Page 32 - The Studio First Edition - April 1893

Spitalfields Brocades

and various sources ,but each English manufacturing silk
house of importance, and one or two enterprising retail houses,
employ for their individual and exclusive use their own staff
of designers ; whilst the services of the most celebrated deco-
rative artists of the day are enlisted for special requirements.
Indeed, among our leading modern designers there are few
who have not on occasion supplied motives for Spitalfields
looms.
It is eminently satisfactory to know that. Englishmen them-
selves are now supplying the more important designs for silk
manufacturers, and that it is no longer necessary to lean on
others for artistic inspiration. If all were patriotically united
to support indigenous art it would soon be found possible to
dispense entirely with foreign aid, and to produce in every
direction more characteristic and beautiful work ; and if de-
signers, especially those of the younger generation, would deign
to study more carefully the technical side of their art, they
would find manufacturers more willing to afford them oppor-
tunity and substantial support. There would then be no
grounds for the reproach that English designers are too often NO. 3
impractical artists, knowing nothing of
the technical difficulties that must be craftsman of course
overcome ; nor for the opinion that only should be able to pro-
foreigners know how to design for tex- duce a work of art
tiles, because they alone by study, within the artificial
patience, and perseverance, have learned limits of mechanical
to master the mechanical processes by reproduction. But, as
which designs must ultimately be re- has been seen, owing
produced. Unquestionably the prefer- perchance to facilities
ence heretofore given to French designers for comparison af-
has been due to the care they bestowed forded by the various
exhibi-
on the technical as well as on the international
aesthetic side of design. The true artist- tions, the opening of
the flood-gates of
Eastern motives in
colour and design, and
to the impetus given
to technical education,
a slowly extending
circle of highly cul-
NO. 4 tured and technically
competent English de-
signers has been formed. That they have succeeded is seen
in the fact that the most intelligent among our manufacturers
are now anxious to avail themselves of the services of English
designers.
The styles of design used for Spitalfields silks vary con-
siderably (see illustrations r, 2, and 3).
One well-known firm
of high repute has shown itself equal to well-nigh every problem
caprice or necessity could provoke, from an unpretentious dress
brocade having a simple motive repeated at regular and near
intervals (see illustrations 4 and 5) to the richest altar-cloths
and ecclesiastical vestments, necessitating designs of the most
NO. 5 irregular and intricate character, in some instances without a