[Side note:  The New Decorative School]

The idea is not by any means novel; it has always been the fundamental principle of Japanese art; but its genesis was not in Japan.  The immediate inspiration of the new Decorative school, as far as it is concerned with the decoration of books, at least, was found in the art of Duerer, Holbein, and the German engravers of the sixteenth century,—­interest in which period has been lately so stimulated by the Arts and Crafts movement in England.  This movement, which may fairly be regarded as one of the most powerful influences in latter-day art, was begun with the aim of restoring those healthy conditions which obtained before the artist and the craftsman came to be two distinct and very much extranged workers.  The activities of the movement were at first more directly concerned with the art of good book-making, which fructified in the famous Kelmscott Press (an institution which, while necessarily undemocratic, has exerted a tremendous influence on modern printing), and to-day there is scarcely any sphere of industrial art which has not been influenced by the Arts and Crafts impetus.

[Side note:  Criticisms of the School]

This modern decorative renaissance has a root in sound art principles, which promises for it a vigorous vitality; and perhaps the only serious criticism which has been directed against it is, that it encourages archaic crudities of technique which ignore the high development of the reproductive processes of the present day; and, moreover, that its sympathies tend towards mediaeval life and feeling.  While such a criticism might reasonably be suggested by the work of some of its individual adherents, it does not touch in the least the essential principles of the school.  Art cannot be said to scout modernity because it refuses to adjust itself to the every caprice of Science.  The architect rather despises the mechanically perfect brick (very much to the surprise of the manufacturer); and though the camera can record more than the pencil or the brush, yet the artist is not trying to see more than he ever did before.  There are, too, many decorative illustrators who, while very distinctly confessing their indebtedness to old examples; are yet perfectly eclectic and individual, both in the choice and development of motive.  Take, for example, the very modern subject of the cyclist by Mr. A. B. Frost, Fig. 61.  There are no archaisms in it whatever.  The drawing is as naturalistic and just as careful as if it were designed for a picture.  The shadows, too, are cast, giving an effect of strong outdoor light; but the treatment, broad and beautifully simple so as to be reconcilable with the lettering which accompanied it, is well within conventional lines.  That the character of the technical treatment is such as to place no tax on the mechanical inventiveness of the processman is not inexcusable archaeology.

[Illustration:  FIG. 61 A. B. FROST]