afresh that, wherever one is, the top and centre of the whole world is there too. INTRODUCTION 3 The Common is now covered with tall fern, gorse-bushes thickly matted together, bramble and wild-raspberry bushes, great burdocks and foxgloves which shoot up like fiery rockets, rushes, grasses, nettles and thistles which spring and spray out like fountains, clivers, convolvulus and black briony, all pushing up and up with the mysterious energy of life. Then there are bushes of many sorts, holly and hazel, thorn, birch, elder, oak, ash and willow, wild rose in flower, elder now covered with big flat platters of blossom and tangles of sweet-scented honeysuckle. Smooth turf ways, like little green streams, wind in and about this chaos of life and the sweet short grass is freckled over and patterned with brightest tiny growths, yellow tormentilla, shoes- and-stockings, dwarf hawksweed, buttercups, red and white clover, white and yellow bed-straw, self-heal, blue-eyes, harebell and thyme. A week or two ago there were violets and milkworts and red-rattle. Every day changes the aspect of things in this furnace of life. Along the margins of the paths are St. John’s wort, star-wort, enchanter’s nightshade, red robins, wood-sage, avens, yarrow and wild parsley or Queen Anne’s lace.” In one corner is a big clump of wild sun-flowers showing scores of gold blossoms ; in another is pale drooping comfrey and bugloss of intensest heavenly blue. Where the Common is crossed by a road, thick, well-grown timber trees stretch out from a neighbouring park and elsewhere on the hill are two or three groups of dark firs. 4 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS On this Common the commonest things that live attain a surprising beautp. Thistles compete with the stature of a man, a patch, like a bed of tall feathery mignonette, is only of sorrel bursting into a lovely spray of tiniest florets ; the nettles are so well grown that one cannot but admire their flnely shaped leaves ; the bramble blossoms are little roses pink and white ; glades of flowering grass waver in the breeze like ruddy smoke. The clean, bright sweetness, fairness and health-seeming of it, come, one feels at once, from the purity of the air. Purity of air seems to be a condition of truly healthy life. The windmill is now out of use, but the old sails remained not long ago and folk still living remember the grinding of grain and how it was brought from far around : ‘‘ Even from , six miles away.” A hundred yards away down the road ” is The Green, a hamlet of a few houses gathered near a spring. The cottages are of stone and brick, thatched or tile-roofed and have strips of the loveliest gardens. A little Chapel and the Fox and Hounds ” Inn are side by side and look equally innocent. Close by are well-kept allotments. The village as a whole seems to be made up of a number of detached hamlets and I believe this is known to be a characteristic of one type of old Enghsh land-settlement. The main village is below the slope of the Common, more than half a mile away. The Church, the School, a Post Office, several pleasant general-store sort of country shops are INTRODUCTION 5 here and, I believe, there is a prosperous Women’s Institute. The centre of the village is where two roads cross ; these are very ancient and were probably British trackways. Close by the crossing are an ancient church, a tithe barn and what I suppose is an old Priest’s house. The chancel of the Church was built in the thirteenth century, the Nave in the fourteenth and the Tower in the fifteenth century. One piece of walling in the Fig. 2 . Road across the Co77imo7i. Chancel, older than any other part, looks like Saxon work. The Churchyard is so lovely that it seems to make death natural and beautiful too. The old grave-stones, grey and honest-looking things, are of the local stone and were evidently made by the masons of the neighbourhood. The harsh foreign and pretentious white marble tombs did not come into general vogue until about 1850. Up to this time it was also the 6 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS custom to inscribe on the stones verses that seem to have been home-made for the occasion — that is, they show unashamed personal feeling. It is only for about two generations that people, frightened by what has been called education from daring to express themselves, have dropped into the general use of a few flat formulas suggested by the monument ” makers. One of my chief purposes here is to call attention to the beauty and interest of all home-made and neighbour- made things. The walks ” round about are more beautiful than tongue can tell; pleasant by-roads not over- run by motors, little threads of paths through fields with cows lying still as big red boulders, bits of wood and low ground full of meadow-sweet and willow-herb. Only a mile away is the edge of chalk downs. There are now many new haystacks about, for it has been a good grass year ; one had heated, and a long galley had been cut into its mass to cool it, but inside it long remained hot as an oven. Other older ricks have been sliced down like cake. The farm buildings are as natural as the haystacks. From the downs a cathedral steeple may be seen far away on the horizon ; as the cloud shadows pass by, it shows as a thin flash of light. Great prehistoric camps and monuments may be visited on a long walk. Within about six miles of Windmill Hill are four or five ancient little towns, several beautiful churches and a very romantic ruined castle. Such is one small patch of England and I write this to suggest that as every place is the middle INTRODUCTION of the world geographically, so it is also a historical centre. Reasonable and understandable geo- graphy and history would both begin where they may be seen and touched ! On the roads one meets loaded hay carts, a dozen cows feeding on the hedgerows, a man on a Fig. 3. Road to the Green. horse with a second tied to its tail (the other day I heard a woman say to her little girl. Here, catch hold of my tail and come along ”). A white goat and kid are tethered on the Green and here I notice a hen who proudly minds a family of waddling ducks. In the evening one hears the sharp sounds of quoits 8 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS being played and the cries of children’s games — a delightful concert. Of the people I am told most interesting things. Two old ladies who are over eighty years of age live separately and alone. One of them, eighty- eight and keeping a little sweet shop, has travelled widely with the grand world, living long in Italy and Athens and knowing the children of royalties. She says that her own people have lived in the hamlet for three hundred years and that her father built one of the cottages when he married. Another woman, over seventy years old, and blind, makes poetry — she has quite a bookful.” By the intervention of a friend I have a copy of two of the poems, but I suppose they should not be quoted without permission. However, I think I may say that one has the theme or plot ” of a swarm of gnats seen in December ‘‘ dancing o’er and o’er the Green ” : Perhaps you think the spring is here, But you are mistaken much, I fear. The winter scarcely has begun. Although you’re revelling in the sun. Now, isn’t that quite pretty ? In other places I have heard of aged people who preserved the old common habit of making up verses ; of one man it was said that “ he was a musician and knew about numbers.” The tomb inscriptions just mentioned are examples of the tradition and I print here one copied from a village two miles away, partly because it is so decayed that it may be doubted INTRODUCTION 9 whether the original will ever again be deciphered. It is given here as : A SPECIMEN OF HOME-MADE VERSE. Go, sweet example of untainted Youth, Of modest Reason and pacifick Truth. Go, just of Word, in every thought sincere. Who knew no thought but that the World might heai. Of gentlest Manners, unaffected Mind, Lover of Peace and Friend of Human Kind. Composed in Suffering and in Joy sedate. Good without Noise, without Pretention great. Go, live, for Heaven’s eternal Year is thine. Go, and exalt thy Mortal to Divine. Yet take these Tears, Mortality’s Relief, And till we share your joys, forgive our Grief. These little Rites in Stone and Verse receive, ’Tis all a Father, all a Friend can give. In Ademory of Mary, daughter of Thomas and Mary Lampard, who departed this Life April the 23rd, 1772, Aged 19 years. Some Lampards I may add still live on The Green. And in writing this I am reminded of another similar poem which ends with the line I am no poet ; Love made me do it.” We forget in specialising and professionalising everything literary ” and artistic ” that musicj poetry, art and the drama all sprang out of the hearts of the people. Indeed, it is only when an aptitude is widely spread that special art will be of much worth. You cannot have big waves 10 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS except on a broad sea. Great works of art ” are necessarily few and far between, they come by opportunity as the crests of large movements. No country is now so starved for Folk Music as England. Poetry, story-telling and music have to be regained by the people who have been frightened stiff ” by the pretentions of those who talk of genius and have turned these precious things into special trades. Everybody ought to set about making up little sayings and verses and singing little tunes as a preparation for great poetry and music. Unless these things are renewed from the old source they will dry up. In a book on the East I read: The Japanese peasant goes from no place of interest without leaving his short sonnet, an art-form within reach of the simplest.” That is the thought; art-forms common to everybody have to be re-discovered. Much of our country speech is still dignified and poetic ” — There, rest your heart contented,” I overheard a woman say the other day and the best simile I ever heard was used by a farmer who described something as very white — as white as a hound’s tooth.” People’s thoughts, where converse is free and natural, tend to the use of sayings and proverbs. I remember an old Devon- shire farmer who in explaining that he did not do much now, added — “ You can’t have two forenoons to one day.” Home and Country has lately printed some short stories, taken down from the words of the actual relaters, which have the vividness of old folk-lore. I hope that some collections of such stories will INTRODUCTION 1 1 be published in book form. As Tolstoy noticed, the people can tell stories still. In going about from my centre I was distressed to see the number of cottages which are decayed and ruined beyond habitation. Some were actually torn down ; one has its thatched roof fallen in, although the little garden is still tidy and roses are flowering at the porch. I have noticed similar sad facts in other districts and there must be some general cause now at work which leads to the witholding of timely repair and to the ultimate destruction of our English cottages. This is a very large question indeed from many points of view ; from that of the landscape and of the character of the country it is of tremendous importance. More than anything else these cottages, I suppose, form the thought of England in our minds. My next saddening observation was of the great and rapidly spreading extent of the nuisance of throwing out rubbish in an unregulated way. It is going far to soil the purity of the whole country. All about the once sweet commons and tidy roads are dumps ” of tins, old pots and pans, broken glass and other repulsive horrors. What seems to be an inevitable destruction of England’s surface by the ever-extending towns, factories and shunting-grounds of railways, is disquieting enough ; to this we must add the fields which grow advertisements and the increasing chicken-run and shanty kind of farming. Now, beyond all this is the growing habit of 12 HOME AND COLINTRT ARTS looking on the land as a mere backyard for rubbish deposits. Nothing is so urgently required in all our villages as a well considered method of Fig. 4. The Green. dealing with this refuse nuisance in order to tidy up the present disorder. The decay of country crafts is discussed at some length further on in this little book and all I will add here is the remark that the loss is INTRODUCTION 13 double : that of the arts themselves and the loss in the lives of the people who practised them. For the exercise of high skill is a fine mode of life. Now of the people. I wonder whether I may record my impressions, right or wrong. The children seemed to me generally well cared for and happy, many were wonderfully bright and confident ; the women maintain their courage ; the older men are more puzzled and reserved ; the younger men, especially the youngest — the boy-men — appear healthy, good-looking and intelligent, but they seem at a loose end, as not seeing at what to aim. The other Sunday afternoon there was a group of more than a dozen well-dressed youths just hanging about listlessly at the Windmill. They were a fine lot of young man and behaving nicely as becomes the English of King Alfred, but I could not help wondering what their interests were. Speaking generally, and of towns as well as of the country, I suppose that our young men, notwithstanding their good reading, writing and arithmetic kind of education, have less of folk traditions, story, arts, music and poetry than any youths of English stock have ever had. The present type of book education seems to have confused them rather than to have given them inner strength and heart food. Modern education has been more concerned with the things of the letter than with the things of the spirit. It must return to life and livelihood. The people who call themselves educated ” will have to learn over again that education should 14 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS be conceived rather as an apprenticeship to worthy life and work than as formal knowledge of words, names and dates. We need a type of education which will furnish the “ heart ” and turn the mind to endeavour and discipline and which will lead on to doing, making and inventing. Even in little children’s schools I should like occasional exhibitions of things made by themselves. Living and working are the two great realities. In older days the customs, traditions and labours of the country constituted the people’s equipment ; now our type of word knowledge has raised the idea that education ” is different from and more than these. In a thoughtful book by Prof. J. T. Findlay, called The Children of England^ which I have just been reading, he points out how up to recent days young people were taught by direct contact with things. Crowded streets and cities are as unwholesome for children as they are for animals and plants. The village served as an educational institute, where young and old exchanged experience. In the foreground of the picture we must place the homestead, for the children, far more than is the case nowadays, found the materials of interest and of culture in the activities of the home. Our ancestors and their children found education through the crafts ; we pursue the same end by discussing them. Education is the work of the people ; grateful as the common folk will be for the guidance of the government and for the inspiration of their great men, the movement in education will be advanced or retarded in the main by popular impulse.” INTRODUCTION 15 Our present supposition that education is knowing words rather than things and deeds will produce many unforseen results. In yesterday’s paper (July 23rd, 1923) there was a paragraph so opportunely close to my purpose that I must make a quotation as an illustration of my own meaning. It was addressed from Cape Towm, and headed Matriculation Mania.” The danger of attempting to build up a white civilis- ation as a mere superstructure upon a basis of black labour is the key-note of the speeches which General Smuts is now delivering, pointing out that many of the problems of the Union spring from the disinclination of the whites to do other w^ork than supervise natives. Let us South Africans endeavour to rid ourselves of the false pride that it is derogatory to be trained in trades as carpenters, builders, blacksmiths and market gardeners. This kind of pride will lead the white race to ruin in South Africa. These warnings are necessary and timely for the matriculation mania is resulting in a most alarming flood of clerks. Youths despise artisanship because all kinds of labour are regarded as more or less Kaffir’s w^ork. Consequently the supply of clerks is hopelessly in excess of demand. There are thus, growing numbers of so-called educated young men wffio are unemployed because they are unfitted for anything but clerical work.” Yes, indeed, and quite so. We, too, have a similar problem at home. It seems naturally to follow from the notion that education is knowing about books that all kinds of labour will be thought of as more or less Kaffir’s work.” It is 1 6 HOME AND COUNTRT ARTS not enough to tell people that labour is good for them ; it has to be shown that all recognise and reverence work as the great first necessity of life. A way must be found of saying to the young men of the nation: ‘‘See those rubbish heaps; this is your England. Can’t we clean it up ? ” Education for modern life must become a many-sided thing and it will have to be acknowledged that the shepherd and the sailor hold traditions of life different from, but not inferior to, those of the bank clerk, the journalist or the advertising agent. What is most wanted in school education is the conception and forma- tion of a common yet sacred — sacred because common — folk-lore in which every English child alike shall share ; a tradition for our race, a foundational stratum of ideas to give strength to the “ heart ” and substance to life — something short, but deep and high, about our country’s story and about men who have done their duty; some opening of minds to the wonder of nature and to the essence of poetry, music, and art. We have to re-establish a traditional story as a common bond of the folk. As it is obvious that the country and country- life are and must be the basis of national strength, we require some definite teaching which will direct our minds more consciously to the great things of nature, common life and common work. That the country is the natural home for children none will doubt. The art of living is best learnt where they may meet the welcome fresh air and enter into close contact with growing things, animal life, seasons and harvests. As life in the INTRODUCTION 17 country seems to be the normal and necessary preliminary to the life in cities, it may be questioned whether the countryman living close to nature, but comparatively ignorant of books, may not be a more complete human creature than the dweller in cities. Art, poetry, song, story- telling and the drama, are instinctive activities which all came from the hearts of ordinary men long before scholars and professionals existed. Education and livelihood should not be widely sundered for vocation is the largest part of life. Work is a sacred thing and I have wished above all to stir the instinct for making and doing. Work is the great reality, beauty is the great aim. Full satisfaction is only to be found in the common beauty of common things of the common life. II , DRUDGERY REDEEMED: BEAUTY IN I COMMON THINGS As a beginning I want to discuss the general idea of Art ” and I have put my own con- clusion as a title. Of course I do not mean to exclude great and exceptional things but the common ones are the more necessary and little . things are a basis for big things. By art I think we should mean all worthy human handicraft, from dairy work and ploughing to cathedral building. In some ways of looking at it, art may seem a subj ect remote from many or most of us, but I wish to argue those are mistaken ways and art properly understood, like poetry and religion, is near everyone of us. It is universal and for all, or it is of little worth and consequence. , Art is intelligence, interest and skill mani- fested in all we make and do and I believe that something of great value to everybody may be suggested by the idea of art. All right and ' reasonable work is a compound of body and soul. If work is without art it is mere toil, drudgery and slavery ; skill, the sense of service and pride in the doing, will fill it with a new spirit. Art is drudgery made divine. We have to make beauty out of all that we do. i8 DRUDGERY REDEEMED 19 Our incessant daily grind ! How wonderful and desirable it would be, we sometimes think, to get rid of it once for all and do nothing ever after. Fig. 5. Cottage Gate. or at least do other things that were not imposed by stern necessity. But would it ? What else is there better worth doing than the things which are needed, serviceable and satisfying By the 20 HOME AND COUNTRT ARTS study of actual works of art I have been drawn to the conclusion, already stated, that all sound handiwork is art, but for the purpose of this chapter I thought I w’ould look up the history of the word. What I find in Skeat’s Etymo- logical Dictionary is this : Art — skill, con- trivance, method.” There is not a word about the special modern associations of the word with oil-paintings and marble-sculpture, the Royal Academy, Exhibition Galleries and great genius.” Fig. 6. Oxfordshire Waggon (drawn by Captain Kettlewelt R-N.). Old, but not so very old, indentures of appren- ticeship to the commonest callings, like those of the tailor or the tinker, call these arts and occu- pations.” Even our present word artisan was formerly arts-man, one who practised an art. So much for the word. I should now like to give a few examples of beautiful common arts. First of all, I think of country cart-building, a craft in which the traditions of good workman- ship and a spontaneously exercised sense of beauty are maintained without anybody thinking any- thing about it. Basket work is another common art, so is ordinary pottery making, but the old ways are now fast disappearing. A correspondent DRUDGERY REDEEMED 21 sends me a photograph of A jug and an old pie-dish, such as used to be found fifty years ago, white, lined with sky-blue glaze, quite a lovely thing. The jug is brown stone-ware. I bought it recently locally ; there are several nice things in stone-ware still obtain- able, which most kitchens possess.” Cart-horse harness and local implement m^aking are still quite good, it seems difficult to spoil things required by horses and in farm work. Field I’lG. 7. Farm Buildings, gates are usually admirable, perfect indeed ; we delight in them when out landscape sketching but most people pass them by as if they were made by a machine in Birmingham, rather than by an intelligent artist in the next village. Cottage- thatching, rick-making, gardening, all are arts essential to the beauty of our country. The ways of house-keeping, furnishing with honest useful things, putting blinds at the windows, cooking and bread-making, laying the table nicely, all are traditional arts. I have seen a hearth whitened in a farm kitchen with the same sort 22 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS of delight in skill as an accomplished painter takes in a successful piece of painting. We recognise a farm dairy or cottage kitchen as beautiful when presented to us in a picture but we find it difficult to see the beauty directly with our own eyes. Fig. 8 is a sketch of a Northumbrian loaf of bread : I am told that the twist is not laid on the top only, but that the whole is twisted. The old butter prints of the last generation were delightful examples of design and amazing examples of skill. My friend writes, I was down where they are made the other day and photo- graphed one of the last two men left — he will do you a tulip or a cow or wheat ears, just as you wish ” (Figs. 9, 10, II and 12). Gravestones, if such things may be mentioned in print, used to be beautiful, human and Fig. 8. A Northumbrian Loaf. DRUDGERY REDEEMED 23 touching, up to about 1850 when all personal thought seems to have vanished from even the inscriptions and they became bald and poor — just another form of manufacture. Sewing, dressmaking, hat-trimming are all valuable forms of art, so is hand-writing, so in a word is done in way by our neighbours. Machine produced things are different, the}^ lack individuality and friendliness. Friendliness in things made and done : that is art. We live in an age of great production in big cities, and by means of advertisement machine-made objects are being spread all over any worthy thing a homely human ourselves or by Fig. 10. I'lG. II. Fig. 12. Butter Prints. the country driving out the old local products. Furniture dealers go about the villages picking up ” old pieces of furniture, brass or crockery for their London shops. In such ways the character 24 HOME AND COUNTRT ARTS of country things has been rapidly changed during the last two generations. I should like to say over again the points on which I want the reader to take the trouble to think for one minute each. I. The value of the notion of art in our own daily work : by accepting necessary toil and by doing it in a ‘^sportsman- like spirit ” it may be r e- deemed from the curse and may even be raised to poetry and made divine. 2. We should be able to recognise sim- ple works of art when we see them, for sympathy’s sake and as an essential means of keeping up good quality in ordinary things. 3. Country things have a character and beauty specially their own. It would be an infinite loss and pity if our villages became like inferior parts ot London. It would be a great gain all round if we could become more aware of the common Fig. 13. A Cottage Chair. (By kind permission of the Dryad Works.) Ill DRAWING FOR EVERYONE My purpose here is to suggest that drawing is a natural common aptitude; that to some extent everybody does actually draw in hand- writing; also that our national powers would be immensely increased if all realised that they could and did draw and if they exercised the faculty more confidently and commonly than they at present do. It is not generally known, as scholars of anti- quities know, that all writing was actually developed out of drawing. Drawing seems to be one of the primitive instinctive ways of com- munication, like speech and imitative actions, and far back in the life of man on the earth the art of drawing can be traced. It is often remarked that children seem in their early years to repeat in miniature the long course of race development, but I do not know if their instinctive tendency towards drawing has been mentioned as an illus- tration of this. Drawings of objects were “ signs ” for those things and the study of early forms of writing — Egyptian, Assyrian and Chinese — shows that the written signs were at first only very simplified pictures. Drawing is an instinctive primitive art ; writing is more advanced, artificial and later. 25 26 HOME AND COUNTRT ARTS Our writing to-day, yours and mine, is really drawing. We do not realise this because by practice we come to do it so spontaneously ; but we all began by drawing the straights and Fig. 14. The Snozv, hy Roger Peach. curves and angles which make up writing and a large part of this learning was the acquiring of conhdence and gaining control of our hand and pen. Control of hand, confidence and accurate observation, are the largest part of all drawing. Again, all of us in our own handwriting have DRAWING FOR EVERT ONE 27 knowledge of a standard of reference for the observation of other shapes. So anyone feels confi- dence that he or she can copy pretty accurately the handwrit- ing of other persons and to do this is quite an advanced drawing exercise. It is done by direct observation and imitation of forms. Now this method may be readily extended by everyone to all sorts of drawing. A leaf, a flower, a face and everytliing else are made up of straights, angles and curves, just tlie forms of letters ; and if we tliought of drawing as a kind of advanced writing tliere is no reason at ah wliy we should not “ write ” tlic forms of simple objects as well as of A B C D E etc. More complex forms are made up of many of sucli minor forms put together and tlie relation of these several parts can only he seen accurately by practice. A profile face for instance is made up of a long flat C-like form for the fore- head, a line like a figure 6 for the nose, a bracket-like shape } for the lips and another little C for the chin; the back of the head is a big D. Fig. 16. Petunia^ by a child of lo. Fig. 15. Nasturtium, by a child of lo. 28 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS For very complicated forms like a tree it is necessary to see the big general form before being confused by the little details ; looked at as a whole it will be seen that most trees approxi- mate to p or A or 8 or ^ in general form. These are likely to lean a little to right or left and so on. Put down your impression of the big general forms first. The minor details are then fitted into the big shapes. Notice for yourself the approximate simplified form of the next tree you see. Drawing is just observing forms and writing ” them down. One great fault of modern English education, it may be suggested, is a tendency to lay out ” every kind of essential human knowledge into a subject ” that takes ten years to begin to under- stand. English History for instance, has been so elaborated that very few people indeed can venture to feel that they know the great facts of our national story. I believe that the big things that matter could and should be told so shortly and vividly that every Englishman might be expected to know the history of his land. It is the same in regard to the stars, and learned people called Astronomers ” have so frightened the rest of us that we have had to draw back and say ‘‘ it is too difficult.” The once common art of drawing has suffered in the same way. Because it takes a dozen or a score of years of practice to draw like a great artist,” ordinary people are afraid to begin, although a competent and interesting demonstrator could teach a class of bright young people much that mattered in a week of evenings — say in six hours. DRAWING FOR EVERT ONE 29 Doubtless it takes a sort of genius and much practice to ride a bicycle like a circus performer, but everybody can learn to ride well enough in a couple of afternoons. In visiting old buildings and ruins about England I have noticed on masonry the names and other scratchings some centuries old ; these are never mere scribblings, but show a sense of design and a power of drawing and I have come to the conclusion that nearly Fig. 17. The Steeplechase^ drawn by Joan Lofting^ aged 8|-. everyone in the middle ages drew ‘‘ in a way ” as a matter of course. These suggestions are being written with the hope that they may be actually useful and have results. Yet I can scarcely think that any grown up ” person reading them will be moved to try to draw. Whatever he may say, I know I couldn’t do it and I get on without it ! ” Well, I have a second line of suggestion, but I will waste one or two more words on the general 30 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS question. We must really as English people aim at recovering and extending our aptitudes, powers and means of expression and not be content with mere getting along.” The thought of could not ” is for the most part merely what the mind teachers call an inhibition, an unnecessary fear. Some measure of useful drawing is at least as easily attained as the ability to ride a bicycle or skill in a simple game. I should like indeed to try to make a game of it and then all would go smilingly. If these words should reach any worker in a craft who at present does just note down the shape of a thing I would say to him : That’s it, go ahead, do more, all the rest is practice ; don’t be shy ; that’s the same kind of drawing as Michael Angelo’s, but not so advanced of course.” The other argument I have, may, I think, carry farther. I want all mothers and aunts and elder sisters to encourage the natural inclination that young children seem to have towards drawing. Show an interest in it, do not chill by un- sympathetic criticism,” help to carry it forward. Just as young children draw quite spontaneously, if they have a pencil and paper, or chalk and a pavement, so for some mysterious reason they nearly all give up drawing at a later stage. I should like to find out just why they give it up and ever after fall back on saying, No, I can’t draw.” My supposition is that they actually come to understand that they are expected to give it up and they therefore do. Their elders and guardians have looked on this natural drawing — a real and remarkable power — as a childish game DRAWING FOR EVERYONE 31 having no relation to drawing proper as exercised bp artists and academicians. Then they frighten the young people by saying that their angular figures with twenty fingers and toes well spread out, are not like the fashion plates with their little gloved hands and pointed shoes, and they go on to speak of a difficult it’s very difficult, you know subject called perspective which 32 HOME AND COUNTRT ARTS everybody who would draw properly must learn, and so on and on. At which talk of learning, the child mind quite naturally draws back and shuts up. Children could just as easily be taught not to speak, or not to write, as they now are taught not to draw. All that this early chill of faculty may imply I cannot measure. Even the people who make our “ great artists ” must suffer, I think, from learning drawing ” too much as a school subject, when it should be the complete opening out of their own individual natural aptitudes and all the rest of the people ever after try to carry on without a natural means of expression, explanation and observation. I need not insist on the advantages of drawing in after life for purposes of expression and explanation, but the relation of observation to drawing is possibly not so obvious. Now drawing is not only doing, it is seeing first. Most drawing is the recording of observations and very much of keen and curious observation of the look of things must be lost to people who do not record what they see and by so doing, learn to look again and record better. I wonder indeed what people who do not draw can see. Please don’t be offended, but they simply cannot see as one whose drawing reacts on his sight sees. Drawing is thus not merely useful, it is also cultural. This question of seeing power may be illustrated again by writing. We can all write and when I show a piece of writing to anyone I am confident they see it as I do ; but if I show the same to a savage, an infant or the cat, what do they really see ? Knowledge DRAWING FOR EVERT ONE 33 and the power to see accurately evidently go together. I will say over again the points I wish to make particularly clear. 1. Drawing is a natural instinct, not an artificial accomplishment. 2. It is an aptitude or method of communi- cation akin to writing and speech ; everybody in modern society ought to draw and would draw if it were expected that they would. 3. Children should be helped in their attempts to draw and they should be encouraged to carry the drawing on past the awkward corner where at present most throw it over with their dolls as being childish. 4. Everyone who writes does in fact draw already and drawing can easily be developed from the basis of writing. 5. Writing itself is an art and the old idea of wanting to write beautifully should be brought back. IV DESIGNING AS A GAME In the talk on Drawing, I said that children should not be frightened off by telling them of its difficulties, but that it should be taught as a game. This is equally true — indeed more obviously true — of ornamental designing. Games themselves are really so interesting because they are all various forms of designing, that is of re-arrangement, adjustment, experiment. Cards or draughts would ' be dull occupations if the player had to repeat one sequence of moves, or to buy a few pattern games from a “ fancy shop,’’ and if design were eliminated. Most generally design ” may be understood to mean arranging how work is to be done. Of course some work — like organ-building and watch-making for example — is very technical and can only be arranged or designed by people who are highly trained in the special craft. In many other customary things, however, like laying the breakfast table, making a pudding or trimming a hat, the design is thrown in with the work and nobody says any- thing about it. All work or “ art ” design arose like that, the designing was done by the workers in going along. So it is with a few things even to-day when so much designing has been isolated into special businesses. The country waggon 34 DESIGNING AS A GAME 35 builder and gate-maker do not want a fussy archi- tect from London to tell them how to do their own work, and they do it so well that they would modestly smile a denial if I tried to tell them what fine designers I think them to be — the real thing in fact. The arranging or designing part in all kinds of work must be a delightful exercise of skill to all who know the rules. We see it at once of the angler for example, but it must be equally possible to the ploughman and rick-thatcher. Besides the arranging how structural work is to be done, there is a large amount of designing of a general and ornamental kind, like the lay-out of a garden, the finishing of a dress and the invention of patterns. This kind of designing should be a game for everybody for it applies to all kinds of work whatever. I may describe pattern design as the arrange- ment of spots, spaces, lines and other simple elements in an orderly way. Even that looks frightening in print, but I mean something which is very easy, in fact more than easy, delightful, a game. I spoke above of laying the breakfast table as involving design — nicely done it may stand as an example of a spot pattern ; patchwork quilts — nice old things — are examples of space patterns ; herring-boning in sewing is a line pattern. Take a lot of coins, say pennies or pennies and shillings, and try in how many orderly arrange- ments you can lay them out. Then consider that the spot need not be a circle, it might be a diamond ” or a leaf or a sprig or something 36 HOME AND COUNTRT ARTS quite elaborate. After I had finished my last chapter in which I spoke of children drawing on pavements, I went out one morning and found within about a hundred yards of my door two nice little drawings of tulips of which I made a Fig. 20. sketch to show you (Figs. 19 and 20). Such little ‘‘ elements ” as these spotted over a fabric, either all of one kind, or both alternately, would make a delightful embroidery pattern. The sprigs without the pot might be turned in several directions thus producing other variations. DESIGNING AS A GAME 37 Another time, with a packet of cards, find out the different pattern arrangements you can make of them, backs and fronts alternately perhaps. One can see at once there may be arrangements in rows like bricks, or half of them may be placed upright ” and half lengthwise. Again they may be placed diagonally or some slanting and some straight. A chess board is a simple example of such a pattern made of squares instead of oblongs and an infinite number of different space- patterns of this kind may be made by altering the boundaries of the spaces — borrowing a piece from the next square on one or two sides and giving up as much on the other side or sides. Just try and see how amusing it is to do. Again, take a boxfull of matches and experi- ment with the arrangements that can be made with them in forming squares, diamonds, herring- bone and more elaborate fret-patterns. Explor- ing what may be done in these ways is pattern- designings and once set going — that is the difficidty — I think it should be quite as amusing as draughts or chess. With a very little thought and ingenuity card games ” of shapes in nice bright colours might be devised which could not fail to amuse both children and grown-ups. The Snap ” and Happy Family ” kind of game in Germany has, I believe, been expanded over more useful fields of knowledge than the relations of Mr. Grits and Dr. Dose. In the amusing autobiography of Lord F. Flamilton he tells how in his family the children learnt many things by the Happy Family ” method and it is easy to see how, if we cared not to waste 38 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS ourselves, much history, poetry, geography, astronomy and designing skill might be uncon- sciously picked up in this way. Designing arrange- ments or patterns might, I am sure, be carried far as a card game ; then it should drift into a pencil and paper game ; and then into a doing-our- work-better game — the best of all amusements. Work has become so dull, drab and dreary just because the designing game has gone out of it. Another good form of the designing game is paper cutting ; many people who are afraid of their life of pencil and paper can “ draw ” very w^ell with scissors. For four-way patterns take thin paper and fold once, then across, and again diagonally, till the form of V is readied, then cut in boldly yet with little turns and see what comes of it. Fig. 21 gives tw^o just done, not very good, but they show^ what I mean. An endless number of rosette and DESIGNING AS A GAME 39 cross forms valuable for embroidery and all sorts of things may be obtained in this w^ay. If the country tomb-stone maker would invent crosses in the same way for incising on slabs, that now verv dreary business might be half reformed — the other half would be to get people to write tiG. 23. Design of (Coloured Papers stuck dozcn^ by Ucicii Peach. inscriptions which said something human and to have them lettered in an amateur way instead of, as Hudson said, “like an auctioneer’s advertise- ment on a barn door.” This “ art,” about which I am trying to talk, is human expression, natural skill and feeling, a sort of poetry ; not manufactured dreariness obtained at a shop 40 HOME AND COUNTRY ARTS for five pounds down. In Fig. 22 I have turned one of the cut paper rosettes into an embroidery pattern. Fig. 23 is from a more elaborate design made up of sprigs and birds cut out in coloured paper and gummed down on a background. This was done for fun by Helen Peach, a big little girl twelve years old. Playing with lines is quite a pleasant game with a pencil. Begin as A, B, C, in Fig 24 by four lines crossing one another — then add a little bit to the end of each line uniformly as at 1, then add a bit more to all four lines as at 2, then more as at 3, and finally close up all the sides as at 4. The bottom one is a com- plete result except that there is one little mistake. Such braiding patterns should be very useful to embroiderers and dressmakers ; they must be done in the play spirit. Knot work is another common form of pattern- ing. Take a piece of string and make chain stitch of it, also plait two or three cords together ; now notice what pretty patterns these are. In Fig. 25 I played with a piece of cord until the knot A A S’ C Fig. 24. DESIGNING AS A GAME 41 came ” and then it was adapted into the cross form B. Nearly anything will do from which to grow a pattern or design. Take the letters and for- getting that they spell, look on them only as shapes. By mere repetition they may be turned into pattern elements with which the design- ing game may be played : cccccccc c HHHHHHHHHH NNNNNNNNNN SSSSSSSSSSS DaDODODaD luuunmui In Fig 26 I begin with some letter forms but play with them a little by turning them about, then I take the last two to experi- ment with further. I put down the separate S forms as on the right-hand side : then this suggests that the lines should be linked together as on the left. Again with the E element, make an all-over arrangement as on the right (one little mistake again !), now try linking up these, and make further additions ; all the simplest child’s play. A pattern comes out ot it which I never saw before and yet on the other hand it looks quite Chinese. 42 HOME AND COUNTRT ARTS As these designs made themselves by playing the game and I had no part in it beyond holding the pencil, it may be said that they are quite pretty in their way — they would make excel- lent quilting patterns. I end with one or two designs from nature which have been lent to me by kind young people. The birds in the bush are little more than a nature drawing but just that little — the arrangement and even- ness of distribution — turns it into a design. I should like a room painted all over like that (Fig. 27). Fig. 28 is one from a set of cards of the alphabet. The designing I have spoken of might be tried over by anyone in a few hours. The point I want to make especially plain is that all ornamental designing arises by such experiment as I have tried to describe or it is suggested in the course of work by the ways in which things are done like pinching and pressing spoon patterns in piecrust or again it comes from observation of nature (Fig. 27). It does not require genius or any special gifts, it only needs practice like any other game. I believe all young people should be led through VAVAVA ZZZZ7.7L XTX7XXL mr/ m E^3Em Fig. 26. DESIGNING AS A GAME 45 As