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diff --git a/33350.txt b/33350.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..17716c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/33350.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1203 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Arts and Crafts Movement, by +Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Arts and Crafts Movement + +Author: Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson + +Release Date: August 4, 2010 [EBook #33350] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + +THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT + + +BY T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON + + +HAMMERSMITH PUBLISHING SOCIETY +RIVER HOUSE HAMMERSMITH +MDCCCCV + + + + +The Movement, passing under the name of 'Arts and Crafts,' admits of +many definitions. It may be associated with the movement of ideas, +characteristic of the close of the last century, and be defined to be +an effort to bring it under the influence of art as the supreme mode in +which human activity of all kinds expresses itself at its highest and +best; in which case the so-called 'Arts and Crafts Exhibitions' would +be but a symbolic presentment of a whole by a part, itself incapable of +presentment: or it may be associated with the revival, by a few +artists, of hand-craft as opposed to machine-craft, and be defined to +be the insistence on the worth of man's hand, a unique tool in danger +of being lost in the substitution for it of highly organized and +intricate machinery, or of emotional as distinguished from merely +skilled and technical labour: or again, it may be defined to be both +the one and the other, and to have a wider scope than either; as for +example, it may be defined to constitute a movement to bring all the +activities of the human spirit under the influence of one idea, the +idea that life is creation, and should be creative in modes of art, & +that this creation should extend to all the ideas of science and of +social organization, to all the ideas and habits begotten of a +grandiose and consciously conceived procession of humanity, out of +nothing and nowhere, into everything and everywhere, as well as to the +merely instrumental occupations thereof at any particular moment. + +No definition, however, is orthodox or to be propounded with authority: +each has its apostles: and besides the definitions attempted above, +there are still others, some of them, indeed, concerning themselves +only with the facilities to be afforded to the craftsman for the +exhibition, advertisement, and sale of his wares. + +Nor do I propose, myself, to propound one at this stage of my +description of the movement. I merely adumbrate the shifting goal, as +it may have presented itself to the minds of the men engaged in the +movement, that you may know at the outset, in vision, those far-off +heights, which they, or some of them, essayed not only themselves to +climb, but to make all mankind also to climb. + +It is to the movement itself that I will first ask your attention. + +Art is one, though manifold, and when the Royal Academy of Arts, in +spite of many protests, continued to restrict its Academic Exhibitions +to Painting, Sculpture, and Abstract Architecture, a body of protesters +came together, not any longer to protest only, but this time to +constitute a society of exhibitioners who should widen the academic +conception of art, and open its exhibitions to all forms of art, +provided only that the form _was_ of art, born of the imagination, and +destined to touch the imagination. + +Such a society was in due time formed, and, under the name of the 'Arts +and Crafts Exhibition Society,' initiated the wider movement which, +from itself as source, has spread all the world over, and created a new +interest. The arts and crafts have been born again, and, in a new +sense, occupy the attention of mankind. + +The first exhibition was held in the New Gallery, in London, in the +autumn of 1888. It is not necessary to dwell on the exhibits which +stand enumerated in the catalogue now before me. It is sufficient to +say that whereas each exhibit, standing alone, might have been seen +without any sense of a new 'movement' being on foot, the accumulation, +under one roof and idea, of so many different and differently conceived +things of beauty, made a marked impression on the public imagination, & +unmistakably heralded the advent of a new force into society, at once +creative and classificatory. Old things, long since done, were to be +put into new relations, & upon a higher plane, and all new work was to +be conceived of as convergent upon one end, the dignity and sweetness +of life, and the workman--artist or craftsman--was to derive therefrom +his measure of happiness & delight. And that work, which for the world +had lost all association with human initiative & solicitude, was to be +made to resume that intimate relation, and the workman himself to be +recalled into the assembly of those who are consciously striving to the +acknowledged end. The workmen contributing to the creation of a work +were to be thenceforward named its author, and to have their names +inscribed upon the great roll of the world's ever visible record. + +Such appeared to be the new movement of which the first exhibition of +the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society was the first overt act. + +Besides the enumeration and description of exhibits, the catalogue +contained a preface by the President, Walter Crane; a notice of +lectures to be given in connexion with the exhibition; and a number of +'Notes' upon various arts & crafts written by men who, as stated in the +preface, were associated with the subjects of which they treated, not +in the literary sense only, but as actual designers and workmen. + +The object of the lectures was stated to be twofold: (1) To set out the +aims of the Society; and (2) by demonstration & otherwise, to direct +attention to the processes employed in the arts and crafts, and so to +lay a foundation for a just appreciation, both of the processes +themselves, and of their importance as methods of expression in design. + +And here I may intercalate an extract from a book which appeared at +that time, as it throws a light upon, indeed constituted, one of the +main impulses to which was due the inception of the lectures. I refer +to 'Scientific Religion, or Higher Possibilities of Life and Practice +through the Operation of Natural Causes,' by Laurence Oliphant; and the +passage to which I ask your attention is the following: + +'He can no longer be esteemed an excellent workman who can only work +excellently! for his work, to prove that it is living, must be +generative, and it will not be generative unless the workman has his +mind trained to a clear conception of his own methods and their +connexion with the laws of Nature: and unless he can impart that +understanding by word of mouth: unless, in fine, the sum of his +experience, while he is constantly increasing it, is as constantly +forced by him into mental shape'--or, as I might add, into imaginative +shape and association. + +When I read this I seemed to see all crafts and manufactures and +commerce crystal clear and capable of statement, so that, even as they +stood outlined and embodied to the corporeal eye, so they should shine +in all their processes and relations clear as in sunlight to the eye of +intelligence: and it was in such wise that when the time came I +proposed to the Committee of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society +that Lectures should form a part of the purpose of the Society, and +should accompany and be delivered in the building of the Exhibition (1) +to convert the implicit mental processes involved in the exercise of a +craft into explicit articulate utterance capable of making such mental +processes intelligible at once to the worker himself and to the +spectator interested to know, and (2) to widen the horizons of the +workers and to set their work in due relation to the other crafts and +processes with which it was associated, and to the forces of Nature +upon which they and it depended. + +Lectures, as announced in the Catalogue, were given in connexion with +the first exhibition by William Morris on Tapestry, by George Simmonds +on Modelling and Sculpture, by Emery Walker on Letterpress Printing, by +myself on Bookbinding, and by Walter Crane on Design. + +Perhaps, in view of the results which have flowed from it, and at this +distance of time, I may for a moment dwell particularly on the lecture +on Letterpress Printing. It was at my urgent request that Mr. Walker +overcame his reluctance to speak in public, and I therefore claim for +myself the honour of being the real author of The Kelmscott Press! for +it was in consequence of this lecture given by Mr. Emery Walker at my +request, and the lantern slides of beautiful old founts of type and MS. +by which it was illustrated, that William Morris was induced to turn +again his attention to printing, and this time, as a printer, to +produce, in friendly collaboration with Mr. Walker, that splendid +series of printed books which has inspired printing with a new life, +and enriched the libraries of the world with books as nobly conceived +and executed as any that distinguish the great age of Printing itself. + +The 'Notes,' to which reference has already been made, occupied a +little more than a third of the Catalogue, and treated of: + + Textiles, + Decorative Painting and Design, + Wall papers, + Fictiles, + Metal work, + Stone and Wood carving, + Furniture, + Stained and Table glass, + Printing, and + Bookbinding: + +and as they contain the doctrines of the new movement so far as it was +applicable to the crafts of which they treated, it may be worth while +to turn over a few pages and to see what those doctrines are. + +Mr. Morris, who writes on Textiles, opens at once on his subject. +'There are,' he says, 'several ways of ornamenting a woven cloth.' He +then enumerates the ways as follows: (1) Real Tapestry; (2) Carpet +weaving; (3) Mechanical weaving; (4) Printing or Painting; and (5) +Embroidery; and proceeds under each head to lay down principles, +accordant with the particular method, for the production of the +ornament required, and concludes his note with some general maxims +applicable to all the methods alike, as thus, 'Never forget the +material you are working with, and try always to use it for doing what +it can do best: if you feel yourself hampered by the material in which +you are working, instead of being helped by it, you have so far not +learned your business, any more than a would-be poet has, who complains +of the hardship of writing in measure and rhyme. The special +limitations of the material should be a pleasure to you, not a +hindrance: a designer, therefore, should always thoroughly understand +the processes of the special manufacture he is dealing with, or the +result will be a mere _tour-de-force_. On the other hand it is the +pleasure in understanding the capabilities of a special material, and +using them for suggesting (not imitating) natural beauty and incident, +that gives the _raison d'etre_ of decorative art.' + +In a note on wall papers Mr. Crane goes into useful detail as to the +conditions of successful pattern making for their decoration. As, +however, our purpose is only with the more general lines and direction +of the movement, we need not follow him into this detail, and I will +leave it with the remark that this and kindred notes by him and others +show sufficiently that the writers did not confine themselves to +general principles difficult of application without intermediary +illustration, but addressed themselves vigorously to the actual +practice of the craft treated of, and sought to quicken it into life at +once by Principle and Precept, by Example, and by Trade Recipe. + +Continuing our exploration of the Notes, we next come upon an +interesting one by the late--alas! too many of the early workers in the +movement have ceased to be with us, and I feel here tempted to break +off, and, in sympathy with that sublime chapter of Ecclesiasticus which +I have recently been printing, to commemorate 'our fathers that begat +us,' the great Dead. + + Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, + Men renowned for their power, + Giving counsel by their understanding, + And declaring prophecies. + +Burne-Jones, William Morris, Madox Brown--'these be of them that have +left a name behind them to declare their praises.' And some there be +that have no memorial save the memory of them enshrined in the hearts +of them that knew them. But adequately to commemorate were too great an +enterprise, and I return to my immediate topic; and yet, as I turn, one +of great name, greater than all whom I have named, impels me to pause +and to praise him, him who begat the begetters, him who was 'as the +morning star in the midst of a cloud, as the moon at the full,' Ruskin! +To him we all owe whatever of impulse is in us toward that goal whose +outline it is my business to describe to you to-night. To Ruskin, then, +all honour, all praise, to Ruskin, the great Dead who in life, living, +begat us! + +To resume. + +The Note on Fictiles, by the late G. T. Robinson, carries us to the +dawn of art and craft, for, as says Mr. Robinson, 'Man's first needs in +domestic life, his first utensils, his first efforts at civilization, +came from the mother earth, whose son he believed himself to be, and +his ashes or his bones returned to earth, enshrined in the fictile +vases he created from their common clay. And these fictiles,' continues +Mr. Robinson, 'tell the story of his first art instincts, and of his +yearnings to unite beauty with use. They tell, too, more of his history +than is enshrined and preserved by any other art; for almost all we +know of many a people and many a tongue is learned from the fictile +record, the sole relic of past civilizations which the destroyer Time +has left us. Begun in the simplest fashion, fashioned by the simplest +means, created from the commonest materials, fictile _Art_ grew with +man's intellectual growth, and fictile _Craft_ grew with his +knowledge--the latter conquering in this our day, when the craftsman +strangles the artist alike in this as in all other arts. To truly +foster and forward an art,' concludes Mr. Robinson, 'the craftsman and +the artist should, where possible, be united; or, at least, should work +in common, as was the case when, in each civilization, the Potter's Art +flourished most, and when the scientific base was of less account than +was the art employed upon it.' + +It is not necessary for our purpose to go through the succeeding Notes, +or to say more than that, assuming the principles which underlie all +great art, they deal in their several ways with a number of crafts +which the creative ingenuity of man, working, as described by Mr. +Robinson, for the satisfaction & for the adornment of the satisfaction +of his wants, imaginative and real, has in different circumstances and +at different times invented, and seek, amid the confusion which has +arisen in the abuse of these crafts by pseudo-craftsmen and artists, +who have approached them from the outside, to restore to them their +sanity, alike in process and in choice of material, in aim, and in the +expression of beauty and of purpose. + +The master-principle, however, to be deduced from the Notes may be here +restated in the words of Mr. Morris, for it is a principle applicable +to the whole range of imaginative creation: 'Never forget the material +you are working with, and try always to use it for doing what it can do +best.' + +To the catalogues of the two following exhibitions more Notes were +added, and finally, in 1893, all the Notes were put together and +published in one volume, entitled 'Art and Crafts Essays by Members of +the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society,' with a Prefatory Note by +William Morris. This volume was reprinted in 1899. + +In the Prefatory Note Mr. Morris sets out the purpose of the Society as +understood by him--too narrowly, I think. 'It is,' he says, 'to help +the conscious cultivation of art and to interest the public in it, by +calling special attention to that,' in his judgement, 'really most +important side of art, the decoration of utilities by furnishing them +with genuine artistic finish in place of trade finish.' To this I shall +return by and by. + +After the Prefatory Note comes the Table of Contents of the volume. And +looking for a moment down the long list of tongues in which Craft, +under the guidance of Art, is striving to speak afresh, how can one +fail to lament the time now past and to wish it back, when these +tongues, now the language, and too often the quite artificial language, +of a professional and specially trained class, were but the vernacular +of one common language, widely and familiarly spoken, and craftmanship +itself but 'joy in widest commonalty spread'; joy in working in all the +various ways of imaginative invention, upon all sorts and kinds of +material, material brought from afar, sought with danger or grown in +pastoral peace; joy in making and devising things of use and of beauty, +homely things, princely things, things of beauty for beauty's +adornment, noble things for a city's; all amid Nature's own, yet +unsullied, immense creativeness, all for the admiration and use of +vigorous emergent and vanishing generations, whose common bond in life +was the thing so made, its beauty and its use. + +We may now leave the explanatory preludes, the Notes, and turn to the +Lectures, to which reference has already been made. They were given, I +think, at each Exhibition, except the last, and in the Exhibition +itself, and were meant, besides the objects officially announced in the +catalogues, to widen the scope of the Exhibitions, otherwise restricted +to things of minor importance only, and to extend the attention of the +public to things not present in the Exhibition, though to be imagined +and thought of in association with it. And here we may expect to find, +and shall find, as I shall show, a more extended view of the aims of +the Society as set out by itself. + +It is matter of regret that, save one series presently to be mentioned, +and a lecture by William Morris, no record has been kept of them. They +were delivered, and are now perhaps forgotten. And yet how stimulating, +how interesting the circumstances of some of them! William Morris, on a +raised platform, surrounded by products of the loom, at work upon a +model loom specially constructed from his design--now in the Victoria +and Albert Museum--to show how the wools were inwrought, and the +visions of his brain fixed in colour and in form; Walter Crane, backed +by a great black board, wiped clean, alas! when one would have had it +remain for ever still adorned by the spontaneous creations of his +inexhaustible brain; George Simmonds, demonstrating to us the uses of +the thumb, and how under its pressure things of clay rose into life; +Lewis Day, designing as he spoke, and bringing before our inner eye, as +well as the outer, the patterns of Asia and of Europe in stage after +stage of development; Selwyn Image, by his studied elocution, taking us +back to the church which he had left, but with sweet reasonableness +depicting before its shadowy background the bright new Jerusalem toward +which his enfranchised imagination burned; Lethaby, entrancing us with +the cities which crowned the hills of Europe, or sat in white on the +still seashore, or mirrored in the waters of Italy: all vanished, save +the memory of them! And here, dwelling in memory on the past, may I not +recall the fervour, the enthusiasm of those first years, the ready +invention, the design, born of the moment and the occasion, for +catalogue, rules and room; and one design that caused so much, +long-forgotten commotion--the design by the President, to be hung over +the out-door entrance to the gallery, of artist and craftsman, hand in +hand! But how recall them to those who knew them not? Impossible! I +mention them only in piety to that holy time, when we circled about the +founts, and played, of that great movement which is now the world's! + +As I write these words I am reminded of that definition to which I said +I would return. 'The aim of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society'--I +repeat the definition--'is to help the conscious cultivation of art, +and the attempt to interest the public in it, by calling special +attention to that really most important side of art, the decoration of +utilities, by furnishing them with genuine artistic finish in place of +trade finish.' + +Surely this is a strange misapprehension & restriction of the aims of +the Society! Were that the only aim, then the movement was not what I +imagined it to be, and still imagine, nor would it be worthy of your +attention to-day, not to speak of the world's! + +In the same preface in which this definition occurs there is a passage +which I passed over at the time, but which at this stage of our history +it is important that I should notice. 'We can,' says the writer, +'expect no general impulse towards the fine arts till civilization has +been transformed into some other condition, the details of which we +cannot see.' + +And it was therefore--because we could expect no general impulse +towards the fine arts, until this obstacle was removed, that we were in +the meantime, and this was to be our 'movement,' to help the conscious +cultivation of art, which the writer at the same time says is no art at +all, and the attempt to interest the public in it! + +Here I am at issue with the writer, and would submit that this general +impulse must precede and _itself_ bring about the transformation: and +further that this general impulse is precisely and already the impulse +constituting that great movement dubbed 'Arts and Crafts,' and that its +aim is not merely to help the conscious cultivation of art pending the +transformation, but itself to bring the transformation about. + +In fact, I submit that in the intention of the founders, or in the +intention of some of them, Art is, or should be, an agent _in the +production_ of noble life, and not merely an executant dependent upon +and presupposing its existence. + +As some evidence of this intention, I may adduce the following +conclusion from an unpublished Report of the Committee to the Members +of the Society. 'In conclusion, the Committee would venture for a +moment to take their stand upon the higher plane of the Society, and to +say a word or two upon the cause which in the opinion of the Committee +constitutes the claim of the Society to attention and support. For a +small body of artists to band themselves together, simply to produce +and to exhibit objects of art for an age which is not indeed +essentially inartistic, but which, by the accident of the failure of +the imagination to grasp and mould its dominant realities, has not had +revealed to itself the splendour of its opportunities, or of the +meaning of Beauty in association with Industry and Science--for a small +body of Artists to band themselves together for such a purpose is +indeed something; but it is to leave unfulfilled, unessayed, the main +function, in this and every age, of all great Art and of all great +Artists. Such Art and such Artists would and should, whilst still +producing, as best they may, if not "things of immortal Beauty," at +least "things of their own," strive at the same time to understand the +true drift and possible Ideal of the Age in which they live. It is the +function of an Artist to divine the Ideal of an age, and to express it +in manifold Form. The Ideal of the present age has been neglected by +him. The actuality has been left as an actuality, unredeemed by ideas, +to those whose sole business it is to carry on, and to constitute, the +actuality of the age. But there is above and beyond every Actuality an +Ideal upon which it can and should be modelled. It is this Ideal which +it is the function of the Artist--which it is the function of this +Society--to discover and to express, in great things as in small, in +small as in great: and the Ideal, expressed, is then as a great Light +to those who sit in darkness; it is a light towards which the soul of +Actuality turns; it is that which, aspired to, gives to an age dignity +and immortality, and converts the work of the hand and brain from work +that is sordid and mean, to work that is imaginative and noble.' + +But the claim does not rest on unpublished records alone. This I think +will be apparent if attention be given to the one series of Lectures +which has survived their delivery, and been published. I refer to 'Art +and Life, and the Building and Decoration of Cities,' a title which of +itself carries the scope of the Society beyond all the possible +Exhibits of an Exhibition. + +The object of these Lectures is thus explicitly stated by the Lecturer +on 'Art and Life,' which introduces the series, and his statement is +borne witness to throughout by all the other speakers. The statement to +which I refer is as follows: 'I now begin the first of a series of +Lectures having for their object generally the extension of the +conception of Art, and more especially the application of the idea of +Beauty to the organization and decoration of our greater cities.' And +of his own Lecture he says: 'I desire to extend the conception of Art, +and to apply it to life as a whole; or, inversely, to make the whole of +life, in all its grandeur, as well as in all its delightful detail, the +object of the action of Art and Craft.' + +And in the course of it the Lecturer thus defined what seemed to him +the function of art in this extended conception of its meaning. 'Art +implies a certain lofty environment, and is itself an adjustment to +that environment of all that can be done by mankind within it. Art as a +great function of human imagination is not the creation of isolated +objects of beauty, though isolated objects of beauty may indeed be +created by art, and, in themselves, resume all that is beautiful, +orderly, restful, and stable in the artist's conception of that +environment. Still less is it, what some may seem to imagine, the +objects of beauty themselves. Art is, or should be, alive, alive and a +universal stimulus. It is that spirit of order and seemliness, of +dignity and sublimity, which, acting in unison with the great +procession of natural forces in their own orderly evolution, tends +to make out of a chaos of egotistic passions, a great power of +disinterested social action; which tends to make out of the seemingly +meaningless satisfaction of our daily and annual needs, a beautiful +exercise of our innumerable gifts of fancy and invention, an exercise +which may be its own exceeding great reward, and come to seem to be +indeed _the_ end for which the needs were made.' + +It was thus and thus that, in the inception of the Society, we sought +to 'divine' the Ideal of the Age, and to give effect to it in the work +which lay immediately to hand. But it was not to such work only that +the ideal was to be extended. 'Nor,' continues the Lecturer, 'do I stop +at deeds to be done in such unison. I demand in the name of art--and +here is especially the note and distinction of Modern Art as I conceive +it--I demand in the name of art, that Science itself, that knowledge, +shall enter upon a new phase, and itself become, in the mind of man, +the imaginative _Re-presentment_ of the universe without, an analytical +knowledge of which has hitherto been its one sole and supreme aim.' + +Again, in another matter, bearing upon the aims of the Society & of the +movement, I must, albeit reluctantly, dissent from the view taken of it +by my friend Mr. Morris. It will help, perhaps, to clear up the +situation. + +In an article 'On the revival of Handicraft' published in the +'Fortnightly' in 1888, the year of the first Arts and Crafts +Exhibition, an article interesting and stimulating as are all the +writings of Mr. Morris, there is, amid so much that is admirable, a +statement which would sweep away the whole of modern life, & render the +achievement of its distinctive ideal an impossible dream--a +consummation devoutly to be wished! we can indeed imagine Mr. Morris to +exclaim. + +'As a condition of life,' Mr. Morris says, 'production by machinery is +wholly an evil.' + +But surely this is altogether questionable. Surely things there are, +the production of which by machinery may be wholly right, things which, +moreover, when so produced may be wholly right also, and in their +rightness even works of art. + +Great works of art are useful works, greatly done. In the same article +Mr. Morris, deprecating, as I would do, the exclusive production of +Beauty for Beauty's sake, goes on to say, as I would wish to say: 'In +the great times of art, conscious effort was used to produce great +works for the glory of the city, the triumph of the Church, the +exaltation of the citizens, the quickening of the devotion of the +faithful: even in the higher art, the record of history, the +instruction of men alive or to live hereafter, was the aim rather than +beauty.' + +But if in the great times of art, great works were the aims of great +art rather than beauty, why to-day should not great works still be the +aim of great art rather than beauty? Is to-day wanting in great works +waiting to be done in the great way, which is the way of art? or is it +that to-day all great works are machinery only, and so an evil, +incapable of artistic treatment? + +But, to take a simple instance, one short of that complete +Transformation of Life which should be the main aim of art, to take a +practical problem of modern life, the supply of water to a great city, +consider the grandiose character of the problem, despite, or shall we +say in consequence of, the mighty mechanical agencies now involved in +its solution--the fetching of the water from the far-off pure source, +the hills of rain & of snow, to the city of the plain and the sun, its +storage and distribution, by the immense pulsations of machinery, day & +night, year after year. Is not that a noble problem for the imaginative +faculties of the artist, only less noble than the supply of the Holy +Spirit from the pulpit or the altar, to the massed congregation at +their feet, or than the summons from Tower or Belfry to unity of action +or of prayer, of the separated members of a city or a Church? But such +a problem, since the great days of Rome, is not thought of in connexion +with art, nor is the grandiose character of its solution so much as +dreamed of--the carriage of the water to the city, one long triumphant +procession: and within the city what noble works! first in importance, +the pumping station; how prosaic it sounds! yet to the imagination how +magnificent! that mighty heart, that to the uttermost ambit of the city +drives the far-off burthen of the hills! Then the public fountains in +the great thoroughfares, at the great crossings & in the great squares; +noble works of art, at once to typify and to actualize a city's purity +and to satiate a city's thirst, and for a city's joy and remembrance, +in pleasant shower, to cast into the air the liquid drops which first +fell for it, and fall, on the distant heights of snow. And finally in +each house, in each room, the separate jet, the very taps this time +ablaze with beauty for happy beauty's sake, and happier use! + +Again, to take a larger instance--still an instance of machinery. The +people of England, like the people of Rome, have been engaged for a +thousand years or more in making a constitution, a great piece of +machinery, for their own governance, and are still engaged in that +task, and are likely to be engaged in it, perhaps for a thousand years +or more to come. It is a great task, a great problem, ever changing its +conditions with the changes which, with other causes, its own changes +bring about: it is also, or should be, a great work of art as well as +of machinery, in which, in future ages, will be seen the moral & +imaginative framework of this people of England. That work of art +should be had in view in the struggles of the moment, should be had in +view and be promoted by every citizen who would do more than live out +his individual years in selfish & ignoble isolation; but it should +especially be had in view by the people as a whole, be their ideal, +their supreme work of art; and theirs whom the people's will has placed +at their head to mould and to guide their destinies, theirs, so that +when the world's history shall be rounded off and resumed in planetary +stillness, and in the consciousness of the gods, England, England's +history, shall shine out starlike, England, which shall have made, not +itself its goal, but an immortal purpose--ideal freedom and the world's +joy! + +Such is one other great work of art, of machinery, still awaiting +accomplishment, still awaiting the devotion to which all great art is +due. + +But art to-day has no eyes, no devotion, & so for art there is no great +object, and for the great object no art. Nor does the great artist, as +does the great opportunity, sojourn in our midst. Such art and artists +as there are, and are there any? are but engaged in the conscious +cultivation of art for art's sake, or of beauty for beauty's sake, +pending the great transformation which, meanwhile, is no affair of +theirs. + +Of such art and of such cultivation, nothing need be expected: and such +art and such cultivation are certainly not in my judgement, nor are +they, so far as I know, in the judgement of the artists whose revolt +founded the Society, the aims of the movement now passing under its +name. + +What those aims are, I will now, from my own point of view, endeavour +to restate: for of the subsequent exhibitions of the Society, nothing +more need be said. Subsequent exhibitions, whether in England, on the +Continent, or in the United States of America, were, and are, but +repetitions, with variations only of detail, of the first, and need no +description; though against exhibitions themselves I may be allowed +before I pass away from them to urge one objection, an objection, not +indeed condemnatory of them, but an objection which should, I think, be +borne in mind in promoting them, and be obviated as far as the +circumstances of each exhibition will permit. The objection which I +would urge is this. + +An exhibition, as I have already insisted, is but a small part of the +Arts & Crafts movement, which is a movement in the main of ideas and +not of _objets d'art_, & there is a danger in the constant repetition +of exhibitions, civic, national, and international, of public attention +being diverted from the movement of ideas, & action thereupon, to the +mere production and exhibition of exhibits. Moreover, of exhibits, +very few things, relatively to the whole of life's possessions and +productions, can be brought together usefully, or at all, under one +roof, and of those which can very few can tell their own tale, +apologize for their shortcomings, or of themselves ask to be forgiven +for the sake of their approximate merit. It was to guard against the +danger of this possible diversion of interest and forgetfulness of the +movement's greater purposes, and indirectly, by suggestion of the +ideal, to illuminate the possible deficiencies of the exhibits, as well +as to draw attention to their merits, that the aid of lectures was made +an essential part of at least the scheme of the Society: and lectures +of the kind in question, lectures, that is to say, which shall deal at +large with the meaning, as well as the contents, of an exhibition, are, +in my opinion, an essential adjunct of every exhibition. + +With this objection stated, I now proceed to wind up my observations +and to come to a conclusion. But before doing so I must ask your +attention in one other matter in which I find it necessary to differ +from Mr. Morris. + +But pray note that it is a matter of interpretation only in which here, +as elsewhere, I presume to differ from that great spirit, now passed +away. Only in the matter of interpretation, for I do not--how could +I?--call in question, here or anywhere, the greatness of the aims of +William Morris himself. I claim only (1) that the movement which I am +attempting to describe had a higher aim than in his own despite he +assigned to it in the passage I have quoted: (2) that machinery may be +redeemed by imagination, and made to enter even into his restored +world, adding to the potency of good, and to its power over evil, which +itself, in my view, it is not: and (3) finally, & this is the last +point of difference to which I shall have to call your attention, that +the age upon which mankind entered, at the close of the fifteenth +century, was one of decay of an old world indeed, but at the same time, +and this was its characteristic, was an age in which a new and a +greater world came to the birth, as in this age it is coming to +maturity, and that it is with this new world, and not with the old +world, that the movement & ourselves have now to do. + +To resume, and to revert to what I was about to say. + +In that magnificent brief lecture on Gothic Architecture, which was +first spoken as a lecture at the New Gallery for the Arts and Crafts +Exhibition Society in the year 1889, and afterwards printed by the +Kelmscott Press during and in the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in the New +Gallery, 1893, Mr. Morris traced, with lightning-like swiftness and +clearness, the progress of Gothic Architecture from its first inception +by the Romans in the invention of the Arch to its consummation in the +exquisitely poised and traceried buildings of the close of the +fifteenth century. + +At the end of the fifteenth century, Mr. Morris says, 'the great +change' came, & Mr. Morris means that we and Architecture, our +principal structural expression, entered upon a period of decay. But I +would rather--and here is my point of difference--I would rather put +it, that the great change came in that the inner vision was substituted +for the outer; or, better still, that one inner vision was substituted +for another inner vision and that the outward expression of the latter +was arrested. Its buildings had been built and the passion for them +exhausted, for the world which had inspired them had vanished, & +another had been born or created in its place: partly another world of +fact, the newly discovered continent of America, and the whole round +world itself; partly another world of ideas, the ancient world and its +literature, Greece and Rome. At the end of the fifteenth century the +printing press was at work, and Europe left for a time the outer world, +the world of the senses and material building, and entered into the +inner world, the world of imaginative reason, of ideas--communicable +henceforward, for a time, by the printed page only, whereon only it +could build up and contemplate the vision of its extended universe. + +Ever since that time this vision has been growing, taking on new matter +for greater change still, and now it is worldwide indeed, and the time +has come to cast its inspirations into form, to embody them in works of +Art. + +What of the past is past is no matter of regret, but somewhat of the +past is imperishable because it is of all time: such is the instinct to +build. The building of the past is built and is in decay. The building +of the future has yet to be built. Of what will it be? + +The answer to this question will be the answer to the question: What, +then, is the movement which I am attempting to describe? + +The building of the future will be the building of the industries +thereof, the building of its ways of looking at things determined by +the vision which has taken the place of that old vision, under the +inspiration of which were built the buildings of the past. + +And the first thing to build will be the vision itself, the supreme +vision--for 'where there is no vision the people perish.' + +The important, the essential thing in the Architecture of the early and +middle ages, as of all ages, is not the Architecture itself, but the +exaltation of sentiment and knowledge, and skill of hand and brain, +which produced it, and the vision of life which was also the creation +of the sentiment, and in turn its inspiration. The vision, indeed, here +as elsewhere & always, is the important, the essential thing. What then +is there in the life of to-day comparable in exaltation to the vision +of that day, what vision competent to produce to-day an Architecture of +life and occupation, with resultant material and imaginative +expression, comparable to the Architecture of life and occupation and +resultant material and imaginative expression, which the vision of that +day was competent to produce and did produce? + +There is one set, static universe, or vision, the Norm of Life, in +which all force is at rest, at rest in equilibrium, in equilibrium of +motion, and there are in the many minds of men innumerable versions +thereof, isolated, unrelated or related, sequent, one: set in motion by +passion, crime, terror, frenzy, even of hate, love, madness, ambition, +or by the soft touch of the dreamer of dreams, the musician, painter, +poet. But be these visions what they may be, they are but visions, +which die again into the norm, the static universe, which is the tomb, +as it is the womb, of all motion, at once the birth-place and the +cinerary urn of all change, the all in all. It is with this all of +change and rest, that the soul of man, athwart all distraction, aspires +to be at one, at one for the fruit of its energy in creation, at one +for the control of its energy in rest, in rest interlocked, repose +absolute. + +And if I were asked, as I have asked, what that supreme vision, that +Norm of Life, in plain words was, I should say that it was the vision +of the universe as revealed to-day in history & science, including in +science all that is not man, though revealed by man working to that end +through the ages, and in history all that is man, all his doings, all +his imaginings, all his aspirations, all whatsoever that is his, but +all seen in the light of science, positively--the vision of the +universe, framed in the infinite. And I should say that man is at the +top of his thought when in exalted, ecstatic contemplation thereof, and +at the top of his doing when in action in accordance therewith, be the +action what it may be. And I should say that the supreme consciousness +emergent from the supreme vision was the consciousness of Being--the +wonder, I AM--and of its inexplicable, insuperable mystery. + +The next thing to build will be the work of the world in the light of +this supreme vision so seen and understood. + +A time arrives in the development of the world's work when, in addition +to the perfect workmanship and beauty of the world's wares, the +embellishment of the world's work itself should become the object of +ambition of those who carry the world's work on, an embellishment which +may take one of two forms, but should take both: the embellishment by +material means and the embellishment by ideas. In embellishment by +material means the senses are satisfied and the imagination touched, +and we have noble roads and houses, noble cities and harbours, noble +wharves and warehouses, noble modes and means of communication, and +noble modes and means of creativeness, and, crowning and giving +significance to all, crowning and expressive ceremonial: in +embellishment by ideas we have the illimitation which is the +characteristic of the imagination, and enables us to see and to create +wholes and relations which surpass the sweep of the senses, and are +visible to the eye of reason only; it is thus that we have the vision, +and see all man's work in its entirety and as part of the universal +process of creation. + +Thinking, then, dispassionately of the world, not for my country's sake +or another's, but for man's, I am haunted by the vision of this its +industrial life, as the matter of man's art to-day. And there come to +me the murmur of the beat of far-off waves on an unknown shore, the +rustle and the struggle of winds through unknown forests and over wide +spaces of inhabitable land: I see the masts of shipping far asunder, +solitary, on the wide seas, or clustered into peopled harbours: I see +the busy hives of industry, glittering like fanes of light by the +river's side or bridging them--all part and parcel of the ocean, the +land, and the air, obedient like them to the cadency of thought, as day +and night, the seasons and the years, beat out their sequences and bear +life onward into the future, or leave it, silent, in the irrecoverable +past. + +Such a world, such a wealth of animate forces, such a vision, the +creation in part of the unknown force, God, in part of man, who is +ourselves, _such_ is the vision upon which, pending the arrival of +the shadow which is Death, we should fix the eyes of Art, permeating +all, embracing all, producing all, even as would do, were he us, the +supreme force, God. + +As of the world of man's work, so of all the visions within the +vision--build with the instincts of fitness and beauty, build & await +the Shadow: to-day again, for a time, comes the light, again and yet +again. In the infinitude of sequences the soul rests, and whilst it +rests, resting, it disappears, even as in life, into sleep, into Death. +Build and await the Shadow. + +Such as I dream it is the Vision of Life, such the Vision of man's +world within it, such the Vision of Art, such, or something like it, +the Vision of the Arts and Crafts Movement, its inception, its history, +and its aims. + +'And here I will make an end. And if I have done well and as is fitting +the story, it is that which I have desired: but if slenderly and meanly +it is yet that which I could attain unto.' + +It may be, indeed, that I have all the while been describing some other +movement, & not that of the Arts and Crafts at all; some movement that +has been taking place in my own mind, as I have had the possibilities +of man's being and doing brought home to my imagination 'in thoughts +from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men': for in +the Introduction to the Lectures on 'Art & Life,' to which reference +has been made in support of the Vision, it is stated that the Lectures +are not to be taken, nor is any of them to be taken, as the official +expression of the aims of the Society! + +But be the official expression of the aims of the Society what it may +be, it is the VISION, _some_ VISION, which imports your good,--which I +urgently commend to your attention. WHERE THERE IS NO VISION THE PEOPLE +PERISH. + + +Printed at the Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham & Co., Tooks Court, +Chancery Lane, London. 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