ABSTRACT
In truth, however, much of the best work produced by the artistic manufacturers of the present day is done from designs by gentlemen who have served an apprenticeship to architecture, and have added to this the study of decoration and furniture. Compared with the artistic interiors in Talbert’s book, the examples furnished by the architectural decorator already referred to are rather commonplace, and lack in many instances a just sense of proportion. The difference between the work of an incompetent and a competent critic may easily be perceived by comparing Ruskin’s Stones of Venice with Fergusson’s Handbook of Architecture. Fergusson shows the mature judgment of a man who has studied all styles, whose sympathies are wide enough to appreciate the decorative beauty of detail of Indian work, the regal richness of Saracenic, the virile strength and affluent design of Gothic, as well as the exquisite sense of proportion displayed in Greek.
