Beauty and Art

Originally published in 1897. PREFACE: The idiosyncrasies of artists and designers have not infrequently led then into strange vagaries, but here there is no question of a mere eccentricity. We are confronted by a definite intention to introduce entire novelty, not only ignoring the design of the past, but, as far as may be, in defiance of it. It is easy to see how designers might have been irritated ten or twenty years ago by the bad examples of every class of design which they saw around them, and our first impression may be that their attitude may have been a mere reaction based on an erroneous supposition that the past had grown so wholly debased that it must be entirely deserted, and fresh beginnings made on fresh lines....Contents include; Taste, Beauty in Form and Colour, Decoration of the house, Fabrics, and Furniture and Decoration of the Eighteenth Century... Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and incr