Summary
Introduced by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, Crane divides art into aspect and adaptation and says the designer works in the second, by geometric plan and abstract line, rejecting the 'hole in the wall' idea of a picture. Designs differ by the artist's spirit, the constructive idea of filling spaces, and the material, which controls the pattern. On a blackboard he sets a landscape painter's oak beside a designer's, and a field daisy beside one treated for a panel. He calls radiation 'the Home Rule of design', shows a nude figure with an axe that is, he assures the audience, not Mr. Gladstone, and says each material must be honoured for its own qualities. Much bad art, he argues, comes from one art borrowing from another.
Then comes 'the little bit of Socialism'. Fine art is impossible while the worker does monotonous labour amid hideous surroundings and cheapness is 'the god of Life.' The old craftsman was a designer; traces of old ornament linger on cart-horse brasses and milk-cans but are disappearing. Machines are bad only when they are our masters, and the art of the past must not be copied: 'For a new age we require a new form.'
Wilde differs only on Japan. The Japanese are often pictorial, but their touch, colour and instinct for placing, and their knowledge of 'how to make a space decorative without decorating it', make them true decorators. He congratulates Crane and Cobden-Sanderson and notes that the exhibition has paid its way.