A glimpse of loveliness for posterity

Ever since the first shaggy hunter outlined a running deer

with a stick dipped in wood ash or puddle clay or blood,

paint has served a vastly more significant and creative purpose:

as a vehicle for the human imagination,

a creator of illusions,

the modest but endlessly pliable means of fixing a glimpse of loveliness for posterity.

The true originators in this field have always been the artists.

But close behind these masters of illusion came the masters of the applied arts:

designers, architects, decorators,

legions of craftsmen

whose vocation was to reflect contemporary standards of beauty and harmony.

 

Jocasta Innes