Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/283

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Of Designs and Working Drawings.

urgent need to work for the pot; and the working drawings of men to whom pounds and shillings must needs be a real consideration are not sought after.

In the case of very smart and highly finished drawings by comparatively unknown designers—of ninety-nine out of a hundred, that is to say, or nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand perhaps—elaboration implies either that, having little to say, a man fills up his time in saying it at unnecessary length, or that he is working for exhibition.

And why not work for exhibition? it may be asked. There is a simple answer to that: The exhibition pitch is in much too high a key, and in the long run it will ruin the faculty of the workman who adopts it.

It is only fair to admit that an exhibition of fragmentary and unfinished drawings, soiled, tattered, and torn, as

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