Wilbur Macey Stone

By WILBUR MACEY STONE

LOVERS of the beautiful have been burdened with endless talk and writing and many quarrels on the nude in art, and now I have the temerity to open a new field of battle and throw down the gauntlet for strife. The Eternal Feminine is a prominent factor in the picture book-plates of the day, and she is showing some tendencies to appear minus her apparel. Question: is it wise and in good taste?

Of course, to start with, I am quite free to admit that good taste is a movable feast and is much influenced by the point of view. Your taste is good if it agrees with mine; otherwise it is bad taste or no taste. At any rate, there are a few things we can agree upon, I think. For instance, that there is a wide distinction between the nude and the naked. Also, that the human form divine is most beautiful, but that to remain most beautiful it must deviate not one jot or tittle from the divine, for any deviation is to tend to the earthy and gross, which is vulgar and—bad taste. We can also agree, I think, that partially draped figures can be, and often are, sensual and repulsive beyond the frankly nude, and this without the direct intent or knowledge of the artist.

But above all things a nude figure should never carry the idea of a consciousness of its nudity! Also, clothing or drapery used simply to hide portions of the figure is execrable and more suggestive than any entire absence of clothing; while to add, as I have seen done, a hat and French-heeled shoes to a nude figure is abominable beyond condemnation.

But all this is of broad application and is sawing upon the same old and frayed strings. Abstractly, a beautiful nude is as beautiful on a book-plate as in a portfolio or in a frame, and some of the most beautiful book-plates I have ever seen have been nudes. Nevertheless, to me the nude seems out of place and in questionable taste on a book-plate; the simple matter of repetition is enough to condemn it. The partially draped figures by R. Anning Bell are chaste and beautiful, and one never thinks of them other than as clothed; so they can hardly be considered in this discussion. Many of the book-plates by Henry Ospovat contain partly draped figures which are always beautifully drawn, pure and a constant delight. But really, I think it would jar me to meet even an angel—the same one, mind you—in each of a thousand volumes. Emil Orlak, in Austria, has made some fairly pleasing nudes, but they lack that purity of conception without which they are common. Armand Rassenfosse, of Belgium, has etched a number of dainty, faultlessly drawn and really most beautiful nudes, but many of them have been ruined by the needless addition of shoes and fancy head-dresses. Pal de Mont, of Antwerp, has a plate by Edmond van Oppel which he probably thinks a work of art, but which is surely the height of vulgarity; while in “Composite Book-Plates” is a design by Theodore Simson containing a large figure of a nude woman with her hair done in a pug, seated in a grove amid dandelions and poppies, and diligently reading a book. The figure is treated in broad outline, which is ill adapted to the subject, and it lacks that refinement without which nothing is beautiful. She is absolutely at variance with her environment, and the whole is a tour de force quite unforgivable.

Miss Labouchere, in her volume on ladies’ plates, shows a rather amusing pair of designs for Miss Nellie Heaton. These plates both bear the legend, “Gather ye roses while ye may.” In the first, the designer, Mrs. Baker, has a fair creature in all the glory of entire nudity plucking blossoms from a rose-vine. In the other, she used the same design throughout, but has fully clothed the figure. Evidently Miss Heaton protested.

These designs by a woman call to mind the fact that among the book-plates of over one hundred and fifty women designers with which I am familiar, I know of but one other nude. This other is by Miss Mary Florence, and is of a large full-length angel entirely undraped.

Fritz Erler, a German designer of much strength, has made a number of symbolic book-plates. All, I believe, have the feminine as motif, and in several the figures are nude. The design for Emil GerhÄuser is inoffensive and well-drawn, but surely is not beautiful, and lacks a good excuse for existence. In a generally pleasing decorative arrangement for Robert H. Smith, Harold Nelson, an English designer, shows a rather attenuated nude maiden looking with envy at a gorgeous peacock on the opposite side of the design; while the peacock in turn seems to say, “Why don’t you grow some feathers?”

We naturally expect to find well-drawn, if not always pleasing, nudes in the French school. Henry AndrÉ, one of the best known French designers of book-plates, uses the nude quite freely in his work; in some instances pleasingly, but in one or two with marked vulgarity. Octave Uzanne has the most pleasing nude plate that I have ever seen. It is designed by GuÉrin, and represents a tortoise bearing the implements of the artist, and coaxed along by the hot torch of knowledge in the hand of a light-winged cupid. By Sherborn, the great, I have seen but one nude in a book-plate, and that a poor thing but innocuous, for Mr. Harris Fahnestock of New York. Mr. E.D. French has made but one nude that I have seen, that for Mr. E.H. Bierstadt; the design shows a nude shepherd boy piping to his flock. The plate Mr. French engraved for Mr. De Vinne, from the design by Geo. Fletcher Babb, has nude termini for bearers, and is elegant and beautiful, an ideal plate.

American artists have essayed the nude but little in book-plate design, perhaps through wisdom, perhaps through fear; but the fact remains that they have thereby avoided the perpetration of at least some crimes. Judging by the examples we have been able to cite, and they are representative, it would seem that the best advice we can give those tempted to use the undraped beautiful in their book-plates is—don’t.

BOOK-PLATES OF TO-DAY
TONNELÉ & COMPANY
NEW YORK