The claims of decorative art

About the book

"The claims of decorative art" by Walter Crane is a collection of essays on art and design written in the late 19th century. It argues for the dignity and centrality of the decorative and applied arts, their unity with architecture, and their deep ties to everyday life, labour, and social conditions. The work critiques commercialism and machine production for degrading taste, and champions craftsmanship, pattern, and figurative thought as foundations of a healthy artistic culture. The opening of the work sets out a manifesto: decorative art is not a lesser field but the root system that sustains painting and sculpture, and beauty must permeate daily surroundings to nourish higher arts. Crane insists art is a language shaped by material, use, and social environment; he rebukes exhibition culture and “flatness-only” clichés, arguing adaptability, harmony, and decorum are the true tests of decoration. He broadens “architecture” to mean the structural background of life and thought, showing how economic forces and commercialism fragment the arts and stifle spontaneity, while a more communal mode of living could restore their unity. He then surveys figurative art’s vitality from satire to ideal allegory, defends sculpture and painting from a decorator’s standpoint, outlines the logic and evolution of pattern (from square and circle to scrolls, frets, and fans), and links art to labour, calling for revived handicraft against mechanised production and its erosion of both joy in work and public taste.