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diff --git a/3773-0.txt b/3773-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..604c035 --- /dev/null +++ b/3773-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5526 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hopes and Fears for Art, by William Morris + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Hopes and Fears for Art + Five Lectures + + +Author: William Morris + + + +Release Date: September 26, 2014 [eBook #3773] +[This file was first posted on 23 August 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOPES AND FEARS FOR ART*** + + +Transcribed from the 1919 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + HOPES & FEARS FOR + ART. FIVE LECTURES + BY WILLIAM MORRIS + + + * * * * * + + _POCKET EDITION_ + + * * * * * + + LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. + 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON + FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK + BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS + + 1919 + + * * * * * + +1st Edition, Ellis & White, 1882 +2nd ,, do. 1883 +3rd ,, do. 1883 +4th ,, Longmans 1896 +5th ,, do. 1898 +6th ,, do. 1903 +7th ,, do. 1911 + + Included in Longmans’ Pocket + Library, February 1919 + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +The Lesser Arts 1 +The Art of the People 38 +The Beauty of Life 71 +Making the Best of It 114 +The Prospects of Architecture in Civilisation 169 + + + + +THE LESSER ARTS {1} + + +HEREAFTER I hope in another lecture to have the pleasure of laying before +you an historical survey of the lesser, or as they are called the +Decorative Arts, and I must confess it would have been pleasanter to me +to have begun my talk with you by entering at once upon the subject of +the history of this great industry; but, as I have something to say in a +third lecture about various matters connected with the practice of +Decoration among ourselves in these days, I feel that I should be in a +false position before you, and one that might lead to confusion, or +overmuch explanation, if I did not let you know what I think on the +nature and scope of these arts, on their condition at the present time, +and their outlook in times to come. In doing this it is like enough that +I shall say things with which you will very much disagree; I must ask you +therefore from the outset to believe that whatever I may blame or +whatever I may praise, I neither, when I think of what history has been, +am inclined to lament the past, to despise the present, or despair of the +future; that I believe all the change and stir about us is a sign of the +world’s life, and that it will lead—by ways, indeed, of which we have no +guess—to the bettering of all mankind. + +Now as to the scope and nature of these Arts I have to say, that though +when I come more into the details of my subject I shall not meddle much +with the great art of Architecture, and less still with the great arts +commonly called Sculpture and Painting, yet I cannot in my own mind quite +sever them from those lesser so-called Decorative Arts, which I have to +speak about: it is only in latter times, and under the most intricate +conditions of life, that they have fallen apart from one another; and I +hold that, when they are so parted, it is ill for the Arts altogether: +the lesser ones become trivial, mechanical, unintelligent, incapable of +resisting the changes pressed upon them by fashion or dishonesty; while +the greater, however they may be practised for a while by men of great +minds and wonder-working hands, unhelped by the lesser, unhelped by each +other, are sure to lose their dignity of popular arts, and become nothing +but dull adjuncts to unmeaning pomp, or ingenious toys for a few rich and +idle men. + +However, I have not undertaken to talk to you of Architecture, Sculpture, +and Painting, in the narrower sense of those words, since, most unhappily +as I think, these master-arts, these arts more specially of the +intellect, are at the present day divorced from decoration in its +narrower sense. Our subject is that great body of art, by means of which +men have at all times more or less striven to beautify the familiar +matters of everyday life: a wide subject, a great industry; both a great +part of the history of the world, and a most helpful instrument to the +study of that history. + +A very great industry indeed, comprising the crafts of house-building, +painting, joinery and carpentry, smiths’ work, pottery and glass-making, +weaving, and many others: a body of art most important to the public in +general, but still more so to us handicraftsmen; since there is scarce +anything that they use, and that we fashion, but it has always been +thought to be unfinished till it has had some touch or other of +decoration about it. True it is that in many or most cases we have got +so used to this ornament, that we look upon it as if it had grown of +itself, and note it no more than the mosses on the dry sticks with which +we light our fires. So much the worse! for there _is_ the decoration, or +some pretence of it, and it has, or ought to have, a use and a meaning. +For, and this is at the root of the whole matter, everything made by +man’s hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful +if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant +with Nature, and thwarts her; it cannot be indifferent: we, for our +parts, are busy or sluggish, eager or unhappy, and our eyes are apt to +get dulled to this eventfulness of form in those things which we are +always looking at. Now it is one of the chief uses of decoration, the +chief part of its alliance with nature, that it has to sharpen our dulled +senses in this matter: for this end are those wonders of intricate +patterns interwoven, those strange forms invented, which men have so long +delighted in: forms and intricacies that do not necessarily imitate +nature, but in which the hand of the craftsman is guided to work in the +way that she does, till the web, the cup, or the knife, look as natural, +nay as lovely, as the green field, the river bank, or the mountain flint. + +To give people pleasure in the things they must perforce _use_, that is +one great office of decoration; to give people pleasure in the things +they must perforce _make_, that is the other use of it. + +Does not our subject look important enough now? I say that without these +arts, our rest would be vacant and uninteresting, our labour mere +endurance, mere wearing away of body and mind. + +As for that last use of these arts, the giving us pleasure in our work, I +scarcely know how to speak strongly enough of it; and yet if I did not +know the value of repeating a truth again and again, I should have to +excuse myself to you for saying any more about this, when I remember how +a great man now living has spoken of it: I mean my friend Professor John +Ruskin: if you read the chapter in the 2nd vol. of his _Stones of Venice_ +entitled, ‘On the Nature of Gothic, and the Office of the Workman +therein,’ you will read at once the truest and the most eloquent words +that can possibly be said on the subject. What I have to say upon it can +scarcely be more than an echo of his words, yet I repeat there is some +use in reiterating a truth, lest it be forgotten; so I will say this much +further: we all know what people have said about the curse of labour, and +what heavy and grievous nonsense are the more part of their words +thereupon; whereas indeed the real curses of craftsmen have been the +curse of stupidity, and the curse of injustice from within and from +without: no, I cannot suppose there is anybody here who would think it +either a good life, or an amusing one, to sit with one’s hands before one +doing nothing—to live like a gentleman, as fools call it. + +Nevertheless there _is_ dull work to be done, and a weary business it is +setting men about such work, and seeing them through it, and I would +rather do the work twice over with my own hands than have such a job: but +now only let the arts which we are talking of beautify our labour, and be +widely spread, intelligent, well understood both by the maker and the +user, let them grow in one word _popular_, and there will be pretty much +an end of dull work and its wearing slavery; and no man will any longer +have an excuse for talking about the curse of labour, no man will any +longer have an excuse for evading the blessing of labour. I believe +there is nothing that will aid the world’s progress so much as the +attainment of this; I protest there is nothing in the world that I desire +so much as this, wrapped up, as I am sure it is, with changes political +and social, that in one way or another we all desire. + +Now if the objection be made, that these arts have been the handmaids of +luxury, of tyranny, and of superstition, I must needs say that it is true +in a sense; they have been so used, as many other excellent things have +been. But it is also true that, among some nations, their most vigorous +and freest times have been the very blossoming times of art: while at the +same time, I must allow that these decorative arts have flourished among +oppressed peoples, who have seemed to have no hope of freedom: yet I do +not think that we shall be wrong in thinking that at such times, among +such peoples, art, at least, was free; when it has not been, when it has +really been gripped by superstition, or by luxury, it has straightway +begun to sicken under that grip. Nor must you forget that when men say +popes, kings, and emperors built such and such buildings, it is a mere +way of speaking. You look in your history-books to see who built +Westminster Abbey, who built St. Sophia at Constantinople, and they tell +you Henry III., Justinian the Emperor. Did they? or, rather, men like +you and me, handicraftsmen, who have left no names behind them, nothing +but their work? + +Now as these arts call people’s attention and interest to the matters of +everyday life in the present, so also, and that I think is no little +matter, they call our attention at every step to that history, of which, +I said before, they are so great a part; for no nation, no state of +society, however rude, has been wholly without them: nay, there are +peoples not a few, of whom we know scarce anything, save that they +thought such and such forms beautiful. So strong is the bond between +history and decoration, that in the practice of the latter we cannot, if +we would, wholly shake off the influence of past times over what we do at +present. I do not think it is too much to say that no man, however +original he may be, can sit down to-day and draw the ornament of a cloth, +or the form of an ordinary vessel or piece of furniture, that will be +other than a development or a degradation of forms used hundreds of years +ago; and these, too, very often, forms that once had a serious meaning, +though they are now become little more than a habit of the hand; forms +that were once perhaps the mysterious symbols of worships and beliefs now +little remembered or wholly forgotten. Those who have diligently +followed the delightful study of these arts are able as if through +windows to look upon the life of the past:—the very first beginnings of +thought among nations whom we cannot even name; the terrible empires of +the ancient East; the free vigour and glory of Greece; the heavy weight, +the firm grasp of Rome; the fall of her temporal Empire which spread so +wide about the world all that good and evil which men can never forget, +and never cease to feel; the clashing of East and West, South and North, +about her rich and fruitful daughter Byzantium; the rise, the +dissensions, and the waning of Islam; the wanderings of Scandinavia; the +Crusades; the foundation of the States of modern Europe; the struggles of +free thought with ancient dying system—with all these events and their +meaning is the history of popular art interwoven; with all this, I say, +the careful student of decoration as an historical industry must be +familiar. When I think of this, and the usefulness of all this +knowledge, at a time when history has become so earnest a study amongst +us as to have given us, as it were, a new sense: at a time when we so +long to know the reality of all that has happened, and are to be put off +no longer with the dull records of the battles and intrigues of kings and +scoundrels,—I say when I think of all this, I hardly know how to say that +this interweaving of the Decorative Arts with the history of the past is +of less importance than their dealings with the life of the present: for +should not these memories also be a part of our daily life? + +And now let me recapitulate a little before I go further, before we begin +to look into the condition of the arts at the present day. These arts, I +have said, are part of a great system invented for the expression of a +man’s delight in beauty: all peoples and times have used them; they have +been the joy of free nations, and the solace of oppressed nations; +religion has used and elevated them, has abused and degraded them; they +are connected with all history, and are clear teachers of it; and, best +of all, they are the sweeteners of human labour, both to the +handicraftsman, whose life is spent in working in them, and to people in +general who are influenced by the sight of them at every turn of the +day’s work: they make our toil happy, our rest fruitful. + +And now if all I have said seems to you but mere open-mouthed praise of +these arts, I must say that it is not for nothing that what I have +hitherto put before you has taken that form. + +It is because I must now ask you this question: All these good +things—will you have them? will you cast them from you? + +Are you surprised at my question—you, most of whom, like myself, are +engaged in the actual practice of the arts that are, or ought to be, +popular? + +In explanation, I must somewhat repeat what I have already said. Time +was when the mystery and wonder of handicrafts were well acknowledged by +the world, when imagination and fancy mingled with all things made by +man; and in those days all handicraftsmen were _artists_, as we should +now call them. But the thought of man became more intricate, more +difficult to express; art grew a heavier thing to deal with, and its +labour was more divided among great men, lesser men, and little men; till +that art, which was once scarce more than a rest of body and soul, as the +hand cast the shuttle or swung the hammer, became to some men so serious +labour, that their working lives have been one long tragedy of hope and +fear, joy and trouble. This was the growth of art: like all growth, it +was good and fruitful for awhile; like all fruitful growth, it grew into +decay; like all decay of what was once fruitful, it will grow into +something new. + +Into decay; for as the arts sundered into the greater and the lesser, +contempt on one side, carelessness on the other arose, both begotten of +ignorance of that _philosophy_ of the Decorative Arts, a hint of which I +have tried just now to put before you. The artist came out from the +handicraftsmen, and left them without hope of elevation, while he himself +was left without the help of intelligent, industrious sympathy. Both +have suffered; the artist no less than the workman. It is with art as it +fares with a company of soldiers before a redoubt, when the captain runs +forward full of hope and energy, but looks not behind him to see if his +men are following, and they hang back, not knowing why they are brought +there to die. The captain’s life is spent for nothing, and his men are +sullen prisoners in the redoubt of Unhappiness and Brutality. + +I must in plain words say of the Decorative Arts, of all the arts, that +it is not so much that we are inferior in them to all who have gone +before us, but rather that they are in a state of anarchy and +disorganisation, which makes a sweeping change necessary and certain. + +So that again I ask my question, All that good fruit which the arts +should bear, will you have it? will you cast it from you? Shall that +sweeping change that must come, be the change of loss or of gain? + +We who believe in the continuous life of the world, surely we are bound +to hope that the change will bring us gain and not loss, and to strive to +bring that gain about. + +Yet how the world may answer my question, who can say? A man in his +short life can see but a little way ahead, and even in mine wonderful and +unexpected things have come to pass. I must needs say that therein lies +my hope rather than in all I see going on round about us. Without +disputing that if the imaginative arts perish, some new thing, at present +unguessed of, _may_ be put forward to supply their loss in men’s lives, I +cannot feel happy in that prospect, nor can I believe that mankind will +endure such a loss for ever: but in the meantime the present state of the +arts and their dealings with modern life and progress seem to me to +point, in appearance at least, to this immediate future; that the world, +which has for a long time busied itself about other matters than the +arts, and has carelessly let them sink lower and lower, till many not +uncultivated men, ignorant of what they once were, and hopeless of what +they might yet be, look upon them with mere contempt; that the world, I +say, thus busied and hurried, will one day wipe the slate, and be clean +rid in her impatience of the whole matter with all its tangle and +trouble. + +And then—what then? + +Even now amid the squalor of London it is hard to imagine what it will +be. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, with the crowd of lesser arts +that belong to them, these, together with Music and Poetry, will be dead +and forgotten, will no longer excite or amuse people in the least: for, +once more, we must not deceive ourselves; the death of one art means the +death of all; the only difference in their fate will be that the luckiest +will be eaten the last—the luckiest, or the unluckiest: in all that has +to do with beauty the invention and ingenuity of man will have come to a +dead stop; and all the while Nature will go on with her eternal +recurrence of lovely changes—spring, summer, autumn, and winter; +sunshine, rain, and snow; storm and fair weather; dawn, noon, and sunset; +day and night—ever bearing witness against man that he has deliberately +chosen ugliness instead of beauty, and to live where he is strongest +amidst squalor or blank emptiness. + +You see, sirs, we cannot quite imagine it; any more, perhaps, than our +forefathers of ancient London, living in the pretty, carefully whitened +houses, with the famous church and its huge spire rising above them,—than +they, passing about the fair gardens running down to the broad river, +could have imagined a whole county or more covered over with hideous +hovels, big, middle-sized, and little, which should one day be called +London. + +Sirs, I say that this dead blank of the arts that I more than dread is +difficult even now to imagine; yet I fear that I must say that if it does +not come about, it will be owing to some turn of events which we cannot +at present foresee: but I hold that if it does happen, it will only last +for a time, that it will be but a burning up of the gathered weeds, so +that the field may bear more abundantly. I hold that men would wake up +after a while, and look round and find the dulness unbearable, and begin +once more inventing, imitating, and imagining, as in earlier days. + +That faith comforts me, and I can say calmly if the blank space must +happen, it must, and amidst its darkness the new seed must sprout. So it +has been before: first comes birth, and hope scarcely conscious of +itself; then the flower and fruit of mastery, with hope more than +conscious enough, passing into insolence, as decay follows ripeness; and +then—the new birth again. + +Meantime it is the plain duty of all who look seriously on the arts to do +their best to save the world from what at the best will be a loss, the +result of ignorance and unwisdom; to prevent, in fact, that most +discouraging of all changes, the supplying the place of an extinct +brutality by a new one; nay, even if those who really care for the arts +are so weak and few that they can do nothing else, it may be their +business to keep alive some tradition, some memory of the past, so that +the new life when it comes may not waste itself more than enough in +fashioning wholly new forms for its new spirit. + +To what side then shall those turn for help, who really understand the +gain of a great art in the world, and the loss of peace and good life +that must follow from the lack of it? I think that they must begin by +acknowledging that the ancient art, the art of unconscious intelligence, +as one should call it, which began without a date, at least so long ago +as those strange and masterly scratchings on mammoth-bones and the like +found but the other day in the drift—that this art of unconscious +intelligence is all but dead; that what little of it is left lingers +among half-civilised nations, and is growing coarser, feebler, less +intelligent year by year; nay, it is mostly at the mercy of some +commercial accident, such as the arrival of a few shiploads of European +dye-stuffs or a few dozen orders from European merchants: this they must +recognise, and must hope to see in time its place filled by a new art of +conscious intelligence, the birth of wiser, simpler, freer ways of life +than the world leads now, than the world has ever led. + +I said, _to see_ this in time; I do not mean to say that our own eyes +will look upon it: it may be so far off, as indeed it seems to some, that +many would scarcely think it worth while thinking of: but there are some +of us who cannot turn our faces to the wall, or sit deedless because our +hope seems somewhat dim; and, indeed, I think that while the signs of the +last decay of the old art with all the evils that must follow in its +train are only too obvious about us, so on the other hand there are not +wanting signs of the new dawn beyond that possible night of the arts, of +which I have before spoken; this sign chiefly, that there are some few at +least who are heartily discontented with things as they are, and crave +for something better, or at least some promise of it—this best of signs: +for I suppose that if some half-dozen men at any time earnestly set their +hearts on something coming about which is not discordant with nature, it +will come to pass one day or other; because it is not by accident that an +idea comes into the heads of a few; rather they are pushed on, and forced +to speak or act by something stirring in the heart of the world which +would otherwise be left without expression. + +By what means then shall those work who long for reform in the arts, and +who shall they seek to kindle into eager desire for possession of beauty, +and better still, for the development of the faculty that creates beauty? + +People say to me often enough: If you want to make your art succeed and +flourish, you must make it the fashion: a phrase which I confess annoys +me; for they mean by it that I should spend one day over my work to two +days in trying to convince rich, and supposed influential people, that +they care very much for what they really do not care in the least, so +that it may happen according to the proverb: _Bell-wether took the leap_, +_and we all went over_. Well, such advisers are right if they are +content with the thing lasting but a little while; say till you can make +a little money—if you don’t get pinched by the door shutting too quickly: +otherwise they are wrong: the people they are thinking of have too many +strings to their bow, and can turn their backs too easily on a thing that +fails, for it to be safe work trusting to their whims: it is not their +fault, they cannot help it, but they have no chance of spending time +enough over the arts to know anything practical of them, and they must of +necessity be in the hands of those who spend their time in pushing +fashion this way and that for their own advantage. + +Sirs, there is no help to be got out of these latter, or those who let +themselves be led by them: the only real help for the decorative arts +must come from those who work in them; nor must they be led, they must +lead. + +You whose hands make those things that should be works of art, you must +be all artists, and good artists too, before the public at large can take +real interest in such things; and when you have become so, I promise you +that you shall lead the fashion; fashion shall follow your hands +obediently enough. + +That is the only way in which we can get a supply of intelligent popular +art: a few artists of the kind so-called now, what can they do working in +the teeth of difficulties thrown in their way by what is called Commerce, +but which should be called greed of money? working helplessly among the +crowd of those who are ridiculously called manufacturers, _i.e._ +handicraftsmen, though the more part of them never did a stroke of +hand-work in their lives, and are nothing better than capitalists and +salesmen. What can these grains of sand do, I say, amidst the enormous +mass of work turned out every year which professes in some way to be +decorative art, but the decoration of which no one heeds except the +salesmen who have to do with it, and are hard put to it to supply the +cravings of the public for something new, not for something pretty? + +The remedy, I repeat, is plain if it can be applied; the handicraftsman, +left behind by the artist when the arts sundered, must come up with him, +must work side by side with him: apart from the difference between a +great master and a scholar, apart from the differences of the natural +bent of men’s minds, which would make one man an imitative, and another +an architectural or decorative artist, there should be no difference +between those employed on strictly ornamental work; and the body of +artists dealing with this should quicken with their art all makers of +things into artists also, in proportion to the necessities and uses of +the things they would make. + +I know what stupendous difficulties, social and economical, there are in +the way of this; yet I think that they seem to be greater than they are: +and of one thing I am sure, that no real living decorative art is +possible if this is impossible. + +It is not impossible, on the contrary it is certain to come about, if you +are at heart desirous to quicken the arts; if the world will, for the +sake of beauty and decency, sacrifice some of the things it is so busy +over (many of which I think are not very worthy of its trouble), art will +begin to grow again; as for those difficulties above mentioned, some of +them I know will in any case melt away before the steady change of the +relative conditions of men; the rest, reason and resolute attention to +the laws of nature, which are also the laws of art, will dispose of +little by little: once more, the way will not be far to seek, if the will +be with us. + +Yet, granted the will, and though the way lies ready to us, we must not +be discouraged if the journey seem barren enough at first, nay, not even +if things seem to grow worse for a while: for it is natural enough that +the very evil which has forced on the beginning of reform should look +uglier, while on the one hand life and wisdom are building up the new, +and on the other folly and deadness are hugging the old to them. + +In this, as in all other matters, lapse of time will be needed before +things seem to straighten, and the courage and patience that does not +despise small things lying ready to be done; and care and watchfulness, +lest we begin to build the wall ere the footings are well in; and always +through all things much humility that is not easily cast down by failure, +that seeks to be taught, and is ready to learn. + +For your teachers, they must be Nature and History: as for the first, +that you must learn of it is so obvious that I need not dwell upon that +now: hereafter, when I have to speak more of matters of detail, I may +have to speak of the manner in which you must learn of Nature. As to the +second, I do not think that any man but one of the highest genius, could +do anything in these days without much study of ancient art, and even he +would be much hindered if he lacked it. If you think that this +contradicts what I said about the death of that ancient art, and the +necessity I implied for an art that should be characteristic of the +present day, I can only say that, in these times of plenteous knowledge +and meagre performance, if we do not study the ancient work directly and +learn to understand it, we shall find ourselves influenced by the feeble +work all round us, and shall be copying the better work through the +copyists and _without_ understanding it, which will by no means bring +about intelligent art. Let us therefore study it wisely, be taught by +it, kindled by it; all the while determining not to imitate or repeat it; +to have either no art at all, or an art which we have made our own. + +Yet I am almost brought to a stand-still when bidding you to study nature +and the history of art, by remembering that this is London, and what it +is like: how can I ask working-men passing up and down these hideous +streets day by day to care about beauty? If it were politics, we must +care about that; or science, you could wrap yourselves up in the study of +facts, no doubt, without much caring what goes on about you—but beauty! +do you not see what terrible difficulties beset art, owing to a long +neglect of art—and neglect of reason, too, in this matter? It is such a +heavy question by what effort, by what dead-lift, you can thrust this +difficulty from you, that I must perforce set it aside for the present, +and must at least hope that the study of history and its monuments will +help you somewhat herein. If you can really fill your minds with +memories of great works of art, and great times of art, you will, I +think, be able to a certain extent to look through the aforesaid ugly +surroundings, and will be moved to discontent of what is careless and +brutal now, and will, I hope, at last be so much discontented with what +is bad, that you will determine to bear no longer that short-sighted, +reckless brutality of squalor that so disgraces our intricate +civilisation. + +Well, at any rate, London is good for this, that it is well off for +museums,—which I heartily wish were to be got at seven days in the week +instead of six, or at least on the only day on which an ordinarily busy +man, one of the taxpayers who support them, can as a rule see them +quietly,—and certainly any of us who may have any natural turn for art +must get more help from frequenting them than one can well say. It is +true, however, that people need some preliminary instruction before they +can get all the good possible to be got from the prodigious treasures of +art possessed by the country in that form: there also one sees things in +a piecemeal way: nor can I deny that there is something melancholy about +a museum, such a tale of violence, destruction, and carelessness, as its +treasured scraps tell us. + +But moreover you may sometimes have an opportunity of studying ancient +art in a narrower but a more intimate, a more kindly form, the monuments +of our own land. Sometimes only, since we live in the middle of this +world of brick and mortar, and there is little else left us amidst it, +except the ghost of the great church at Westminster, ruined as its +exterior is by the stupidity of the restoring architect, and insulted as +its glorious interior is by the pompous undertakers’ lies, by the +vainglory and ignorance of the last two centuries and a half—little +besides that and the matchless Hall near it: but when we can get beyond +that smoky world, there, out in the country we may still see the works of +our fathers yet alive amidst the very nature they were wrought into, and +of which they are so completely a part: for there indeed if anywhere, in +the English country, in the days when people cared about such things, was +there a full sympathy between the works of man, and the land they were +made for:—the land is a little land; too much shut up within the narrow +seas, as it seems, to have much space for swelling into hugeness: there +are no great wastes overwhelming in their dreariness, no great solitudes +of forests, no terrible untrodden mountain-walls: all is measured, +mingled, varied, gliding easily one thing into another: little rivers, +little plains; swelling, speedily-changing uplands, all beset with +handsome orderly trees; little hills, little mountains, netted over with +the walls of sheep-walks: all is little; yet not foolish and blank, but +serious rather, and abundant of meaning for such as choose to seek it: it +is neither prison nor palace, but a decent home. + +All which I neither praise nor blame, but say that so it is: some people +praise this homeliness overmuch, as if the land were the very axle-tree +of the world; so do not I, nor any unblinded by pride in themselves and +all that belongs to them: others there are who scorn it and the tameness +of it: not I any the more: though it would indeed be hard if there were +nothing else in the world, no wonders, no terrors, no unspeakable +beauties: yet when we think what a small part of the world’s history, +past, present, and to come, is this land we live in, and how much smaller +still in the history of the arts, and yet how our forefathers clung to +it, and with what care and pains they adorned it, this unromantic, +uneventful-looking land of England, surely by this too our hearts may be +touched, and our hope quickened. + +For as was the land, such was the art of it while folk yet troubled +themselves about such things; it strove little to impress people either +by pomp or ingenuity: not unseldom it fell into commonplace, rarely it +rose into majesty; yet was it never oppressive, never a slave’s nightmare +nor an insolent boast: and at its best it had an inventiveness, an +individuality that grander styles have never overpassed: its best too, +and that was in its very heart, was given as freely to the yeoman’s +house, and the humble village church, as to the lord’s palace or the +mighty cathedral: never coarse, though often rude enough, sweet, natural +and unaffected, an art of peasants rather than of merchant-princes or +courtiers, it must be a hard heart, I think, that does not love it: +whether a man has been born among it like ourselves, or has come +wonderingly on its simplicity from all the grandeur over-seas. A peasant +art, I say, and it clung fast to the life of the people, and still lived +among the cottagers and yeomen in many parts of the country while the big +houses were being built ‘French and fine’: still lived also in many a +quaint pattern of loom and printing-block, and embroiderer’s needle, +while over-seas stupid pomp had extinguished all nature and freedom, and +art was become, in France especially, the mere expression of that +successful and exultant rascality, which in the flesh no long time +afterwards went down into the pit for ever. + +Such was the English art, whose history is in a sense at your doors, +grown scarce indeed, and growing scarcer year by year, not only through +greedy destruction, of which there is certainly less than there used to +be, but also through the attacks of another foe, called nowadays +‘restoration.’ + +I must not make a long story about this, but also I cannot quite pass it +over, since I have pressed on you the study of these ancient monuments. +Thus the matter stands: these old buildings have been altered and added +to century after century, often beautifully, always historically; their +very value, a great part of it, lay in that: they have suffered almost +always from neglect also, often from violence (that latter a piece of +history often far from uninteresting), but ordinary obvious mending would +almost always have kept them standing, pieces of nature and of history. + +But of late years a great uprising of ecclesiastical zeal, coinciding +with a great increase of study, and consequently of knowledge of mediæval +architecture, has driven people into spending their money on these +buildings, not merely with the purpose of repairing them, of keeping them +safe, clean, and wind and water-tight, but also of ‘restoring’ them to +some ideal state of perfection; sweeping away if possible all signs of +what has befallen them at least since the Reformation, and often since +dates much earlier: this has sometimes been done with much disregard of +art and entirely from ecclesiastical zeal, but oftener it has been well +meant enough as regards art: yet you will not have listened to what I +have said to-night if you do not see that from my point of view this +restoration must be as impossible to bring about, as the attempt at it is +destructive to the buildings so dealt with: I scarcely like to think what +a great part of them have been made nearly useless to students of art and +history: unless you knew a great deal about architecture you perhaps +would scarce understand what terrible damage has been done by that +dangerous ‘little knowledge’ in this matter: but at least it is easy to +be understood, that to deal recklessly with valuable (and national) +monuments which, when once gone, can never be replaced by any splendour +of modern art, is doing a very sorry service to the State. + +You will see by all that I have said on this study of ancient art that I +mean by education herein something much wider than the teaching of a +definite art in schools of design, and that it must be something that we +must do more or less for ourselves: I mean by it a systematic +concentration of our thoughts on the matter, a studying of it in all +ways, careful and laborious practice of it, and a determination to do +nothing but what is known to be good in workmanship and design. + +Of course, however, both as an instrument of that study we have been +speaking of, as well as of the practice of the arts, all handicraftsmen +should be taught to draw very carefully; as indeed all people should be +taught drawing who are not physically incapable of learning it: but the +art of drawing so taught would not be the art of designing, but only a +means towards _this_ end, _general capability in dealing with the arts_. + +For I wish specially to impress this upon you, that _designing_ cannot be +taught at all in a school: continued practice will help a man who is +naturally a designer, continual notice of nature and of art: no doubt +those who have some faculty for designing are still numerous, and they +want from a school certain technical teaching, just as they want tools: +in these days also, when the best school, the school of successful +practice going on around you, is at such a low ebb, they do undoubtedly +want instruction in the history of the arts: these two things schools of +design can give: but the royal road of a set of rules deduced from a sham +science of design, that is itself not a science but another set of rules, +will lead nowhere;—or, let us rather say, to beginning again. + +As to the kind of drawing that should be taught to men engaged in +ornamental work, there is only _one best_ way of teaching drawing, and +that is teaching the scholar to draw the human figure: both because the +lines of a man’s body are much more subtle than anything else, and +because you can more surely be found out and set right if you go wrong. +I do think that such teaching as this, given to all people who care for +it, would help the revival of the arts very much: the habit of +discriminating between right and wrong, the sense of pleasure in drawing +a good line, would really, I think, be education in the due sense of the +word for all such people as had the germs of invention in them; yet as +aforesaid, in this age of the world it would be mere affectation to +pretend to shut one’s eyes to the art of past ages: that also we must +study. If other circumstances, social and economical, do not stand in +our way, that is to say, if the world is not too busy to allow us to have +Decorative Arts at all, these two are the _direct_ means by which we +shall get them; that is, general cultivation of the powers of the mind, +general cultivation of the powers of the eye and hand. + +Perhaps that seems to you very commonplace advice and a very roundabout +road; nevertheless ’tis a certain one, if by any road you desire to come +to the new art, which is my subject to-night: if you do not, and if those +germs of invention, which, as I said just now, are no doubt still common +enough among men, are left neglected and undeveloped, the laws of Nature +will assert themselves in this as in other matters, and the faculty of +design itself will gradually fade from the race of man. Sirs, shall we +approach nearer to perfection by casting away so large a part of that +intelligence which makes us _men_? + +And now before I make an end, I want to call your attention to certain +things, that, owing to our neglect of the arts for other business, bar +that good road to us and are such an hindrance, that, till they are dealt +with, it is hard even to make a beginning of our endeavour. And if my +talk should seem to grow too serious for our subject, as indeed I think +it cannot do, I beg you to remember what I said earlier, of how the arts +all hang together. Now there is one art of which the old architect of +Edward the Third’s time was thinking—he who founded New College at +Oxford, I mean—when he took this for his motto: ‘Manners maketh man:’ he +meant by manners the art of morals, the art of living worthily, and like +a man. I must needs claim this art also as dealing with my subject. + +There is a great deal of sham work in the world, hurtful to the buyer, +more hurtful to the seller, if he only knew it, most hurtful to the +maker: how good a foundation it would be towards getting good Decorative +Art, that is ornamental workmanship, if we craftsmen were to resolve to +turn out nothing but excellent workmanship in all things, instead of +having, as we too often have now, a very low average standard of work, +which we often fall below. + +I do not blame either one class or another in this matter, I blame all: +to set aside our own class of handicraftsmen, of whose shortcomings you +and I know so much that we need talk no more about it, I know that the +public in general are set on having things cheap, being so ignorant that +they do not know when they get them nasty also; so ignorant that they +neither know nor care whether they give a man his due: I know that the +manufacturers (so called) are so set on carrying out competition to its +utmost, competition of cheapness, not of excellence, that they meet the +bargain-hunters half way, and cheerfully furnish them with nasty wares at +the cheap rate they are asked for, by means of what can be called by no +prettier name than fraud. England has of late been too much busied with +the counting-house and not enough with the workshop: with the result that +the counting-house at the present moment is rather barren of orders. + +I say all classes are to blame in this matter, but also I say that the +remedy lies with the handicraftsmen, who are not ignorant of these things +like the public, and who have no call to be greedy and isolated like the +manufacturers or middlemen; the duty and honour of educating the public +lies with them, and they have in them the seeds of order and organisation +which make that duty the easier. + +When will they see to this and help to make men of us all by insisting on +this most weighty piece of manners; so that we may adorn life with the +pleasure of cheerfully _buying_ goods at their due price; with the +pleasure of _selling_ goods that we could be proud of both for fair price +and fair workmanship: with the pleasure of working soundly and without +haste at _making_ goods that we could be proud of?—much the greatest +pleasure of the three is that last, such a pleasure as, I think, the +world has none like it. + +You must not say that this piece of manners lies out of my subject: it is +essentially a part of it and most important: for I am bidding you learn +to be artists, if art is not to come to an end amongst us: and what is an +artist but a workman who is determined that, whatever else happens, his +work shall be excellent? or, to put it in another way: the decoration of +workmanship, what is it but the expression of man’s pleasure in +successful labour? But what pleasure can there be in _bad_ work, in +unsuccessful labour; why should we decorate _that_? and how can we bear +to be always unsuccessful in our labour? + +As greed of unfair gain, wanting to be paid for what we have not earned, +cumbers our path with this tangle of bad work, of sham work, so the +heaped-up money which this greed has brought us (for greed will have its +way, like all other strong passions), this money, I say, gathered into +heaps little and big, with all the false distinction which so unhappily +it yet commands amongst us, has raised up against the arts a barrier of +the love of luxury and show, which is of all obvious hindrances the worst +to overpass: the highest and most cultivated classes are not free from +the vulgarity of it, the lower are not free from its pretence. I beg you +to remember both as a remedy against this, and as explaining exactly what +I mean, that nothing can be a work of art which is not useful; that is to +say, which does not minister to the body when well under command of the +mind, or which does not amuse, soothe, or elevate the mind in a healthy +state. What tons upon tons of unutterable rubbish pretending to be works +of art in some degree would this maxim clear out of our London houses, if +it were understood and acted upon! To my mind it is only here and there +(out of the kitchen) that you can find in a well-to-do house things that +are of any use at all: as a rule all the decoration (so called) that has +got there is there for the sake of show, not because anybody likes it. I +repeat, this stupidity goes through all classes of society: the silk +curtains in my Lord’s drawing-room are no more a matter of art to him +than the powder in his footman’s hair; the kitchen in a country farmhouse +is most commonly a pleasant and homelike place, the parlour dreary and +useless. + +Simplicity of life, begetting simplicity of taste, that is, a love for +sweet and lofty things, is of all matters most necessary for the birth of +the new and better art we crave for; simplicity everywhere, in the palace +as well as in the cottage. + +Still more is this necessary, cleanliness and decency everywhere, in the +cottage as well as in the palace: the lack of that is a serious piece of +_manners_ for us to correct: that lack and all the inequalities of life, +and the heaped-up thoughtlessness and disorder of so many centuries that +cause it: and as yet it is only a very few men who have begun to think +about a remedy for it in its widest range: even in its narrower aspect, +in the defacements of our big towns by all that commerce brings with it, +who heeds it? who tries to control their squalor and hideousness? there +is nothing but thoughtlessness and recklessness in the matter: the +helplessness of people who don’t live long enough to do a thing +themselves, and have not manliness and foresight enough to begin the +work, and pass it on to those that shall come after them. + +Is money to be gathered? cut down the pleasant trees among the houses, +pull down ancient and venerable buildings for the money that a few square +yards of London dirt will fetch; blacken rivers, hide the sun and poison +the air with smoke and worse, and it’s nobody’s business to see to it or +mend it: that is all that modern commerce, the counting-house forgetful +of the workshop, will do for us herein. + +And Science—we have loved her well, and followed her diligently, what +will she do? I fear she is so much in the pay of the counting-house, the +counting-house and the drill-sergeant, that she is too busy, and will for +the present do nothing. Yet there are matters which I should have +thought easy for her; say for example teaching Manchester how to consume +its own smoke, or Leeds how to get rid of its superfluous black dye +without turning it into the river, which would be as much worth her +attention as the production of the heaviest of heavy black silks, or the +biggest of useless guns. Anyhow, however it be done, unless people care +about carrying on their business without making the world hideous, how +can they care about Art? I know it will cost much both of time and money +to better these things even a little; but I do not see how these can be +better spent than in making life cheerful and honourable for others and +for ourselves; and the gain of good life to the country at large that +would result from men seriously setting about the bettering of the +decency of our big towns would be priceless, even if nothing specially +good befell the arts in consequence: I do not know that it would; but I +should begin to think matters hopeful if men turned their attention to +such things, and I repeat that, unless they do so, we can scarcely even +begin with any hope our endeavours for the bettering of the arts. + +Unless something or other is done to give all men some pleasure for the +eyes and rest for the mind in the aspect of their own and their +neighbours’ houses, until the contrast is less disgraceful between the +fields where beasts live and the streets where men live, I suppose that +the practice of the arts must be mainly kept in the hands of a few highly +cultivated men, who can go often to beautiful places, whose education +enables them, in the contemplation of the past glories of the world, to +shut out from their view the everyday squalors that the most of men move +in. Sirs, I believe that art has such sympathy with cheerful freedom, +open-heartedness and reality, so much she sickens under selfishness and +luxury, that she will not live thus isolated and exclusive. I will go +further than this and say that on such terms I do not wish her to live. +I protest that it would be a shame to an honest artist to enjoy what he +had huddled up to himself of such art, as it would be for a rich man to +sit and eat dainty food amongst starving soldiers in a beleaguered fort. + +I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or +freedom for a few. + +No, rather than art should live this poor thin life among a few +exceptional men, despising those beneath them for an ignorance for which +they themselves are responsible, for a brutality that they will not +struggle with,—rather than this, I would that the world should indeed +sweep away all art for awhile, as I said before I thought it possible she +might do; rather than the wheat should rot in the miser’s granary, I +would that the earth had it, that it might yet have a chance to quicken +in the dark. + +I have a sort of faith, though, that this clearing way of all art will +not happen, that men will get wiser, as well as more learned; that many +of the intricacies of life, on which we now pride ourselves more than +enough, partly because they are new, partly because they have come with +the gain of better things, will be cast aside as having played their +part, and being useful no longer. I hope that we shall have leisure from +war,—war commercial, as well as war of the bullet and the bayonet; +leisure from the knowledge that darkens counsel; leisure above all from +the greed of money, and the craving for that overwhelming distinction +that money now brings: I believe that as we have even now partly achieved +LIBERTY, so we shall one day achieve EQUALITY, which, and which only, +means FRATERNITY, and so have leisure from poverty and all its griping, +sordid cares. + +Then having leisure from all these things, amidst renewed simplicity of +life we shall have leisure to think about our work, that faithful daily +companion, which no man any longer will venture to call the Curse of +labour: for surely then we shall be happy in it, each in his place, no +man grudging at another; no one bidden to be any man’s _servant_, every +one scorning to be any man’s _master_: men will then assuredly be happy +in their work, and that happiness will assuredly bring forth decorative, +noble, _popular_ art. + +That art will make our streets as beautiful as the woods, as elevating as +the mountain-sides: it will be a pleasure and a rest, and not a weight +upon the spirits to come from the open country into a town; every man’s +house will be fair and decent, soothing to his mind and helpful to his +work: all the works of man that we live amongst and handle will be in +harmony with nature, will be reasonable and beautiful: yet all will be +simple and inspiriting, not childish nor enervating; for as nothing of +beauty and splendour that man’s mind and hand may compass shall be +wanting from our public buildings, so in no private dwelling will there +be any signs of waste, pomp, or insolence, and every man will have his +share of the _best_. + +It is a dream, you may say, of what has never been and never will be; +true, it has never been, and therefore, since the world is alive and +moving yet, my hope is the greater that it one day will be: true, it is a +dream; but dreams have before now come about of things so good and +necessary to us, that we scarcely think of them more than of the +daylight, though once people had to live without them, without even the +hope of them. + +Anyhow, dream as it is, I pray you to pardon my setting it before you, +for it lies at the bottom of all my work in the Decorative Arts, nor will +it ever be out of my thoughts: and I am here with you to-night to ask you +to help me in realising this dream, this _hope_. + + + + +THE ART OF THE PEOPLE {38} + + + ‘And the men of labour spent their strength in daily struggling for + bread to maintain the vital strength they labour with: so living in a + daily circulation of sorrow, living but to work, and working but to + live, as if daily bread were the only end of a wearisome life, and a + wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread.’—DANIEL DEFOE. + +I KNOW that a large proportion of those here present are either already +practising the Fine Arts, or are being specially educated to that end, +and I feel that I may be expected to address myself specially to these. +But since it is not to be doubted that we are _all_ met together because +of the interest we take in what concerns these arts, I would rather +address myself to you _all_ as representing the public in general. +Indeed, those of you who are specially studying Art could learn little of +me that would be useful to yourselves only. You are already learning +under competent masters—most competent, I am glad to know—by means of a +system which should teach you all you need, if you have been right in +making the first step of devoting yourselves to Art; I mean if you are +aiming at the right thing, and in some way or another understand what Art +means, which you may well do without being able to express it, and if you +are resolute to follow on the path which that inborn knowledge has shown +to you; if it is otherwise with you than this, no system and no teachers +will help you to produce real art of any kind, be it never so humble. +Those of you who are real artists know well enough all the special advice +I can give you, and in how few words it may be said—follow nature, study +antiquity, make your own art, and do not steal it, grudge no expense of +trouble, patience, or courage, in the striving to accomplish the hard +thing you have set yourselves to do. You have had all that said to you +twenty times, I doubt not; and twenty times twenty have said it to +yourselves, and now I have said it again to you, and done neither you nor +me good nor harm thereby. So true it all is, so well known, and so hard +to follow. + +But to me, and I hope to you, Art is a very serious thing, and cannot by +any means be dissociated from the weighty matters that occupy the +thoughts of men; and there are principles underlying the practice of it, +on which all serious-minded men, may—nay, must—have their own thoughts. +It is on some of these that I ask your leave to speak, and to address +myself, not only to those who are consciously interested in the arts, but +to all those also who have considered what the progress of civilisation +promises and threatens to those who shall come after us: what there is to +hope and fear for the future of the arts, which were born with the birth +of civilisation and will only die with its death—what on this side of +things, the present time of strife and doubt and change is preparing for +the better time, when the change shall have come, the strife be lulled, +and the doubt cleared: this is a question, I say, which is indeed +weighty, and may well interest all thinking men. + +Nay, so universally important is it, that I fear lest you should think I +am taking too much upon myself to speak to you on so weighty a matter, +nor should I have dared to do so, if I did not feel that I am to-night +only the mouthpiece of better men than myself; whose hopes and fears I +share; and that being so, I am the more emboldened to speak out, if I +can, my full mind on the subject, because I am in a city where, if +anywhere, men are not contented to live wholly for themselves and the +present, but have fully accepted the duty of keeping their eyes open to +whatever new is stirring, so that they may help and be helped by any +truth that there may be in it. Nor can I forget, that, since you have +done me the great honour of choosing me for the President of your Society +of Arts for the past year, and of asking me to speak to you to-night, I +should be doing less than my duty if I did not, according to my lights, +speak out straightforwardly whatever seemed to me might be in a small +degree useful to you. Indeed, I think I am among friends, who may +forgive me if I speak rashly, but scarcely if I speak falsely. + +The aim of your Society and School of Arts is, as I understand it, to +further those arts by education widely spread. A very great object is +that, and well worthy of the reputation of this great city; but since +Birmingham has also, I rejoice to know, a great reputation for not +allowing things to go about shamming life when the brains are knocked out +of them, I think you should know and see clearly what it is you have +undertaken to further by these institutions, and whether you really care +about it, or only languidly acquiesce in it—whether, in short, you know +it to the heart, and are indeed part and parcel of it, with your own +will, or against it; or else have heard say that it is a good thing if +any one care to meddle with it. + +If you are surprised at my putting that question for your consideration, +I will tell you why I do so. There are some of us who love Art most, and +I may say most faithfully, who see for certain that such love is rare +nowadays. We cannot help seeing, that besides a vast number of people, +who (poor souls!) are sordid and brutal of mind and habits, and have had +no chance or choice in the matter, there are many high-minded, +thoughtful, and cultivated men who inwardly think the arts to be a +foolish accident of civilisation—nay, worse perhaps, a nuisance, a +disease, a hindrance to human progress. Some of these, doubtless, are +very busy about other sides of thought. They are, as I should put it, so +_artistically_ engrossed by the study of science, politics, or what not, +that they have necessarily narrowed their minds by their hard and +praiseworthy labours. But since such men are few, this does not account +for a prevalent habit of thought that looks upon Art as at best trifling. + +What is wrong, then, with us or the arts, since what was once accounted +so glorious, is now deemed paltry? + +The question is no light one; for, to put the matter in its clearest +light, I will say that the leaders of modern thought do for the most part +sincerely and single-mindedly hate and despise the arts; and you know +well that as the leaders are, so must the people be; and that means that +we who are met together here for the furthering of Art by wide-spread +education are either deceiving ourselves and wasting our time, since we +shall one day be of the same opinion as the best men among us, or else we +represent a small minority that is right, as minorities sometimes are, +while those upright men aforesaid, and the great mass of civilised men, +have been blinded by untoward circumstances. + +That we are of this mind—the minority that is right—is, I hope, the case. +I hope we know assuredly that the arts we have met together to further +are necessary to the life of man, if the progress of civilisation is not +to be as causeless as the turning of a wheel that makes nothing. + +How, then, shall we, the minority, carry out the duty which our position +thrusts upon us, of striving to grow into a majority? + +If we could only explain to those thoughtful men, and the millions of +whom they are the flower, what the thing is that we love, which is to us +as the bread we eat, and the air we breathe, but about which they know +nothing and feel nothing, save a vague instinct of repulsion, then the +seed of victory might be sown. This is hard indeed to do; yet if we +ponder upon a chapter of ancient or mediæval history, it seems to me some +glimmer of a chance of doing so breaks in upon us. Take for example a +century of the Byzantine Empire, weary yourselves with reading the names +of the pedants, tyrants, and tax-gatherers to whom the terrible chain +which long-dead Rome once forged, still gave the power of cheating people +into thinking that they were necessary lords of the world. Turn then to +the lands they governed, and read and forget a long string of the +causeless murders of Northern and Saracen pirates and robbers. That is +pretty much the sum of what so-called history has left us of the tale of +those days—the stupid languor and the evil deeds of kings and scoundrels. +Must we turn away then, and say that all was evil? How then did men live +from day to day? How then did Europe grow into intelligence and freedom? +It seems there were others than those of whom history (so called) has +left us the names and the deeds. These, the raw material for the +treasury and the slave-market, we now call ‘the people,’ and we know that +they were working all that while. Yes, and that their work was not +merely slaves’ work, the meal-trough before them and the whip behind +them; for though history (so called) has forgotten them, yet their work +has not been forgotten, but has made another history—the history of Art. +There is not an ancient city in the East or the West that does not bear +some token of their grief, and joy, and hope. From Ispahan to +Northumberland, there is no building built between the seventh and +seventeenth centuries that does not show the influence of the labour of +that oppressed and neglected herd of men. No one of them, indeed, rose +high above his fellows. There was no Plato, or Shakespeare, or Michael +Angelo amongst them. Yet scattered as it was among many men, how strong +their thought was, how long it abided, how far it travelled! + +And so it was ever through all those days when Art was so vigorous and +progressive. Who can say how little we should know of many periods, but +for their art? History (so called) has remembered the kings and +warriors, because they destroyed; Art has remembered the people, because +they created. + +I think, then, that this knowledge we have of the life of past times +gives us some token of the way we should take in meeting those honest and +single-hearted men who above all things desire the world’s progress, but +whose minds are, as it were, sick on this point of the arts. Surely you +may say to them: When all is gained that you (and we) so long for, what +shall we do then? That great change which we are working for, each in +his own way, will come like other changes, as a thief in the night, and +will be with us before we know it; but let us imagine that its +consummation has come suddenly and dramatically, acknowledged and hailed +by all right-minded people; and what shall we do then, lest we begin once +more to heap up fresh corruption for the woeful labour of ages once +again? I say, as we turn away from the flagstaff where the new banner +has been just run up; as we depart, our ears yet ringing with the blare +of the heralds’ trumpets that have proclaimed the new order of things, +what shall we turn to then, what _must_ we turn to then? + +To what else, save to our work, our daily labour? + +With what, then, shall we adorn it when we have become wholly free and +reasonable? It is necessary toil, but shall it be toil only? Shall all +we can do with it be to shorten the hours of that toil to the utmost, +that the hours of leisure may be long beyond what men used to hope for? +and what then shall we do with the leisure, if we say that all toil is +irksome? Shall we sleep it all away?—Yes, and never wake up again, I +should hope, in that case. + +What shall we do then? what shall our necessary hours of labour bring +forth? + +That will be a question for all men in that day when many wrongs are +righted, and when there will be no classes of degradation on whom the +dirty work of the world can be shovelled; and if men’s minds are still +sick and loathe the arts, they will not be able to answer that question. + +Once men sat under grinding tyrannies, amidst violence and fear so great, +that nowadays we wonder how they lived through twenty-four hours of it, +till we remember that then, as now, their daily labour was the main part +of their lives, and that that daily labour was sweetened by the daily +creation of Art; and shall we who are delivered from the evils they bore, +live drearier days than they did? Shall men, who have come forth from so +many tyrannies, bind themselves to yet another one, and become the slaves +of nature, piling day upon day of hopeless, useless toil? Must this go +on worsening till it comes to this at last—that the world shall have come +into its inheritance, and with all foes conquered and nought to bind it, +shall choose to sit down and labour for ever amidst grim ugliness? How, +then, were all our hopes cheated, what a gulf of despair should we tumble +into then? + +In truth, it cannot be; yet if that sickness of repulsion to the arts +were to go on hopelessly, nought else would be, and the extinction of the +love of beauty and imagination would prove to be the extinction of +civilisation. But that sickness the world will one day throw off, yet +will, I believe, pass through many pains in so doing, some of which will +look very like the death-throes of Art, and some, perhaps, will be +grievous enough to the poor people of the world; since hard necessity, I +doubt, works many of the world’s changes, rather than the purblind +striving to see, which we call the foresight of man. + +Meanwhile, remember that I asked just now, what was amiss in Art or in +ourselves that this sickness was upon us. Nothing is wrong or can be +with Art in the abstract—that must always be good for mankind, or we are +all wrong together: but with Art, as we of these latter days have known +it, there is much wrong; nay, what are we here for to-night if that is +not so? were not the schools of art founded all over the country some +thirty years ago because we had found out that popular art was fading—or +perhaps had faded out from amongst us? + +As to the progress made since then in this country—and in this country +only, if at all—it is hard for me to speak without being either +ungracious or insincere, and yet speak I must. I say, then, that an +apparent external progress in some ways is obvious, but I do not know how +far that is hopeful, for time must try it, and prove whether it be a +passing fashion or the first token of a real stir among the great mass of +civilised men. To speak quite frankly, and as one friend to another, I +must needs say that even as I say those words they seem too good to be +true. And yet—who knows?—so wont are we to frame history for the future +as well as for the past, so often are our eyes blind both when we look +backward and when we look forward, because we have been gazing so +intently at our own days, our own lines. May all be better than I think +it! + +At any rate let us count our gains, and set them against less hopeful +signs of the times. In England, then—and as far as I know, in England +only—painters of pictures have grown, I believe, more numerous, and +certainly more conscientious in their work, and in some cases—and this +more especially in England—have developed and expressed a sense of beauty +which the world has not seen for the last three hundred years. This is +certainly a very great gain, which is not easy to over-estimate, both for +those who make the pictures and those who use them. + +Furthermore, in England, and in England only, there has been a great +improvement in architecture and the arts that attend it—arts which it was +the special province of the afore-mentioned schools to revive and foster. +This, also, is a considerable gain to the users of the works so made, but +I fear a gain less important to most of those concerned in making them. + +Against these gains we must, I am very sorry to say, set the fact not +easy to be accounted for, that the rest of the civilised world (so +called) seems to have done little more than stand still in these matters; +and that among ourselves these improvements have concerned comparatively +few people, the mass of our population not being in the least touched by +them; so that the great bulk of our architecture—the art which most +depends on the taste of the people at large—grows worse and worse every +day. I must speak also of another piece of discouragement before I go +further. I daresay many of you will remember how emphatically those who +first had to do with the movement of which the foundation of our +art-schools was a part, called the attention of our pattern-designers to +the beautiful works of the East. This was surely most well judged of +them, for they bade us look at an art at once beautiful, orderly, living +in our own day, and above all, popular. Now, it is a grievous result of +the sickness of civilisation that this art is fast disappearing before +the advance of western conquest and commerce—fast, and every day faster. +While we are met here in Birmingham to further the spread of education in +art, Englishmen in India are, in their short-sightedness, actively +destroying the very sources of that education—jewellery, metal-work, +pottery, calico-printing, brocade-weaving, carpet-making—all the famous +and historical arts of the great peninsula have been for long treated as +matters of no importance, to be thrust aside for the advantage of any +paltry scrap of so-called commerce; and matters are now speedily coming +to an end there. I daresay some of you saw the presents which the native +Princes gave to the Prince of Wales on the occasion of his progress +through India. I did myself, I will not say with great disappointment, +for I guessed what they would be like, but with great grief, since there +was scarce here and there a piece of goods among these costly gifts, +things given as great treasures, which faintly upheld the ancient fame of +the cradle of the industrial arts. Nay, in some cases, it would have +been laughable, if it had not been so sad, to see the piteous simplicity +with which the conquered race had copied the blank vulgarity of their +lords. And this deterioration we are now, as I have said, actively +engaged in forwarding. I have read a little book, {50} a handbook to the +Indian Court of last year’s Paris Exhibition, which takes the occasion of +noting the state of manufactures in India one by one. ‘Art +manufactures,’ you would call them; but, indeed, all manufactures are, or +were, ‘art manufactures’ in India. Dr. Birdwood, the author of this +book, is of great experience in Indian life, a man of science, and a +lover of the arts. His story, by no means a new one to me, or others +interested in the East and its labour, is a sad one indeed. The +conquered races in their hopelessness are everywhere giving up the +genuine practice of their own arts, which we know ourselves, as we have +indeed loudly proclaimed, are founded on the truest and most natural +principles. The often-praised perfection of these arts is the blossom of +many ages of labour and change, but the conquered races are casting it +aside as a thing of no value, so that they may conform themselves to the +inferior art, or rather the lack of art, of their conquerors. In some +parts of the country the genuine arts are quite destroyed; in many others +nearly so; in all they have more or less begun to sicken. So much so is +this the case, that now for some time the Government has been furthering +this deterioration. As for example, no doubt with the best intentions, +and certainly in full sympathy with the general English public, both at +home and in India, the Government is now manufacturing cheap Indian +carpets in the Indian gaols. I do not say that it is a bad thing to turn +out real work, or works of art, in gaols; on the contrary, I think it +good if it be properly managed. But in this case, the Government, being, +as I said, in full sympathy with the English public, has determined that +it will make its wares cheap, whether it make them nasty or not. Cheap +and nasty they are, I assure you; but, though they are the worst of their +kind, they would not be made thus, if everything did not tend the same +way. And it is the same everywhere and with all Indian manufactures, +till it has come to this—that these poor people have all but lost the one +distinction, the one glory that conquest had left them. Their famous +wares, so praised by those who thirty years ago began to attempt the +restoration of popular art amongst ourselves, are no longer to be bought +at reasonable prices in the common market, but must be sought for and +treasured as precious relics for the museums we have founded for our art +education. In short, their art is dead, and the commerce of modern +civilisation has slain it. + +What is going on in India is also going on, more or less, all over the +East; but I have spoken of India chiefly because I cannot help thinking +that we ourselves are responsible for what is happening there. +Chance-hap has made us the lords of many millions out there; surely, it +behoves us to look to it, lest we give to the people whom we have made +helpless scorpions for fish and stones for bread. + +But since neither on this side, nor on any other, can art be amended, +until the countries that lead civilisation are themselves in a healthy +state about it, let us return to the consideration of its condition among +ourselves. And again I say, that obvious as is that surface improvement +of the arts within the last few years, I fear too much that there is +something wrong about the root of the plant to exult over the bursting of +its February buds. + +I have just shown you for one thing that lovers of Indian and Eastern +Art, including as they do the heads of our institutions for art +education, and I am sure many among what are called the governing +classes, are utterly powerless to stay its downward course. The general +tendency of civilisation is against them, and is too strong for them. + +Again, though many of us love architecture dearly, and believe that it +helps the healthiness both of body and soul to live among beautiful +things, we of the big towns are mostly compelled to live in houses which +have become a byword of contempt for their ugliness and inconvenience. +The stream of civilisation is against us, and we cannot battle against +it. + +Once more those devoted men who have upheld the standard of truth and +beauty amongst us, and whose pictures, painted amidst difficulties that +none but a painter can know, show qualities of mind unsurpassed in any +age—these great men have but a narrow circle that can understand their +works, and are utterly unknown to the great mass of the people: +civilisation is so much against them, that they cannot move the people. + +Therefore, looking at all this, I cannot think that all is well with the +root of the tree we are cultivating. Indeed, I believe that if other +things were but to stand still in the world, this improvement before +mentioned would lead to a kind of art which, in that impossible case, +would be in a way stable, would perhaps stand still also. This would be +an art cultivated professedly by a few, and for a few, who would consider +it necessary—a duty, if they could admit duties—to despise the common +herd, to hold themselves aloof from all that the world has been +struggling for from the first, to guard carefully every approach to their +palace of art. It would be a pity to waste many words on the prospect of +such a school of art as this, which does in a way, theoretically at +least, exist at present, and has for its watchword a piece of slang that +does not mean the harmless thing it seems to mean—art for art’s sake. +Its fore-doomed end must be, that art at last will seem too delicate a +thing for even the hands of the initiated to touch; and the initiated +must at last sit still and do nothing—to the grief of no one. + +Well, certainly, if I thought you were come here to further such an art +as this I could not have stood up and called you _friends_; though such a +feeble folk as I have told you of one could scarce care to call foes. + +Yet, as I say, such men exist, and I have troubled you with speaking of +them, because I know that those honest and intelligent people, who are +eager for human progress, and yet lack part of the human senses, and are +anti-artistic, suppose that such men are artists, and that this is what +art means, and what it does for people, and that such a narrow, cowardly +life is what we, fellow-handicraftsmen, aim at. I see this taken for +granted continually, even by many who, to say truth, ought to know +better, and I long to put the slur from off us; to make people understand +that we, least of all men, wish to widen the gulf between the classes, +nay, worse still, to make new classes of elevation, and new classes of +degradation—new lords and new slaves; that we, least of all men, want to +cultivate the ‘plant called man’ in different ways—here stingily, there +wastefully: I wish people to understand that the art we are striving for +is a good thing which all can share, which will elevate all; in good +sooth, if all people do not soon share it there will soon be none to +share; if all are not elevated by it, mankind will lose the elevation it +has gained. Nor is such an art as we long for a vain dream; such an art +once was in times that were worse than these, when there was less +courage, kindness, and truth in the world than there is now; such an art +there will be hereafter, when there will be more courage, kindness, and +truth than there is now in the world. + +Let us look backward in history once more for a short while, and then +steadily forward till my words are done: I began by saying that part of +the common and necessary advice given to Art students was to study +antiquity; and no doubt many of you, like me, have done so; have +wandered, for instance, through the galleries of the admirable museum of +South Kensington, and, like me, have been filled with wonder and +gratitude at the beauty which has been born from the brain of man. Now, +consider, I pray you, what these wonderful works are, and how they were +made; and indeed, it is neither in extravagance nor without due meaning +that I use the word ‘wonderful’ in speaking of them. Well, these things +are just the common household goods of those past days, and that is one +reason why they are so few and so carefully treasured. They were common +things in their own day, used without fear of breaking or spoiling—no +rarities then—and yet we have called them ‘wonderful.’ + +And how were they made? Did a great artist draw the designs for them—a +man of cultivation, highly paid, daintily fed, carefully housed, wrapped +up in cotton wool, in short, when he was not at work? By no means. +Wonderful as these works are, they were made by ‘common fellows,’ as the +phrase goes, in the common course of their daily labour. Such were the +men we honour in honouring those works. And their labour—do you think it +was irksome to them? Those of you who are artists know very well that it +was not; that it could not be. Many a grin of pleasure, I’ll be +bound—and you will not contradict me—went to the carrying through of +those mazes of mysterious beauty, to the invention of those strange +beasts and birds and flowers that we ourselves have chuckled over at +South Kensington. While they were at work, at least, these men were not +unhappy, and I suppose they worked most days, and the most part of the +day, as we do. + +Or those treasures of architecture that we study so carefully +nowadays—what are they? how were they made? There are great minsters +among them, indeed, and palaces of kings and lords, but not many; and, +noble and awe-inspiring as these may be, they differ only in size from +the little grey church that still so often makes the commonplace English +landscape beautiful, and the little grey house that still, in some parts +of the country at least, makes an English village a thing apart, to be +seen and pondered on by all who love romance and beauty. These form the +mass of our architectural treasures, the houses that everyday people +lived in, the unregarded churches in which they worshipped. + +And, once more, who was it that designed and ornamented them? The great +architect, carefully kept for the purpose, and guarded from the common +troubles of common men? By no means. Sometimes, perhaps, it was the +monk, the ploughman’s brother; oftenest his other brother, the village +carpenter, smith, mason, what not—‘a common fellow,’ whose common +everyday labour fashioned works that are to-day the wonder and despair of +many a hard-working ‘cultivated’ architect. And did he loathe his work? +No, it is impossible. I have seen, as we most of us have, work done by +such men in some out-of-the-way hamlet—where to-day even few strangers +ever come, and whose people seldom go five miles from their own doors; in +such places, I say, I have seen work so delicate, so careful, and so +inventive, that nothing in its way could go further. And I will assert, +without fear of contradiction, that no human ingenuity can produce work +such as this without pleasure being a third party to the brain that +conceived and the hand that fashioned it. Nor are such works rare. The +throne of the great Plantagenet, or the great Valois, was no more +daintily carved than the seat of the village mass-john, or the chest of +the yeoman’s good-wife. + +So, you see, there was much going on to make life endurable in those +times. Not every day, you may be sure, was a day of slaughter and +tumult, though the histories read almost as if it were so; but every day +the hammer chinked on the anvil, and the chisel played about the oak +beam, and never without some beauty and invention being born of it, and +consequently some human happiness. + +That last word brings me to the very kernel and heart of what I have come +here to say to you, and I pray you to think of it most seriously—not as +to my words, but as to a thought which is stirring in the world, and will +one day grow into something. + +That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man of his +pleasure in labour. I do not believe he can be happy in his labour +without expressing that happiness; and especially is this so when he is +at work at anything in which he specially excels. A most kind gift is +this of nature, since all men, nay, it seems all things too, must labour; +so that not only does the dog take pleasure in hunting, and the horse in +running, and the bird in flying, but so natural does the idea seem to us, +that we imagine to ourselves that the earth and the very elements rejoice +in doing their appointed work; and the poets have told us of the spring +meadows smiling, of the exultation of the fire, of the countless laughter +of the sea. + +Nor until these latter days has man ever rejected this universal gift, +but always, when he has not been too much perplexed, too much bound by +disease or beaten down by trouble, has striven to make his work at least +happy. Pain he has too often found in his pleasure, and weariness in his +rest, to trust to these. What matter if his happiness lie with what must +be always with him—his work? + +And, once more, shall we, who have gained so much, forego this gain, the +earliest, most natural gain of mankind? If we have to a great extent +done so, as I verily fear we have, what strange fog-lights must have +misled us; or rather let me say, how hard pressed we must have been in +the battle with the evils we have overcome, to have forgotten the +greatest of all evils. I cannot call it less than that. If a man has +work to do which he despises, which does not satisfy his natural and +rightful desire for pleasure, the greater part of his life must pass +unhappily and without self-respect. Consider, I beg of you, what that +means, and what ruin must come of it in the end. + +If I could only persuade you of this, that the chief duty of the +civilised world to-day is to set about making labour happy for all, to do +its utmost to minimise the amount of unhappy labour—nay, if I could only +persuade some two or three of you here present—I should have made a good +night’s work of it. + +Do not, at any rate, shelter yourselves from any misgiving you may have +behind the fallacy that the art-lacking labour of to-day is happy work: +for the most of men it is not so. It would take long, perhaps, to show +you, and make you fully understand that the would-be art which it +produces is joyless. But there is another token of its being most +unhappy work, which you cannot fail to understand at once—a grievous +thing that token is—and I beg of you to believe that I feel the full +shame of it, as I stand here speaking of it; but if we do not admit that +we are sick, how can we be healed? This hapless token is, that the work +done by the civilised world is mostly dishonest work. Look now: I admit +that civilisation does make certain things well, things which it knows, +consciously or unconsciously, are necessary to its present unhealthy +condition. These things, to speak shortly, are chiefly machines for +carrying on the competition in buying and selling, called falsely +commerce; and machines for the violent destruction of life—that is to +say, materials for two kinds of war; of which kinds the last is no doubt +the worst, not so much in itself perhaps, but because on this point the +conscience of the world is beginning to be somewhat pricked. But, on the +other hand, matters for the carrying on of a dignified daily life, that +life of mutual trust, forbearance, and help, which is the only real life +of thinking men—these things the civilised world makes ill, and even +increasingly worse and worse. + +If I am wrong in saying this, you know well I am only saying what is +widely thought, nay widely said too, for that matter. Let me give an +instance, familiar enough, of that wide-spread opinion. There is a very +clever book of pictures {61} now being sold at the railway bookstalls, +called ‘The British Working Man, by one who does not believe in him,’—a +title and a book which make me both angry and ashamed, because the two +express much injustice, and not a little truth in their quaint, and +necessarily exaggerated way. It is quite true, and very sad to say, that +if any one nowadays wants a piece of ordinary work done by gardener, +carpenter, mason, dyer, weaver, smith, what you will, he will be a lucky +rarity if he get it well done. He will, on the contrary, meet on every +side with evasion of plain duties, and disregard of other men’s rights; +yet I cannot see how the ‘British Working Man’ is to be made to bear the +whole burden of this blame, or indeed the chief part of it. I doubt if +it be possible for a whole mass of men to do work to which they are +driven, and in which there is no hope and no pleasure, without trying to +shirk it—at any rate, shirked it has always been under such +circumstances. On the other hand, I know that there are some men so +right-minded, that they will, in despite of irksomeness and hopelessness, +drive right through their work. Such men are the salt of the earth. But +must there not be something wrong with a state of society which drives +these into that bitter heroism, and the most part into shirking, into the +depths often of half-conscious self-contempt and degradation? Be sure +that there is, that the blindness and hurry of civilisation, as it now +is, have to answer a heavy charge as to that enormous amount of +pleasureless work—work that tries every muscle of the body and every atom +of the brain, and which is done without pleasure and without aim—work +which everybody who has to do with tries to shuffle off in the speediest +way that dread of starvation or ruin will allow him. + +I am as sure of one thing as that I am living and breathing, and it is +this: that the dishonesty in the daily arts of life, complaints of which +are in all men’s mouths, and which I can answer for it does exist, is the +natural and inevitable result of the world in the hurry of the war of the +counting-house, and the war of the battlefield, having forgotten—of all +men, I say, each for the other, having forgotten, that pleasure in our +daily labour, which nature cries out for as its due. + +Therefore, I say again, it is necessary to the further progress of +civilisation that men should turn their thoughts to some means of +limiting, and in the end of doing away with, degrading labour. + +I do not think my words hitherto spoken have given you any occasion to +think that I mean by this either hard or rough labour; I do not pity men +much for their hardships, especially if they be accidental; not +necessarily attached to one class or one condition, I mean. Nor do I +think (I were crazy or dreaming else) that the work of the world can be +carried on without rough labour; but I have seen enough of that to know +that it need not be by any means degrading. To plough the earth, to cast +the net, to fold the flock—these, and such as these, which are rough +occupations enough, and which carry with them many hardships, are good +enough for the best of us, certain conditions of leisure, freedom, and +due wages being granted. As to the bricklayer, the mason, and the +like—these would be artists, and doing not only necessary, but beautiful, +and therefore happy work, if art were anything like what it should be. +No, it is not such labour as this which we need to do away with, but the +toil which makes the thousand and one things which nobody wants, which +are used merely as the counters for the competitive buying and selling, +falsely called commerce, which I have spoken of before—I know in my +heart, and not merely by my reason, that this toil cries out to be done +away with. But, besides that, the labour which now makes things good and +necessary in themselves, merely as counters for the commercial war +aforesaid, needs regulating and reforming. Nor can this reform be +brought about save by art; and if we were only come to our right minds, +and could see the necessity for making labour sweet to all men, as it is +now to very few—the necessity, I repeat; lest discontent, unrest, and +despair should at last swallow up all society—If we, then, with our eyes +cleared, could but make some sacrifice of things which do us no good, +since we unjustly and uneasily possess them, then indeed I believe we +should sow the seeds of a happiness which the world has not yet known, of +a rest and content which would make it what I cannot help thinking it was +meant to be: and with that seed would be sown also the seed of real art, +the expression of man’s happiness in his labour,—an art made by the +people, and for the people, as a happiness to the maker and the user. + +That is the only real art there is, the only art which will be an +instrument to the progress of the world, and not a hindrance. Nor can I +seriously doubt that in your hearts you know that it is so, all of you, +at any rate, who have in you an instinct for art. I believe that you +agree with me in this, though you may differ from much else that I have +said. I think assuredly that this is the art whose welfare we have met +together to further, and the necessary instruction in which we have +undertaken to spread as widely as may be. + +Thus I have told you something of what I think is to be hoped and feared +for the future of art; and if you ask me what I expect as a practical +outcome of the admission of these opinions, I must say at once that I +know, even if we were all of one mind, and that what I think the right +mind on this subject, we should still have much work and many hindrances +before us; we should still have need of all the prudence, foresight, and +industry of the best among us; and, even so, our path would sometimes +seem blind enough. And, to-day, when the opinions which we think right, +and which one day will be generally thought so, have to struggle sorely +to make themselves noticed at all, it is early days for us to try to see +our exact and clearly mapped road. I suppose you will think it too +commonplace of me to say that the general education that makes men think, +will one day make them think rightly upon art. Commonplace as it is, I +really believe it, and am indeed encouraged by it, when I remember how +obviously this age is one of transition from the old to the new, and what +a strange confusion, from out of which we shall one day come, our +ignorance and half-ignorance is like to make of the exhausted rubbish of +the old and the crude rubbish of the new, both of which lie so ready to +our hands. + +But, if I must say, furthermore, any words that seem like words of +practical advice, I think my task is hard, and I fear I shall offend some +of you whatever I say; for this is indeed an affair of morality, rather +than of what people call art. + +However, I cannot forget that, in my mind, it is not possible to +dissociate art from morality, politics, and religion. Truth in these +great matters of principle is of one, and it is only in formal treatises +that it can be split up diversely. I must also ask you to remember how I +have already said, that though my mouth alone speaks, it speaks, however +feebly and disjointedly, the thoughts of many men better than myself. +And further, though when things are tending to the best, we shall still, +as aforesaid, need our best men to lead us quite right; yet even now +surely, when it is far from that, the least of us can do some yeoman’s +service to the cause, and live and die not without honour. + +So I will say that I believe there are two virtues much needed in modern +life, if it is ever to become sweet; and I am quite sure that they are +absolutely necessary in the sowing the seed of an _art which is to be +made by the people and for the people_, _as a happiness to the maker and +the user_. These virtues are honesty, and simplicity of life. To make +my meaning clearer I will name the opposing vice of the second of +these—luxury to wit. Also I mean by honesty, the careful and eager +giving his due to every man, the determination not to gain by any man’s +loss, which in my experience is not a common virtue. + +But note how the practice of either of these virtues will make the other +easier to us. For if our wants are few, we shall have but little chance +of being driven by our wants into injustice; and if we are fixed in the +principle of giving every man his due, how can our self-respect bear that +we should give too much to ourselves? + +And in art, and in that preparation for it without which no art that is +stable or worthy can be, the raising, namely, of those classes which have +heretofore been degraded, the practice of these virtues would make a new +world of it. For if you are rich, your simplicity of life will both go +towards smoothing over the dreadful contrast between waste and want, +which is the great horror of civilised countries, and will also give an +example and standard of dignified life to those classes which you desire +to raise, who, as it is indeed, being like enough to rich people, are +given both to envy and to imitate the idleness and waste that the +possession of much money produces. + +Nay, and apart from the morality of the matter, which I am forced to +speak to you of; let me tell you that though simplicity in art may be +costly as well as uncostly, at least it is not wasteful, and nothing is +more destructive to art than the want of it. I have never been in any +rich man’s house which would not have looked the better for having a +bonfire made outside of it of nine-tenths of all that it held. Indeed, +our sacrifice on the side of luxury will, it seems to me, be little or +nothing: for, as far as I can make out, what people usually mean by it, +is either a gathering of possessions which are sheer vexations to the +owner, or a chain of pompous circumstance, which checks and annoys the +rich man at every step. Yes, luxury cannot exist without slavery of some +kind or other, and its abolition will be blessed, like the abolition of +other slaveries, by the freeing both of the slaves and of their masters. + +Lastly, if, besides attaining to simplicity of life, we attain also to +the love of justice, then will all things be ready for the new springtime +of the arts. For those of us that are employers of labour, how can we +bear to give any man less money than he can decently live on, less +leisure than his education and self-respect demand? or those of us who +are workmen, how can we bear to fail in the contract we have undertaken, +or to make it necessary for a foreman to go up and down spying out our +mean tricks and evasions? or we the shopkeepers—can we endure to lie +about our wares, that we may shuffle off our losses on to some one else’s +shoulders? or we the public—how can we bear to pay a price for a piece of +goods which will help to trouble one man, to ruin another, and starve a +third? Or, still more, I think, how can we bear to use, how can we enjoy +something which has been a pain and a grief for the maker to make? + +And now, I think, I have said what I came to say. I confess that there +is nothing new in it, but you know the experience of the world is that a +thing must be said over and over again before any great number of men can +be got to listen to it. Let my words to-night, therefore, pass for one +of the necessary times that the thought in them must be spoken out. + +For the rest I believe that, however seriously these words may be +gainsayed, I have been speaking to an audience in whom any words spoken +from a sense of duty and in hearty goodwill, as mine have been, will +quicken thought and sow some good seed. At any rate, it is good for a +man who thinks seriously to face his fellows, and speak out whatever +really burns in him, so that men may seem less strange to one another, +and misunderstanding, the fruitful cause of aimless strife, may be +avoided. + +But if to any of you I have seemed to speak hopelessly, my words have +been lacking in art; and you must remember that hopelessness would have +locked my mouth, not opened it. I am, indeed, hopeful, but can I give a +date to the accomplishment of my hope, and say that it will happen in my +life or yours? + +But I will say at least, Courage! for things wonderful, unhoped-for, +glorious, have happened even in this short while I have been alive. + +Yes, surely these times are wonderful and fruitful of change, which, as +it wears and gathers new life even in its wearing, will one day bring +better things for the toiling days of men, who, with freer hearts and +clearer eyes, will once more gain the sense of outward beauty, and +rejoice in it. + +Meanwhile, if these hours be dark, as, indeed, in many ways they are, at +least do not let us sit deedless, like fools and fine gentlemen, thinking +the common toil not good enough for us, and beaten by the muddle; but +rather let us work like good fellows trying by some dim candle-light to +set our workshop ready against to-morrow’s daylight—that to-morrow, when +the civilised world, no longer greedy, strifeful, and destructive, shall +have a new art, a glorious art, made by the people and for the people, as +a happiness to the maker and the user. + + + + +THE BEAUTY OF LIFE {71} + + + ‘—propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.’—_Juvenal_. + +I STAND before you this evening weighted with a disadvantage that I did +not feel last year;—I have little fresh to tell you; I can somewhat +enlarge on what I said then; here and there I may make bold to give you a +practical suggestion, or I may put what I have to say in a way which will +be clearer to some of you perhaps; but my message is really the same as +it was when I first had the pleasure of meeting you. + +It is true that if all were going smoothly with art, or at all events so +smoothly that there were but a few malcontents in the world, you might +listen with some pleasure, and perhaps advantage, to the talk of an old +hand in the craft concerning ways of work, the snares that beset success, +and the shortest road to it, to a tale of workshop receipts and the like: +that would be a pleasant talk surely between friends and fellow-workmen; +but it seems to me as if it were not for us as yet; nay, maybe we may +live long and find no time fit for such restful talk as the cheerful +histories of the hopes and fears of our workshops: anyhow to-night I +cannot do it, but must once again call the faithful of art to a battle +wider and more distracting than that kindly struggle with nature, to +which all true craftsmen are born; which is both the building-up and the +wearing-away of their lives. + +As I look round on this assemblage, and think of all that it represents, +I cannot choose but be moved to the soul by the troubles of the life of +civilised man, and the hope that thrusts itself through them; I cannot +refrain from giving you once again the message with which, as it seems, +some chance-hap has charged me: that message is, in short, to call on you +to face the latest danger which civilisation is threatened with, a danger +of her own breeding: that men in struggling towards the complete +attainment of all the luxuries of life for the strongest portion of their +race should deprive their whole race of all the beauty of life: a danger +that the strongest and wisest of mankind, in striving to attain to a +complete mastery over nature, should destroy her simplest and +widest-spread gifts, and thereby enslave simple people to them, and +themselves to themselves, and so at last drag the world into a second +barbarism more ignoble, and a thousandfold more hopeless, than the first. + +Now of you who are listening to me, there are some, I feel sure, who have +received this message, and taken it to heart, and are day by day fighting +the battle that it calls on you to fight: to you I can say nothing but +that if any word I speak discourage you, I shall heartily wish I had +never spoken at all: but to be shown the enemy, and the castle we have +got to storm, is not to be bidden to run from him; nor am I telling you +to sit down deedless in the desert because between you and the promised +land lies many a trouble, and death itself maybe: the hope before you you +know, and nothing that I can say can take it away from you; but friend +may with advantage cry out to friend in the battle that a stroke is +coming from this side or that: take my hasty words in that sense, I beg +of you. + +But I think there will be others of you in whom vague discontent is +stirring: who are oppressed by the life that surrounds you; confused and +troubled by that oppression, and not knowing on which side to seek a +remedy, though you are fain to do so: well, we, who have gone further +into those troubles, believe that we can help you: true we cannot at once +take your trouble from you; nay, we may at first rather add to it; but we +can tell you what we think of the way out of it; and then amidst the many +things you will have to do to set yourselves and others fairly on that +way, you will many days, nay most days, forget your trouble in thinking +of the good that lies beyond it, for which you are working. + +But, again, there are others amongst you (and to speak plainly, I daresay +they are the majority), who are not by any means troubled by doubt of the +road the world is going, nor excited by any hope of its bettering that +road: to them the cause of civilisation is simple and even commonplace: +it wonder, hope, and fear no longer hang about it; has become to us like +the rising and setting of the sun; it cannot err, and we have no call to +meddle with it, either to complain of its course, or to try to direct it. + +There is a ground of reason and wisdom in that way of looking at the +matter: surely the world will go on its ways, thrust forward by impulses +which we cannot understand or sway: but as it grows in strength for the +journey, its necessary food is the life and aspirations of _all_ of us: +and we discontented strugglers with what at times seems the hurrying +blindness of civilisation, no less than those who see nothing but smooth, +unvarying progress in it, are bred of civilisation also, and shall be +used up to further it in some way or other, I doubt not: and it may be of +some service to those who think themselves the only loyal subjects of +progress to hear of our existence, since their not hearing of it would +not make an end of it: it may set them a-thinking not unprofitably to +hear of burdens that they do not help to bear, but which are nevertheless +real and weighty enough to some of their fellow-men, who are helping, +even as they are, to form the civilisation that is to be. + +The danger that the present course of civilisation will destroy the +beauty of life—these are hard words, and I wish I could mend them, but I +cannot, while I speak what I believe to be the truth. + +That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people +would venture to assert, and yet most civilised people act as if it were +of none, and in so doing are wronging both themselves and those that are +to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by _art_, +using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to +human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive +necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, +unless we are content to be less than men. + +Now I ask you, as I have been asking myself this long while, what +proportion of the population in civilised countries has any share at all +in that necessity of life? + +I say that the answer which must be made to that question justifies my +fear that modern civilisation is on the road to trample out all the +beauty of life, and to make us less than men. + +Now if there should be any here who will say: It was always so; there +always was a mass of rough ignorance that knew and cared nothing about +art; I answer first, that if that be the case, then it was always wrong, +and we, as soon as we have become conscious of that wrong, are bound to +set it right if we can. + +But moreover, strange to say, and in spite of all the suffering that the +world has wantonly made for itself, and has in all ages so persistently +clung to, as if it were a good and holy thing, this wrong of the mass of +men being regardless of art was _not_ always so. + +So much is now known of the periods of art that have left abundant +examples of their work behind them, that we can judge of the art of all +periods by comparing these with the remains of times of which less has +been left us; and we cannot fail to come to the conclusion that down to +very recent days everything that the hand of man touched was more or less +beautiful: so that in those days all people who made anything shared in +art, as well as all people who used the things so made: that is, _all_ +people shared in art. + +But some people may say: And was that to be wished for? would not this +universal spreading of art stop progress in other matters, hinder the +work of the world? Would it not make us unmanly? or if not that, would +it not be intrusive, and push out other things necessary also for men to +study? + +Well, I have claimed a necessary place for art, a natural place, and it +would be in the very essence of it, that it would apply its own rules of +order and fitness to the general ways of life: it seems to me, therefore, +that people who are over-anxious of the outward expression of beauty +becoming too great a force among the other forces of life, would, if they +had had the making of the external world, have been afraid of making an +ear of wheat beautiful, lest it should not have been good to eat. + +But indeed there seems no chance of art becoming universal, unless on the +terms that it shall have little self-consciousness, and for the most part +be done with little effort; so that the rough work of the world would be +as little hindered by it, as the work of external nature is by the beauty +of all her forms and moods: this was the case in the times that I have +been speaking of: of art which was made by conscious effort, the result +of the individual striving towards perfect expression of their thoughts +by men very specially gifted, there was perhaps no more than there is +now, except in very wonderful and short periods; though I believe that +even for such men the struggle to produce beauty was not so bitter as it +now is. But if there were not more great thinkers than there are now, +there was a countless multitude of happy workers whose work did express, +and could not choose but express, some original thought, and was +consequently both interesting and beautiful: now there is certainly no +chance of the more individual art becoming common, and either wearying us +by its over-abundance, or by noisy self-assertion preventing highly +cultivated men taking their due part in the other work of the world; it +is too difficult to do: it will be always but the blossom of all the +half-conscious work below it, the fulfilment of the shortcomings of less +complete minds: but it will waste much of its power, and have much less +influence on men’s minds, unless it be surrounded by abundance of that +commoner work, in which all men once shared, and which, I say, will, when +art has really awakened, be done so easily and constantly, that it will +stand in no man’s way to hinder him from doing what he will, good or +evil. And as, on the one hand, I believe that art made by the people and +for the people as a joy both to the maker and the user would further +progress in other matters rather than hinder it, so also I firmly believe +that that higher art produced only by great brains and miraculously +gifted hands cannot exist without it: I believe that the present state of +things in which it does exist, while popular art is, let us say, asleep +or sick, is a transitional state, which must end at last either in utter +defeat or utter victory for the arts. + +For whereas all works of craftsmanship were once beautiful, unwittingly +or not, they are now divided into two kinds, works of art and non-works +of art: now nothing made by man’s hand can be indifferent: it must be +either beautiful and elevating, or ugly and degrading; and those things +that are without art are so aggressively; they wound it by their +existence, and they are now so much in the majority that the works of art +we are obliged to set ourselves to seek for, whereas the other things are +the ordinary companions of our everyday life; so that if those who +cultivate art intellectually were inclined never so much to wrap +themselves in their special gifts and their high cultivation, and so live +happily, apart from other men, and despising them, they could not do so: +they are as it were living in an enemy’s country; at every turn there is +something lying in wait to offend and vex their nicer sense and educated +eyes: they must share in the general discomfort—and I am glad of it. + +So the matter stands: from the first dawn of history till quite modern +times, art, which nature meant to solace all, fulfilled its purpose; all +men shared in it; that was what made life romantic, as people call it, in +those days; that and not robber-barons and inaccessible kings with their +hierarchy of serving-nobles and other such rubbish: but art grew and +grew, saw empires sicken and sickened with them; grew hale again, and +haler, and grew so great at last, that she seemed in good truth to have +conquered everything, and laid the material world under foot. Then came +a change at a period of the greatest life and hope in many ways that +Europe had known till then: a time of so much and such varied hope that +people call it the time of the New Birth: as far as the arts are +concerned I deny it that title; rather it seems to me that the great men +who lived and glorified the practice of art in those days, were the fruit +of the old, not the seed of the new order of things: but a stirring and +hopeful time it was, and many things were newborn then which have since +brought forth fruit enough: and it is strange and perplexing that from +those days forward the lapse of time, which, through plenteous confusion +and failure, has on the whole been steadily destroying privilege and +exclusiveness in other matters, has delivered up art to be the exclusive +privilege of a few, and has taken from the people their birthright; while +both wronged and wrongers have been wholly unconscious of what they were +doing. + +Wholly unconscious—yes, but we are no longer so: there lies the sting of +it, and there also the hope. + +When the brightness of the so-called Renaissance faded, and it faded very +suddenly, a deadly chill fell upon the arts: that New-birth mostly meant +looking back to past times, wherein the men of those days thought they +saw a perfection of art, which to their minds was different in kind, and +not in degree only, from the ruder suggestive art of their own fathers: +this perfection they were ambitious to imitate, this alone seemed to be +art to them, the rest was childishness: so wonderful was their energy, +their success so great, that no doubt to commonplace minds among them, +though surely not to the great masters, that perfection seemed to be +gained: and, perfection being gained, what are you to do?—you can go no +further, you must aim at standing still—which you cannot do. + +Art by no means stood still in those latter days of the Renaissance, but +took the downward road with terrible swiftness, and tumbled down at the +bottom of the hill, where as if bewitched it lay long in great content, +believing itself to be the art of Michael Angelo, while it was the art of +men whom nobody remembers but those who want to sell their pictures. + +Thus it fared with the more individual forms of art. As to the art of +the people; in countries and places where the greater art had flourished +most, it went step by step on the downward path with that: in more +out-of-the-way places, England for instance, it still felt the influence +of the life of its earlier and happy days, and in a way lived on a while; +but its life was so feeble, and, so to say, illogical, that it could not +resist any change in external circumstances, still less could it give +birth to anything new; and before this century began, its last flicker +had died out. Still, while it was living, in whatever dotage, it did +imply something going on in those matters of daily use that we have been +thinking of, and doubtless satisfied some cravings for beauty: and when +it was dead, for a long time people did not know it, or what had taken +its place, crept so to say into its dead body—that pretence of art, to +wit, which is done with machines, though sometimes the machines are +called men, and doubtless are so out of working hours: nevertheless long +before it was quite dead it had fallen so low that the whole subject was +usually treated with the utmost contempt by every one who had any +pretence of being a sensible man, and in short the whole civilised world +had forgotten that there had ever been an art _made by the people for the +people as a joy for the maker and the user_. + +But now it seems to me that the very suddenness of the change ought to +comfort us, to make us look upon this break in the continuity of the +golden chain as an accident only, that itself cannot last: for think how +many thousand years it may be since that primeval man graved with a flint +splinter on a bone the story of the mammoth he had seen, or told us of +the slow uplifting of the heavily-horned heads of the reindeer that he +stalked: think I say of the space of time from then till the dimming of +the brightness of the Italian Renaissance! whereas from that time till +popular art died unnoticed and despised among ourselves is just but two +hundred years. + +Strange too, that very death is contemporaneous with new-birth of +something at all events; for out of all despair sprang a new time of hope +lighted by the torch of the French Revolution: and things that have +languished with the languishing of art, rose afresh and surely heralded +its new birth: in good earnest poetry was born again, and the English +Language, which under the hands of sycophantic verse-makers had been +reduced to a miserable jargon, whose meaning, if it have a meaning, +cannot be made out without translation, flowed clear, pure, and simple, +along with the music of Blake and Coleridge: take those names, the +earliest in date among ourselves, as a type of the change that has +happened in literature since the time of George II. + +With that literature in which romance, that is to say humanity, was +re-born, there sprang up also a feeling for the romance of external +nature, which is surely strong in us now, joined with a longing to know +something real of the lives of those who have gone before us; of these +feelings united you will find the broadest expression in the pages of +Walter Scott: it is curious as showing how sometimes one art will lag +behind another in a revival, that the man who wrote the exquisite and +wholly unfettered naturalism of the Heart of Midlothian, for instance, +thought himself continually bound to seem to feel ashamed of, and to +excuse himself for, his love of Gothic Architecture: he felt that it was +romantic, and he knew that it gave him pleasure, but somehow he had not +found out that it was art, having been taught in many ways that nothing +could be art that was not done by a named man under academical rules. + +I need not perhaps dwell much on what of change has been since: you know +well that one of the master-arts, the art of painting, has been +revolutionised. I have a genuine difficulty in speaking to you of men +who are my own personal friends, nay my masters: still, since I cannot +quite say nothing of them I must say the plain truth, which is this; +never in the whole history of art did any set of men come nearer to the +feat of making something out of nothing than that little knot of painters +who have raised English art from what it was, when as a boy I used to go +to the Royal Academy Exhibition, to what it is now. + +It would be ungracious indeed for me who have been so much taught by him, +that I cannot help feeling continually as I speak that I am echoing his +words, to leave out the name of John Ruskin from an account of what has +happened since the tide, as we hope, began to turn in the direction of +art. True it is, that his unequalled style of English and his wonderful +eloquence would, whatever its subject-matter, have gained him some sort +of a hearing in a time that has not lost its relish for literature; but +surely the influence that he has exercised over cultivated people must be +the result of that style and that eloquence expressing what was already +stirring in men’s minds; he could not have written what he has done +unless people were in some sort ready for it; any more than those +painters could have begun their crusade against the dulness and +incompetency that was the rule in their art thirty years ago unless they +had some hope that they would one day move people to understand them. + +Well, we find that the gains since the turning-point of the tide are +these: that there are some few artists who have, as it were, caught up +the golden chain dropped two hundred years ago, and that there are a few +highly cultivated people who can understand them; and that beyond these +there is a vague feeling abroad among people of the same degree, of +discontent at the ignoble ugliness that surrounds them. + +That seems to me to mark the advance that we have made since the last of +popular art came to an end amongst us, and I do not say, considering +where we then were, that it is not a great advance, for it comes to this, +that though the battle is still to win, there are those who are ready for +the battle. + +Indeed it would be a strange shame for this age if it were not so: for as +every age of the world has its own troubles to confuse it, and its own +follies to cumber it, so has each its own work to do, pointed out to it +by unfailing signs of the times; and it is unmanly and stupid for the +children of any age to say: We will not set our hands to the work; we did +not make the troubles, we will not weary ourselves seeking a remedy for +them: so heaping up for their sons a heavier load than they can lift +without such struggles as will wound and cripple them sorely. Not thus +our fathers served us, who, working late and early, left us at last that +seething mass of people so terribly alive and energetic, that we call +modern Europe; not thus those served us, who have made for us these +present days, so fruitful of change and wondering expectation. + +The century that is now beginning to draw to an end, if people were to +take to nicknaming centuries, would be called the Century of Commerce; +and I do not think I undervalue the work that it has done: it has broken +down many a prejudice and taught many a lesson that the world has been +hitherto slow to learn: it has made it possible for many a man to live +free, who would in other times have been a slave, body or soul, or both: +if it has not quite spread peace and justice through the world, as at the +end of its first half we fondly hoped it would, it has at least stirred +up in many fresh cravings for peace and justice: its work has been good +and plenteous, but much of it was roughly done, as needs was; +recklessness has commonly gone with its energy, blindness too often with +its haste: so that perhaps it may be work enough for the next century to +repair the blunders of that recklessness, to clear away the rubbish which +that hurried work has piled up; nay even we in the second half of its +last quarter may do something towards setting its house in order. + +You, of this great and famous town, for instance, which has had so much +to do with the Century of Commerce, your gains are obvious to all men, +but the price you have paid for them is obvious to many—surely to +yourselves most of all: I do not say that they are not worth the price; I +know that England and the world could very ill afford to exchange the +Birmingham of to-day for the Birmingham of the year 1700: but surely if +what you have gained be more than a mockery, you cannot stop at those +gains, or even go on always piling up similar ones. Nothing can make me +believe that the present condition of your Black Country yonder is an +unchangeable necessity of your life and position: such miseries as this +were begun and carried on in pure thoughtlessness, and a hundredth part +of the energy that was spent in creating them would get rid of them: I do +think if we were not all of us too prone to acquiesce in the base byword +‘after me the deluge,’ it would soon be something more than an idle dream +to hope that your pleasant midland hills and fields might begin to become +pleasant again in some way or other, even without depopulating them; or +that those once lovely valleys of Yorkshire in the ‘heavy woollen +district,’ with their sweeping hill-sides and noble rivers, should not +need the stroke of ruin to make them once more delightful abodes of men, +instead of the dog-holes that the Century of Commerce has made them. + +Well, people will not take the trouble or spend the money necessary to +beginning this sort of reforms, because they do not feel the evils they +live amongst, because they have degraded themselves into something less +than men; they are unmanly because they have ceased to have their due +share of art. + +For again I say that therein rich people have defrauded themselves as +well as the poor: you will see a refined and highly educated man +nowadays, who has been to Italy and Egypt, and where not, who can talk +learnedly enough (and fantastically enough sometimes) about art, and who +has at his fingers’ ends abundant lore concerning the art and literature +of past days, sitting down without signs of discomfort in a house, that +with all its surroundings is just brutally vulgar and hideous: all his +education has not done more for him than that. + +The truth is, that in art, and in other things besides, the laboured +education of a few will not raise even those few above the reach of the +evils that beset the ignorance of the great mass of the population: the +brutality of which such a huge stock has been accumulated lower down, +will often show without much peeling through the selfish refinement of +those who have let it accumulate. The lack of art, or rather the murder +of art, that curses our streets from the sordidness of the surroundings +of the lower classes, has its exact counterpart in the dulness and +vulgarity of those of the middle classes, and the double-distilled +dulness, and scarcely less vulgarity of those of the upper classes. + +I say this is as it should be; it is just and fair as far as it goes; and +moreover the rich with their leisure are the more like to move if they +feel the pinch themselves. + +But how shall they and we, and all of us, move? What is the remedy? + +What remedy can there be for the blunders of civilisation but further +civilisation? You do not by any accident think that we have gone as far +in that direction as it is possible to go, do you?—even in England, I +mean? + +When some changes have come to pass, that perhaps will be speedier than +most people think, doubtless education will both grow in quality and in +quantity; so that it may be, that as the nineteenth century is to be +called the Century of Commerce, the twentieth may be called the Century +of Education. But that education does not end when people leave school +is now a mere commonplace; and how then can you really educate men who +lead the life of machines, who only think for the few hours during which +they are not at work, who in short spend almost their whole lives in +doing work which is not proper for developing them body and mind in some +worthy way? You cannot educate, you cannot civilise men, unless you can +give them a share in art. + +Yes, and it is hard indeed as things go to give most men that share; for +they do not miss it, or ask for it, and it is impossible as things are +that they should either miss or ask for it. Nevertheless everything has +a beginning, and many great things have had very small ones; and since, +as I have said, these ideas are already abroad in more than one form, we +must not be too much discouraged at the seemingly boundless weight we +have to lift. + +After all, we are only bound to play our own parts, and do our own share +of the lifting, and as in no case that share can be great, so also in all +cases it is called for, it is necessary. Therefore let us work and faint +not; remembering that though it be natural, and therefore excusable, +amidst doubtful times to feel doubts of success oppress us at whiles, yet +not to crush those doubts, and work as if we had them not, is simple +cowardice, which is unforgivable. No man has any right to say that all +has been done for nothing, that all the faithful unwearying strife of +those that have gone before us shall lead us nowhither; that mankind will +but go round and round in a circle for ever: no man has a right to say +that, and then get up morning after morning to eat his victuals and sleep +a-nights, all the while making other people toil to keep his worthless +life a-going. + +Be sure that some way or other will be found out of the tangle, even when +things seem most tangled, and be no less sure that some use will then +have come of our work, if it has been faithful, and therefore unsparingly +careful and thoughtful. + +So once more I say, if in any matters civilisation has gone astray, the +remedy lies not in standing still, but in more complete civilisation. + +Now whatever discussion there may be about that often used and often +misused word, I believe all who hear me will agree with me in believing +from their hearts, and not merely in saying in conventional phrase, that +the civilisation which does not carry the whole people with it, is doomed +to fall, and give place to one which at least aims at doing so. + +We talk of the civilisation of the ancient peoples, of the classical +times, well, civilised they were no doubt, some of their folk at least: +an Athenian citizen for instance led a simple, dignified, almost perfect +life; but there were drawbacks to happiness perhaps in the lives of his +slaves: and the civilisation of the ancients was founded on slavery. + +Indeed that ancient society did give a model to the world, and showed us +for ever what blessings are freedom of life and thought, self-restraint +and a generous education: all those blessings the ancient free peoples +set forth to the world—and kept them to themselves. + +Therefore no tyrant was too base, no pretext too hollow, for enslaving +the grandsons of the men of Salamis and Thermopylæ: therefore did the +descendants of those stern and self-restrained Romans, who were ready to +give up everything, and life as the least of things, to the glory of +their commonweal, produce monsters of license and reckless folly. +Therefore did a little knot of Galilean peasants overthrow the Roman +Empire. + +Ancient civilisation was chained to slavery and exclusiveness, and it +fell; the barbarism that took its place has delivered us from slavery and +grown into modern civilisation; and that in its turn has before it the +choice of never-ceasing growth, or destruction by that which has in it +the seeds of higher growth. + +There is an ugly word for a dreadful fact, which I must make bold to +use—the residuum: that word since the time I first saw it used, has had a +terrible significance to me, and I have felt from my heart that if this +residuum were a necessary part of modern civilisation, as some people +openly, and many more tacitly, assume that it is, then this civilisation +carries with it the poison that shall one day destroy it, even as its +elder sister did: if civilisation is to go no further than this, it had +better not have gone so far: if it does not aim at getting rid of this +misery and giving some share in the happiness and dignity of life to +_all_ the people that it has created, and which it spends such unwearying +energy in creating, it is simply an organised injustice, a mere +instrument for oppression, so much the worse than that which has gone +before it, as its pretensions are higher, its slavery subtler, its +mastery harder to overthrow, because supported by such a dense mass of +commonplace well-being and comfort. + +Surely this cannot be: surely there is a distinct feeling abroad of this +injustice: so that if the residuum still clogs all the efforts of modern +civilisation to rise above mere population-breeding and money-making, the +difficulty of dealing with it is the legacy, first of the ages of +violence and almost conscious brutal injustice, and next of the ages of +thoughtlessness, of hurry and blindness; surely all those who think at +all of the future of the world are at work in one way or other in +striving to rid it of this shame. + +That to my mind is the meaning of what we call National Education, which +we have begun, and which is doubtless already bearing its fruits, and +will bear greater, when all people are educated, not according to the +money which they or their parents possess, but according to the capacity +of their minds. + +What effect that will have upon the future of the arts, I cannot say, but +one would surely think a very great effect; for it will enable people to +see clearly many things which are now as completely hidden from them as +if they were blind in body and idiotic in mind: and this, I say, will act +not only upon those who most directly feel the evils of ignorance, but +also upon those who feel them indirectly,—upon us, the educated: the +great wave of rising intelligence, rife with so many natural desires and +aspirations, will carry all classes along with it, and force us all to +see that many things which we have been used to look upon as necessary +and eternal evils are merely the accidental and temporary growths of past +stupidity, and can be escaped from by due effort, and the exercise of +courage, goodwill, and forethought. + +And among those evils, I do, and must always, believe will fall that one +which last year I told you that I accounted the greatest of all evils, +the heaviest of all slaveries; that evil of the greater part of the +population being engaged for by far the most part of their lives in work, +which at the best cannot interest them, or develop their best faculties, +and at the worst (and that is the commonest, too) is mere unmitigated +slavish toil, only to be wrung out of them by the sternest compulsion, a +toil which they shirk all they can—small blame to them. And this toil +degrades them into less than men: and they will some day come to know it, +and cry out to be made men again, and art only can do it, and redeem them +from this slavery; and I say once more that this is her highest and most +glorious end and aim; and it is in her struggle to attain to it that she +will most surely purify herself, and quicken her own aspirations towards +perfection. + +But we—in the meantime we must not sit waiting for obvious signs of these +later and glorious days to show themselves on earth, and in the heavens, +but rather turn to the commonplace, and maybe often dull work of fitting +ourselves in detail to take part in them if we should live to see one of +them; or in doing our best to make the path smooth for their coming, if +we are to die before they are here. + +What, therefore, can we do, to guard traditions of time past that we may +not one day have to begin anew from the beginning with none to teach us? +What are we to do, that we may take heed to, and spread the decencies of +life, so that at the least we may have a field where it will be possible +for art to grow when men begin to long for it: what finally can we do, +each of us, to cherish some germ of art, so that it may meet with others, +and spread and grow little by little into the thing that we need? + +Now I cannot pretend to think that the first of these duties is a matter +of indifference to you, after my experience of the enthusiastic meeting +that I had the honour of addressing here last autumn on the subject of +the (so called) restoration of St. Mark’s at Venice; you thought, and +most justly thought, it seems to me, that the subject was of such moment +to art in general, that it was a simple and obvious thing for men who +were anxious on the matter to address themselves to those who had the +decision of it in their hands; even though the former were called +Englishmen, and the latter Italians; for you felt that the name of lovers +of art would cover those differences: if you had any misgivings, you +remembered that there was but one such building in the world, and that it +was worth while risking a breach of etiquette, if any words of ours could +do anything towards saving it; well, the Italians were, some of them, +very naturally, though surely unreasonably, irritated, for a time, and in +some of their prints they bade us look at home; that was no argument in +favour of the wisdom of wantonly rebuilding St. Mark’s façade: but +certainly those of us who have not yet looked at home in this matter had +better do so speedily, late and over late though it be: for though we +have no golden-pictured interiors like St. Mark’s Church at home, we +still have many buildings which are both works of ancient art and +monuments of history: and just think what is happening to them, and note, +since we profess to recognise their value, how helpless art is in the +Century of Commerce! + +In the first place, many and many a beautiful and ancient building is +being destroyed all over civilised Europe as well as in England, because +it is supposed to interfere with the convenience of the citizens, while a +little forethought might save it without trenching on that convenience; +{96} but even apart from that, I say that if we are not prepared to put +up with a little inconvenience in our lifetimes for the sake of +preserving a monument of art which will elevate and educate, not only +ourselves, but our sons, and our sons’ sons, it is vain and idle of us to +talk about art—or education either. Brutality must be bred of such +brutality. + +The same thing may be said about enlarging, or otherwise altering for +convenience’ sake, old buildings still in use for something like their +original purposes: in almost all such cases it is really nothing more +than a question of a little money for a new site: and then a new building +can be built exactly fitted for the uses it is needed for, with such art +about it as our own days can furnish; while the old monument is left to +tell its tale of change and progress, to hold out example and warning to +us in the practice of the arts: and thus the convenience of the public, +the progress of modern art, and the cause of education, are all furthered +at once at the cost of a little money. + +Surely if it be worth while troubling ourselves about the works of art of +to-day, of which any amount almost can be done, since we are yet alive, +it is worth while spending a little care, forethought, and money in +preserving the art of bygone ages, of which (woe worth the while!) so +little is left, and of which we can never have any more, whatever +good-hap the world may attain to. + +No man who consents to the destruction or the mutilation of an ancient +building has any right to pretend that he cares about art; or has any +excuse to plead in defence of his crime against civilisation and +progress, save sheer brutal ignorance. + +But before I leave this subject I must say a word or two about the +curious invention of our own days called Restoration, a method of dealing +with works of bygone days which, though not so degrading in its spirit as +downright destruction, is nevertheless little better in its results on +the condition of those works of art; it is obvious that I have no time to +argue the question out to-night, so I will only make these assertions: + +That ancient buildings, being both works of art and monuments of history, +must obviously be treated with great care and delicacy: that the +imitative art of to-day is not, and cannot be the same thing as ancient +art, and cannot replace it; and that therefore if we superimpose this +work on the old, we destroy it both as art and as a record of history: +lastly, that the natural weathering of the surface of a building is +beautiful, and its loss disastrous. + +Now the restorers hold the exact contrary of all this: they think that +any clever architect to-day can deal off-hand successfully with the +ancient work; that while all things else have changed about us since +(say) the thirteenth century, art has not changed, and that our workmen +can turn out work identical with that of the thirteenth century; and, +lastly, that the weather-beaten surface of an ancient building is +worthless, and to be got rid of wherever possible. + +You see the question is difficult to argue, because there seem to be no +common grounds between the restorers and the anti-restorers: I appeal +therefore to the public, and bid them note, that though our opinions may +be wrong, the action we advise is not rash: let the question be shelved +awhile: if, as we are always pressing on people, due care be taken of +these monuments, so that they shall not fall into disrepair, they will be +always there to ‘restore’ whenever people think proper and when we are +proved wrong; but if it should turn out that we are right, how can the +‘restored’ buildings be restored? I beg of you therefore to let the +question be shelved, till art has so advanced among us, that we can deal +authoritatively with it, till there is no longer any doubt about the +matter. + +Surely these monuments of our art and history, which, whatever the +lawyers may say, belong not to a coterie, or to a rich man here and +there, but to the nation at large, are worth this delay: surely the last +relics of the life of the ‘famous men and our fathers that begat us’ may +justly claim of us the exercise of a little patience. + +It will give us trouble no doubt, all this care of our possessions: but +there is more trouble to come; for I must now speak of something else, of +possessions which should be common to all of us, of the green grass, and +the leaves, and the waters, of the very light and air of heaven, which +the Century of Commerce has been too busy to pay any heed to. And first +let me remind you that I am supposing every one here present professes to +care about art. + +Well, there are some rich men among us whom we oddly enough call +manufacturers, by which we mean capitalists who pay other men to organise +manufacturers; these gentlemen, many of whom buy pictures and profess to +care about art, burn a deal of coal: there is an Act in existence which +was passed to prevent them sometimes and in some places from pouring a +dense cloud of smoke over the world, and, to my thinking, a very lame and +partial Act it is: but nothing hinders these lovers of art from being a +law to themselves, and making it a point of honour with them to minimise +the smoke nuisance as far as their own works are concerned; and if they +don’t do so, when mere money, and even a very little of that, is what it +will cost them, I say that their love of art is a mere pretence: how can +you care about the image of a landscape when you show by your deeds that +you don’t care for the landscape itself? or what right have you to shut +yourself up with beautiful form and colour when you make it impossible +for other people to have any share in these things? + +Well, and as to the smoke Act itself: I don’t know what heed you pay to +it in Birmingham, {100} but I have seen myself what heed is paid to it in +other places; Bradford for instance: though close by them at Saltaire +they have an example which I should have thought might have shamed them; +for the huge chimney there which serves the acres of weaving and spinning +sheds of Sir Titus Salt and his brothers is as guiltless of smoke as an +ordinary kitchen chimney. Or Manchester: a gentleman of that city told +me that the smoke Act was a mere dead letter there: well, they buy +pictures in Manchester and profess to wish to further the arts: but you +see it must be idle pretence as far as their rich people are concerned: +they only want to talk about it, and have themselves talked of. + +I don’t know what you are doing about this matter here; but you must +forgive my saying, that unless you are beginning to think of some way of +dealing with it, you are not beginning yet to pave your way to success in +the arts. + +Well, I have spoken of a huge nuisance, which is a type of the worst +nuisances of what an ill-tempered man might be excused for calling the +Century of Nuisances, rather than the Century of Commerce. I will now +leave it to the consciences of the rich and influential among us, and +speak of a minor nuisance which it is in the power of every one of us to +abate, and which, small as it is, is so vexatious, that if I can prevail +on a score of you to take heed to it by what I am saying, I shall think +my evening’s work a good one. Sandwich-papers I mean—of course you +laugh: but come now, don’t you, civilised as you are in Birmingham, leave +them all about the Lickey hills and your public gardens and the like? If +you don’t I really scarcely know with what words to praise you. When we +Londoners go to enjoy ourselves at Hampton Court, for instance, we take +special good care to let everybody know that we have had something to +eat: so that the park just outside the gates (and a beautiful place it +is) looks as if it had been snowing dirty paper. I really think you +might promise me one and all who are here present to have done with this +sluttish habit, which is the type of many another in its way, just as the +smoke nuisance is. I mean such things as scrawling one’s name on +monuments, tearing down tree boughs, and the like. + +I suppose ’tis early days in the revival of the arts to express one’s +disgust at the daily increasing hideousness of the posters with which all +our towns are daubed. Still we ought to be disgusted at such horrors, +and I think make up our minds never to buy any of the articles so +advertised. I can’t believe they can be worth much if they need all that +shouting to sell them. + +Again, I must ask what do you do with the trees on a site that is going +to be built over? do you try to save them, to adapt your houses at all to +them? do you understand what treasures they are in a town or a suburb? or +what a relief they will be to the hideous dog-holes which (forgive me!) +you are probably going to build in their places? I ask this anxiously, +and with grief in my soul, for in London and its suburbs we always {103} +begin by clearing a site till it is as bare as the pavement: I really +think that almost anybody would have been shocked, if I could have shown +him some of the trees that have been wantonly murdered in the suburb in +which I live (Hammersmith to wit), amongst them some of those magnificent +cedars, for which we along the river used to be famous once. + +But here again see how helpless those are who care about art or nature +amidst the hurry of the Century of Commerce. + +Pray do not forget, that any one who cuts down a tree wantonly or +carelessly, especially in a great town or its suburbs, need make no +pretence of caring about art. + +What else can we do to help to educate ourselves and others in the path +of art, to be on the road to attaining an _Art made by the people and for +the people as a joy to the maker and the user_? + +Why, having got to understand something of what art was, having got to +look upon its ancient monuments as friends that can tell us something of +times bygone, and whose faces we do not wish to alter, even though they +be worn by time and grief: having got to spend money and trouble upon +matters of decency, great and little; having made it clear that we really +do care about nature even in the suburbs of a big town—having got so far, +we shall begin to think of the houses in which we live. + +For I must tell you that unless you are resolved to have good and +rational architecture, it is, once again, useless your thinking about art +at all. + +I have spoken of the popular arts, but they might all be summed up in +that one word Architecture; they are all parts of that great whole, and +the art of house-building begins it all: if we did not know how to dye or +to weave; if we had neither gold, nor silver, nor silk; and no pigments +to paint with, but half-a-dozen ochres and umbers, we might yet frame a +worthy art that would lead to everything, if we had but timber, stone, +and lime, and a few cutting tools to make these common things not only +shelter us from wind and weather, but also express the thoughts and +aspirations that stir in us. + +Architecture would lead us to all the arts, as it did with earlier men: +but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed, the other +arts will have a hard time of it indeed. + +Now I do not think the greatest of optimists would deny that, taking us +one and all, we are at present housed in a perfectly shameful way, and +since the greatest part of us have to live in houses already built for +us, it must be admitted that it is rather hard to know what to do, beyond +waiting till they tumble about our ears. + +Only we must not lay the fault upon the builders, as some people seem +inclined to do: they are our very humble servants, and will build what we +ask for; remember, that rich men are not obliged to live in ugly houses, +and yet you see they do; which the builders may be well excused for +taking as a sign of what is wanted. + +Well, the point is, we must do what we can, and make people understand +what we want them to do for us, by letting them see what we do for +ourselves. + +Hitherto, judging us by that standard, the builders may well say, that we +want the pretence of a thing rather than the thing itself; that we want a +show of petty luxury if we are unrich, a show of insulting stupidity if +we are rich: and they are quite clear that as a rule we want to get +something that shall look as if it cost twice as much as it really did. + +You cannot have Architecture on those terms: simplicity and solidity are +the very first requisites of it: just think if it is not so: How we +please ourselves with an old building by thinking of all the generations +of men that have passed through it! do we not remember how it has +received their joy, and borne their sorrow, and not even their folly has +left sourness upon it? it still looks as kind to us as it did to them. +And the converse of this we ought to feel when we look at a newly-built +house if it were as it should be: we should feel a pleasure in thinking +how he who had built it had left a piece of his soul behind him to greet +the new-comers one after another long and long after he was gone:—but +what sentiment can an ordinary modern house move in us, or what +thought—save a hope that we may speedily forget its base ugliness? + +But if you ask me how we are to pay for this solidity and extra expense, +that seems to me a reasonable question; for you must dismiss at once as a +delusion the hope that has been sometimes cherished, that you can have a +building which is a work of art, and is therefore above all things +properly built, at the same price as a building which only pretends to be +this: never forget when people talk about cheap art in general, by the +way, that all art costs time, trouble, and thought, and that money is +only a counter to represent these things. + +However, I must try to answer the question I have supposed put, how are +we to pay for decent houses? + +It seems to me that, by a great piece of good luck, the way to pay for +them is by doing that which alone can produce popular art among us: +living a simple life, I mean. Once more I say that the greatest foe to +art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere. + +When you hear of the luxuries of the ancients, you must remember that +they were not like our luxuries, they were rather indulgence in pieces of +extravagant folly than what we to-day call luxury; which perhaps you +would rather call comfort: well I accept the word, and say that a Greek +or Roman of the luxurious time would stare astonished could he be brought +back again, and shown the comforts of a well-to-do middle-class house. + +But some, I know, think that the attainment of these very comforts is +what makes the difference between civilisation and uncivilisation, that +they are the essence of civilisation. Is it so indeed? Farewell my hope +then!—I had thought that civilisation meant the attainment of peace and +order and freedom, of goodwill between man and man, of the love of truth +and the hatred of injustice, and by consequence the attainment of the +good life which these things breed, a life free from craven fear, but +full of incident: that was what I thought it meant, not more stuffed +chairs and more cushions, and more carpets and gas, and more dainty meat +and drink—and therewithal more and sharper differences between class and +class. + +If that be what it is, I for my part wish I were well out of it, and +living in a tent in the Persian desert, or a turf hut on the Iceland +hill-side. But however it be, and I think my view is the true view, I +tell you that art abhors that side of civilisation, she cannot breathe in +the houses that lie under its stuffy slavery. + +Believe me, if we want art to begin at home, as it must, we must clear +our houses of troublesome superfluities that are for ever in our way: +conventional comforts that are no real comforts, and do but make work for +servants and doctors: if you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, +this is it: + +‘_Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or +believe to be beautiful_.’ + +And if we apply that rule strictly, we shall in the first place show the +builders and such-like servants of the public what we really want, we +shall create a demand for real art, as the phrase goes; and in the second +place, we shall surely have more money to pay for decent houses. + +Perhaps it will not try your patience too much if I lay before you my +idea of the fittings necessary to the sitting-room of a healthy person: a +room, I mean, in which he would not have to cook in much, or sleep in +generally, or in which he would not have to do any very litter-making +manual work. + +First a book-case with a great many books in it: next a table that will +keep steady when you write or work at it: then several chairs that you +can move, and a bench that you can sit or lie upon: next a cupboard with +drawers: next, unless either the book-case or the cupboard be very +beautiful with painting or carving, you will want pictures or engravings, +such as you can afford, only not stop-gaps, but real works of art on the +wall; or else the wall itself must be ornamented with some beautiful and +restful pattern: we shall also want a vase or two to put flowers in, +which latter you must have sometimes, especially if you live in a town. +Then there will be the fireplace of course, which in our climate is bound +to be the chief object in the room. + +That is all we shall want, especially if the floor be good; if it be not, +as, by the way, in a modern house it is pretty certain not to be, I admit +that a small carpet which can be bundled out of the room in two minutes +will be useful, and we must also take care that it is beautiful, or it +will annoy us terribly. + +Now unless we are musical, and need a piano (in which case, as far as +beauty is concerned, we are in a bad way), that is quite all we want: and +we can add very little to these necessaries without troubling ourselves, +and hindering our work, our thought, and our rest. + +If these things were done at the least cost for which they could be done +well and solidly, they ought not to cost much; and they are so few, that +those that could afford to have them at all, could afford to spend some +trouble to get them fitting and beautiful: and all those who care about +art ought to take great trouble to do so, and to take care that there be +no sham art amongst them, nothing that it has degraded a man to make or +sell. And I feel sure, that if all who care about art were to take this +pains, it would make a great impression upon the public. + +This simplicity you may make as costly as you please or can, on the other +hand: you may hang your walls with tapestry instead of whitewash or +paper; or you may cover them with mosaic, or have them frescoed by a +great painter: all this is not luxury, if it be done for beauty’s sake, +and not for show: it does not break our golden rule: _Have nothing in +your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be +beautiful_. + +All art starts from this simplicity; and the higher the art rises, the +greater the simplicity. I have been speaking of the fittings of a +dwelling-house—a place in which we eat and drink, and pass familiar +hours; but when you come to places which people want to make more +specially beautiful because of the solemnity or dignity of their uses, +they will be simpler still, and have little in them save the bare walls +made as beautiful as may be. St. Mark’s at Venice has very little +furniture in it, much less than most Roman Catholic churches: its lovely +and stately mother St. Sophia of Constantinople had less still, even when +it was a Christian church: but we need not go either to Venice or +Stamboul to take note of that: go into one of our own mighty Gothic naves +(do any of you remember the first time you did so?) and note how the huge +free space satisfies and elevates you, even now when window and wall are +stripped of ornament: then think of the meaning of simplicity, and +absence of encumbering gew-gaws. + +Now after all, for us who are learning art, it is not far to seek what is +the surest way to further it; that which most breeds art is art; every +piece of work that we do which is well done, is so much help to the +cause; every piece of pretence and half-heartedness is so much hurt to +it. Most of you who take to the practice of art can find out in no very +long time whether you have any gifts for it or not: if you have not, +throw the thing up, or you will have a wretched time of it yourselves, +and will be damaging the cause by laborious pretence: but if you have +gifts of any kind, you are happy indeed beyond most men; for your +pleasure is always with you, nor can you be intemperate in the enjoyment +of it, and as you use it, it does not lessen, but grows: if you are by +chance weary of it at night, you get up in the morning eager for it; or +if perhaps in the morning it seems folly to you for a while, yet +presently, when your hand has been moving a little in its wonted way, +fresh hope has sprung up beneath it and you are happy again. While +others are getting through the day like plants thrust into the earth, +which cannot turn this way or that but as the wind blows them, you know +what you want, and your will is on the alert to find it, and you, +whatever happens, whether it be joy or grief, are at least alive. + +Now when I spoke to you last year, after I had sat down I was half afraid +that I had on some points said too much, that I had spoken too bitterly +in my eagerness; that a rash word might have discouraged some of you; I +was very far from meaning that: what I wanted to do, what I want to do +to-night is to put definitely before you a cause for which to strive. + +That cause is the Democracy of Art, the ennobling of daily and common +work, which will one day put hope and pleasure in the place of fear and +pain, as the forces which move men to labour and keep the world a-going. + +If I have enlisted any one in that cause, rash as my words may have been, +or feeble as they may have been, they have done more good than harm; nor +do I believe that any words of mine can discourage any who have joined +that cause or are ready to do so: their way is too clear before them for +that, and every one of us can help the cause whether he be great or +little. + +I know indeed that men, wearied by the pettiness of the details of the +strife, their patience tried by hope deferred, will at whiles, excusably +enough, turn back in their hearts to other days, when if the issues were +not clearer, the means of trying them were simpler; when, so stirring +were the times, one might even have atoned for many a blunder and +backsliding by visibly dying for the cause. To have breasted the Spanish +pikes at Leyden, to have drawn sword with Oliver: that may well seem to +us at times amidst the tangles of to-day a happy fate: for a man to be +able to say, I have lived like a fool, but now I will cast away fooling +for an hour, and die like a man—there is something in that certainly: and +yet ’tis clear that few men can be so lucky as to die for a cause, +without having first of all lived for it. And as this is the most that +can be asked from the greatest man that follows a cause, so it is the +least that can be taken from the smallest. + +So to us who have a Cause at heart, our highest ambition and our simplest +duty are one and the same thing: for the most part we shall be too busy +doing the work that lies ready to our hands, to let impatience for +visibly great progress vex us much; but surely since we are servants of a +Cause, hope must be ever with us, and sometimes perhaps it will so +quicken our vision that it will outrun the slow lapse of time, and show +us the victorious days when millions of those who now sit in darkness +will be enlightened by an _Art made by the people and for the people_, _a +joy to the maker and the user_. + + + + +MAKING THE BEST OF IT {114} + + +I HAVE to-night to talk to you about certain things which my experience +in my own craft has led me to notice, and which have bred in my mind +something like a set of rules or maxims, which guide my practice. Every +one who has followed a craft for long has such rules in his mind, and +cannot help following them himself, and insisting on them practically in +dealing with his pupils or workmen if he is in any degree a master; and +when these rules, or if you will, impulses, are filling the minds and +guiding the hands of many craftsmen at one time, they are busy forming a +distinct school, and the art they represent is sure to be at least alive, +however rude, timid, or lacking it may be; and the more imperious these +rules are, the wider these impulses are spread, the more vigorously alive +will be the art they produce; whereas in times when they are felt but +lightly and rarely, when one man’s maxims seem absurd or trivial to his +brother craftsman, art is either sick or slumbering, or so thinly +scattered amongst the great mass of men as to influence the general life +of the world little or nothing. + +For though this kind of rules of a craft may seem to some arbitrary, I +think that it is because they are the result of such intricate +combinations of circumstances, that only a great philosopher, if even he, +could express in words the sources of them, and give us reasons for them +all, and we who are craftsmen must be content to prove them in practice, +believing that their roots are founded in human nature, even as we know +that their first-fruits are to be found in that most wonderful of all +histories, the history of the arts. + +Will you, therefore, look upon me as a craftsman who shares certain +impulses with many others, which impulses forbid him to question the +rules they have forced on him? so looking on me you may afford perhaps to +be more indulgent to me if I seem to dogmatise over much. + +Yet I cannot claim to represent any one craft. The division of labour, +which has played so great a part in furthering competitive commerce, till +it has become a machine with powers both reproductive and destructive, +which few dare to resist, and none can control or foresee the result of, +has pressed specially hard on that part of the field of human culture in +which I was born to labour. That field of the arts, whose harvest should +be the chief part of human joy, hope, and consolation, has been, I say, +dealt hardly with by the division of labour, once the servant, and now +the master of competitive commerce, itself once the servant, and now the +master of civilisation; nay, so searching has been this tyranny, that it +has not passed by my own insignificant corner of labour, but as it has +thwarted me in many ways, so chiefly perhaps in this, that it has so +stood in the way of my getting the help from others which my art forces +me to crave, that I have been compelled to learn many crafts, and belike, +according to the proverb, forbidden to master any, so that I fear my +lecture will seem to you both to run over too many things and not to go +deep enough into any. + +I cannot help it. That above-mentioned tyranny has turned some of us +from being, as we should be, contented craftsmen, into being discontented +agitators against it, so that our minds are not at rest, even when we +have to talk over workshop receipts and maxims; indeed I must confess +that I should hold my peace on all matters connected with the arts, if I +had not a lurking hope to stir up both others and myself to discontent +with and rebellion against things as they are, clinging to the further +hope that our discontent may be fruitful and our rebellion steadfast, at +least to the end of our own lives, since we believe that we are rebels +not against the laws of Nature, but the customs of folly. + +Nevertheless, since even rebels desire to live, and since even they must +sometimes crave for rest and peace—nay, since they must, as it were, make +for themselves strongholds from whence to carry on the strife—we ought +not to be accused of inconsistency, if to-night we consider how to make +the best of it. By what forethought, pains, and patience, can we make +endurable those strange dwellings—the basest, the ugliest, and the most +inconvenient that men have ever built for themselves, and which our own +haste, necessity, and stupidity, compel almost all of us to live in? +That is our present question. + +In dealing with this subject, I shall perforce be chiefly speaking of +those middle-class dwellings of which I know most; but what I have to say +will be as applicable to any other kind; for there is no dignity or unity +of plan about any modern house, big or little. It has neither centre nor +individuality, but is invariably a congeries of rooms tumbled together by +chance hap. So that the unit I have to speak of is a room rather than a +house. + +Now there may be some here who have the good luck to dwell in those noble +buildings which our forefathers built, out of their very souls, one may +say; such good luck I call about the greatest that can befall a man in +these days. But these happy people have little to do with our troubles +of to-night, save as sympathetic onlookers. All we have to do with them +is to remind them not to forget their duties to those places, which they +doubtless love well; not to alter them or torment them to suit any +passing whim or convenience, but to deal with them as if their builders, +to whom they owe so much, could still be wounded by the griefs and +rejoice in the well-doing of their ancient homes. Surely if they do +this, they also will neither be forgotten nor unthanked in the time to +come. + +There may be others here who dwell in houses that can scarcely be called +noble—nay, as compared with the last-named kind, may be almost called +ignoble—but their builders still had some traditions left them of the +times of art. They are built solidly and conscientiously at least, and +if they have little or no beauty, yet have a certain common-sense and +convenience about them; nor do they fail to represent the manners and +feelings of their own time. The earliest of these, built about the reign +of Queen Anne, stretch out a hand toward the Gothic times, and are not +without picturesqueness, especially when their surroundings are +beautiful. The latest built in the latter days of the Georges are +certainly quite guiltless of picturesqueness, but are, as above said, +solid, and not inconvenient. All these houses, both the so-called Queen +Anne ones and the distinctively Georgian, are difficult enough to +decorate, especially for those who have any leaning toward romance, +because they have still some style left in them which one cannot ignore; +at the same time that it is impossible for any one living out of the time +in which they were built to sympathise with a style whose characteristics +are mere whims, not founded on any principle. Still they are at the +worst not aggressively ugly or base, and it is possible to live in them +without serious disturbance to our work or thoughts; so that by the force +of contrast they have become bright spots in the prevailing darkness of +ugliness that has covered all modern life. + +But we must not forget that that rebellion which we have met here, I +hope, to further, has begun, and to-day shows visible tokens of its life; +for of late there have been houses rising up among us here and there +which have certainly not been planned either by the common cut-and-dried +designers for builders, or by academical imitators of bygone styles. +Though they may be called experimental, no one can say that they are not +born of thought and principle, as well as of great capacity for design. +It is nowise our business to-night to criticise them. I suspect their +authors, who have gone through so many difficulties (not of their own +breeding) in producing them, know their shortcomings much better than we +can do, and are less elated by their successes than we are. At any rate, +they are gifts to our country which will always be respected, whether the +times better or worsen, and I call upon you to thank their designers most +heartily for their forethought, labour, and hope. + +Well, I have spoken of three qualifications to that degradation of our +dwellings which characterises this period of history only. + +First, there are the very few houses which have been left us from the +times of art. Except that we may sometimes have the pleasure of seeing +these, we most of us have little enough to do with them. + +Secondly, there are those houses of the times when, though art was sick +and all but dead, men had not quite given it up as a bad job, and at any +rate had not learned systematic bad building; and when, moreover, they +had what they wanted, and their lives were expressed by their +architecture. Of these there are still left a good many all over the +country, but they are lessening fast before the irresistible force of +competition, and will soon be very rare indeed. + +Thirdly, there are a few houses built and mostly inhabited by the +ringleaders of the rebellion against sordid ugliness, which we are met +here to further to-night. It is clear that as yet these are very few,—or +you could never have thought it worth your while to come here to hear the +simple words I have to say to you on this subject. + +Now, these are the exceptions. The rest is what really amounts to the +dwellings of all our people, which are built without any hope of beauty +or care for it—without any thought that there can be any pleasure in the +look of an ordinary dwelling-house, and also (in consequence of this +neglect of manliness) with scarce any heed to real convenience. It will, +I hope, one day be hard to believe that such houses were built for a +people not lacking in honesty, in independence of life, in elevation of +thought, and consideration for others; not a whit of all that do they +express, but rather hypocrisy, flunkeyism, and careless selfishness. The +fact is, they are no longer part of our lives. We have given it up as a +bad job. We are heedless if our houses express nothing of us but the +very worst side of our character both national and personal. + +This unmanly heedlessness, so injurious to civilisation, so unjust to +those that are to follow us, is the very thing we want to shake people +out of. We want to make them think about their homes, to take the +trouble to turn them into dwellings fit for people free in mind and +body—much might come of that I think. + +Now, to my mind, the first step towards this end is, to follow the +fashion of our nation, so often, so _very_ often, called practical, and +leaving for a little an ideal scarce conceivable, to try to get people to +bethink them of what we can best do with those makeshifts which we cannot +get rid of all at once. + +I know that those lesser arts, by which alone this can be done, are +looked upon by many wise and witty people as not worth the notice of a +sensible man; but, since I am addressing a society of artists, I believe +I am speaking to people who have got beyond even that stage of wisdom and +wit, and that you think all the arts of importance. Yet, indeed, I +should think I had but little claim on your attention if I deemed the +question involved nothing save the gain of a little more content and a +little more pleasure for those who already have abundance of content and +pleasure; let me say it, that either I have erred in the aim of my whole +life, or that the welfare of these lesser arts involves the question of +the content and self-respect of all craftsmen, whether you call them +artists or artisans. So I say again, my hope is that those who begin to +consider carefully how to make the best of the chambers in which they eat +and sleep and study, and hold converse with their friends, will breed in +their minds a wholesome and fruitful discontent with the sordidness that +even when they have done their best will surround their island of +comfort, and that as they try to appease this discontent they will find +that there is no way out of it but by insisting that all men’s work shall +be fit for free men and not for machines: my extravagant hope is that +people will some day learn something of art, and so long for more, and +will find, as I have, that there is no getting it save by the general +acknowledgment of the right of every man to have fit work to do in a +beautiful home. Therein lies all that is indestructible of the pleasure +of life; no man need ask for more than that, no man should be granted +less; and if he falls short of it, it is through waste and injustice that +he is kept out of his birthright. + +And now I will try what I can do in my hints on this making the best of +it, first asking your pardon for this, that I shall have to give a great +deal of negative advice, and be always saying ‘don’t’—that, as you know, +being much the lot of those who profess reform. + +Before we go inside our house, nay, before we look at its outside, we may +consider its garden, chiefly with reference to town gardening; which, +indeed, I, in common, I suppose, with most others who have tried it, have +found uphill work enough—all the more as in our part of the world few +indeed have any mercy upon the one thing necessary for decent life in a +town, its trees; till we have come to this, that one trembles at the very +sound of an axe as one sits at one’s work at home. However, uphill work +or not, the town garden must not be neglected if we are to be in earnest +in making the best of it. + +Now I am bound to say town gardeners generally do rather the reverse of +that: our suburban gardeners in London, for instance, oftenest wind about +their little bit of gravel walk and grass plot in ridiculous imitation of +an ugly big garden of the landscape-gardening style, and then with a +strange perversity fill up the spaces with the most formal plants they +can get; whereas the merest common sense should have taught them to lay +out their morsel of ground in the simplest way, to fence it as orderly as +might be, one part from the other (if it be big enough for that) and the +whole from the road, and then to fill up the flower-growing space with +things that are free and interesting in their growth, leaving nature to +do the desired complexity, which she will certainly not fail to do if we +do not desert her for the florist, who, I must say, has made it harder +work than it should be to get the best of flowers. + +It is scarcely a digression to note his way of dealing with flowers, +which, moreover, gives us an apt illustration of that change without +thought of beauty, change for the sake of change, which has played such a +great part in the degradation of art in all times. So I ask you to note +the way he has treated the rose, for instance: the rose has been grown +double from I don’t know when; the double rose was a gain to the world, a +new beauty was given us by it, and nothing taken away, since the wild +rose grows in every hedge. Yet even then one might be excused for +thinking that the wild rose was scarce improved on, for nothing can be +more beautiful in general growth or in detail than a wayside bush of it, +nor can any scent be as sweet and pure as its scent. Nevertheless the +garden rose had a new beauty of abundant form, while its leaves had not +lost the wonderfully delicate texture of the wild one. The full colour +it had gained, from the blush rose to the damask, was pure and true +amidst all its added force, and though its scent had certainly lost some +of the sweetness of the eglantine, it was fresh still, as well as so +abundantly rich. Well, all that lasted till quite our own day, when the +florists fell upon the rose—men who could never have enough—they strove +for size and got it, a fine specimen of a florist’s rose being about as +big as a moderate Savoy cabbage. They tried for strong scent and got +it—till a florist’s rose has not unseldom a suspicion of the scent of the +aforesaid cabbage—not at its best. They tried for strong colour and got +it, strong and bad—like a conqueror. But all this while they missed the +very essence of the rose’s being; they thought there was nothing in it +but redundance and luxury; they exaggerated these into coarseness, while +they threw away the exquisite subtilty of form, delicacy of texture, and +sweetness of colour, which, blent with the richness which the true garden +rose shares with many other flowers, yet makes it the queen of them +all—the flower of flowers. Indeed, the worst of this is that these sham +roses are driving the real ones out of existence. If we do not look to +it our descendants will know nothing of the cabbage rose, the loveliest +in form of all, or the blush rose with its dark green stems and +unequalled colour, or the yellow-centred rose of the East, which carries +the richness of scent to the very furthest point it can go without losing +freshness: they will know nothing of all these, and I fear they will +reproach the poets of past time for having done according to their wont, +and exaggerated grossly the beauties of the rose. + +Well, as a Londoner perhaps I have said too much of roses, since we can +scarcely grow them among suburban smoke, but what I have said of them +applies to other flowers, of which I will say this much more. Be very +shy of double flowers; choose the old columbine where the clustering +doves are unmistakable and distinct, not the double one, where they run +into mere tatters. Choose (if you can get it) the old china-aster with +the yellow centre, that goes so well with the purple-brown stems and +curiously coloured florets, instead of the lumps that look like cut +paper, of which we are now so proud. Don’t be swindled out of that +wonder of beauty, a single snowdrop; there is no gain and plenty of loss +in the double one. More loss still in the double sunflower, which is a +coarse-coloured and dull plant, whereas the single one, though a late +comer to our gardens, is by no means to be despised, since it will grow +anywhere, and is both interesting and beautiful, with its sharply +chiselled yellow florets relieved by the quaintly patterned sad-coloured +centre clogged with honey and beset with bees and butterflies. + +So much for over-artificiality in flowers. A word or two about the +misplacing of them. Don’t have ferns in your garden. The hart’s tongue +in the clefts of the rock, the queer things that grow within reach of the +spray of the waterfall; these are right in their places. Still more the +brake on the woodside, whether in late autumn, when its withered haulm +helps out the well-remembered woodland scent, or in spring, when it is +thrusting its volutes through last year’s waste. But all this is nothing +to a garden, and is not to be got out of it; and if you try it you will +take away from it all possible romance, the romance of a garden. + +The same thing may be said about many plants, which are curiosities only, +which Nature meant to be grotesque, not beautiful, and which are +generally the growth of hot countries, where things sprout over quick and +rank. Take note that the strangest of these come from the jungle and the +tropical waste, from places where man is not at home, but is an intruder, +an enemy. Go to a botanical garden and look at them, and think of those +strange places to your heart’s content. But don’t set them to starve in +your smoke-drenched scrap of ground amongst the bricks, for they will be +no ornament to it. + +As to colour in gardens. Flowers in masses are mighty strong colour, and +if not used with a great deal of caution are very destructive to pleasure +in gardening. On the whole, I think the best and safest plan is to mix +up your flowers, and rather eschew great masses of colour—in combination +I mean. But there are some flowers (inventions of men, _i.e._ florists) +which are bad colour altogether, and not to be used at all. Scarlet +geraniums, for instance, or the yellow calceolaria, which indeed are not +uncommonly grown together profusely, in order, I suppose, to show that +even flowers can be thoroughly ugly. + +Another thing also much too commonly seen is an aberration of the human +mind, which otherwise I should have been ashamed to warn you of. It is +technically called carpet-gardening. Need I explain it further? I had +rather not, for when I think of it even when I am quite alone I blush +with shame at the thought. + +I am afraid it is specially necessary in these days when making the best +of it is a hard job, and when the ordinary iron hurdles are so common and +so destructive of any kind of beauty in a garden, to say when you fence +anything in a garden use a live hedge, or stones set flatwise (as they do +in some parts of the Cotswold country), or timber, or wattle, or, in +short, anything but iron. {128} + +And now to sum up as to a garden. Large or small, it should look both +orderly and rich. It should be well fenced from the outside world. It +should by no means imitate either the wilfulness or the wildness of +Nature, but should look like a thing never to be seen except near a +house. It should, in fact, look like a part of the house. It follows +from this that no private pleasure-garden should be very big, and a +public garden should be divided and made to look like so many +flower-closes in a meadow, or a wood, or amidst the pavement. + +It will be a key to right thinking about gardens if you consider in what +kind of places a garden is most desired. In a very beautiful country, +especially if it be mountainous, we can do without it well enough; +whereas in a flat and dull country we crave after it, and there it is +often the very making of the homestead. While in great towns, gardens, +both private and public, are positive necessities if the citizens are to +live reasonable and healthy lives in body and mind. + +So much for the garden, of which, since I have said that it ought to be +part of the house, I hope I have not spoken too much. + +Now, as to the outside of our makeshift house, I fear it is too ugly to +keep us long. Let what painting you have to do about it be as simple as +possible, and be chiefly white or whitish; for when a building is ugly in +form it will bear no decoration, and to mark its parts by varying colour +will be the way to bring out its ugliness. So I don’t advise you to +paint your houses blood-red and chocolate with white facings, as seems to +be getting the fashion in some parts of London. You should, however, +always paint your sash-bars and window-frames white to break up the +dreary space of window somewhat. The only other thing I have to say, is +to warn you against using at all a hot brownish-red, which some +decorators are very fond of. Till some one invents a better name for it, +let us call it cockroach colour, and have naught to do with it. + +So we have got to the inside of our house, and are in the room we are to +live in, call it by what name you will. As to its proportions, it will +be great luck indeed in an ordinary modern house if they are tolerable; +but let us hope for the best. If it is to be well proportioned, one of +its parts, either its height, length, or breadth, ought to exceed the +others, or be marked somehow. If it be square or so nearly as to seem +so, it should not be high; if it be long and narrow, it might be high +without any harm, but yet would be more interesting low; whereas if it be +an obvious but moderate oblong on plan, great height will be decidedly +good. + +As to the parts of a room that we have to think of, they are wall, +ceiling, floor, windows and doors, fireplace, and movables. Of these the +wall is of so much the most importance to a decorator, and will lead us +so far a-field that I will mostly clear off the other parts first, as to +the mere arrangement of them, asking you meanwhile to understand that the +greater part of what I shall be saying as to the design of the patterns +for the wall, I consider more or less applicable to patterns everywhere. + +As to the windows then; I fear we must grumble again. In most decent +houses, or what are so called, the windows are much too big, and let in a +flood of light in a haphazard and ill-considered way, which the +indwellers are forced to obscure again by shutters, blinds, curtains, +screens, heavy upholsteries, and such other nuisances. The windows, +also, are almost always brought too low down, and often so low down as to +have their sills on a level with our ankles, sending thereby a raking +light across the room that destroys all pleasantness of tone. The +windows, moreover, are either big rectangular holes in the wall, or, +which is worse, have ill-proportioned round or segmental heads, while the +common custom in ‘good’ houses is either to fill these openings with one +huge sheet of plate-glass, or to divide them across the middle with a +thin bar. If we insist on glazing them thus, we may make up our minds +that we have done the worst we can for our windows, nor can a room look +tolerable where it is so treated. You may see how people feel this by +their admiration of the tracery of a Gothic window, or the lattice-work +of a Cairo house. Our makeshift substitute for those beauties must be +the filling of the window with moderate-sized panes of glass (plate-glass +if you will) set in solid sash-bars; we shall then at all events feel as +if we were indoors on a cold day—as if we had a roof over our heads. + +As to the floor: a little time ago it was the universal custom for those +who could afford it to cover it all up into its dustiest and crookedest +corners with a carpet, good, bad, or indifferent. Now I daresay you have +heard from others, whose subject is the health of houses rather than +their art (if indeed the two subjects can be considered apart, as they +cannot really be), you have heard from teachers like Dr. Richardson what +a nasty and unwholesome custom this is, so I will only say that it looks +nasty and unwholesome. Happily, however, it is now a custom so much +broken into that we may consider it doomed; for in all houses that +pretend to any taste of arrangement, the carpet is now a rug, large it +may be, but at any rate not looking immovable, and not being a trap for +dust in the corners. Still I would go further than this even and get +rich people no longer to look upon a carpet as a necessity for a room at +all, at least in the summer. This would have two advantages: 1st, It +would compel us to have better floors (and less drafty), our present ones +being one of the chief disgraces to modern building; and 2ndly, since we +should have less carpet to provide, what we did have we could afford to +have better. We could have a few real works of art at the same price for +which we now have hundreds of yards of makeshift machine-woven goods. In +any case it is a great comfort to see the actual floor; and the said +floor may be, as you know, made very ornamental by either wood mosaic, or +tile and marble mosaic; the latter especially is such an easy art as far +as mere technicality goes, and so full of resources, that I think it is a +great pity it is not used more. The contrast between its grey tones and +the rich positive colour of Eastern carpet-work is so beautiful, that the +two together make satisfactory decoration for a room with little +addition. + +When wood mosaic or parquet-work is used, owing to the necessary +simplicity of the forms, I think it best not to vary the colour of the +wood. The variation caused by the diverse lie of the grain and so forth, +is enough. Most decorators will be willing, I believe, to accept it as +an axiom, that when a pattern is made of very simple geometrical forms, +strong contrast of colour is to be avoided. + +So much for the floor. As for its fellow, the ceiling, that is, I must +confess, a sore point with me in my attempts at making the best of it. +The simplest and most natural way of decorating a ceiling is to show the +underside of the joists and beams duly moulded, and if you will, painted +in patterns. How far this is from being possible in our modern makeshift +houses, I suppose I need not say. Then there is a natural and beautiful +way of ornamenting a ceiling by working the plaster into delicate +patterns, such as you see in our Elizabethan and Jacobean houses; which +often enough, richly designed and skilfully wrought as they are, are by +no means pedantically smooth in finish—nay, may sometimes be called rough +as to workmanship. But, unhappily there are few of the lesser arts that +have fallen so low as the plasterer’s. The cast work one sees +perpetually in pretentious rooms is a mere ghastly caricature of +ornament, which no one is expected to look at if he can help it. It is +simply meant to say, ‘This house is built for a rich man.’ The very +material of it is all wrong, as, indeed, mostly happens with an art that +has fallen sick. That richly designed, freely wrought plastering of our +old houses was done with a slowly drying tough plaster, that encouraged +the hand like modeller’s clay, and could not have been done at all with +the brittle plaster used in ceilings nowadays, whose excellence is +supposed to consist in its smoothness only. To be good, according to our +present false standard, it must shine like a sheet of hot-pressed paper, +so that, for the present, and without the expenditure of abundant time +and trouble, this kind of ceiling decoration is not to be hoped for. + +It may be suggested that we should paper our ceilings like our walls, but +I can’t think that it will do. Theoretically, a paper-hanging is so much +distemper colour applied to a surface by being printed on paper instead +of being painted on plaster by the hand; but practically, we never forget +that it is paper, and a room papered all over would be like a box to live +in. Besides, the covering a room all over with cheap recurring patterns +in an uninteresting material, is but a poor way out of our difficulty, +and one which we should soon tire of. + +There remains, then, nothing but to paint our ceilings cautiously and +with as much refinement as we can, when we can afford it: though even +that simple matter is complicated by the hideousness of the aforesaid +plaster ornaments and cornices, which are so very bad that you must +ignore them by leaving them unpainted, though even this neglect, while +you paint the flat of the ceiling, makes them in a way part of the +decoration, and so is apt to beat you out of every scheme of colour +conceivable. Still, I see nothing for it but cautious painting, or +leaving the blank white space alone, to be forgotten if possible. This +painting, of course, assumes that you know better than to use gas in your +rooms, which will indeed soon reduce all your decorations to a pretty +general average. + +So now we come to the walls of our room, the part which chiefly concerns +us, since no one will admit the possibility of leaving them quite alone. +And the first question is, how shall we space them out horizontally? + +If the room be small and not high, or the wall be much broken by pictures +and tall pieces of furniture, I would not divide it horizontally. One +pattern of paper, or whatever it may be, or one tint may serve us, unless +we have in hand an elaborate and architectural scheme of decoration, as +in a makeshift house is not like to be the case; but if it be a +good-sized room, and the wall be not much broken up, some horizontal +division is good, even if the room be not very high. + +How are we to divide it then? I need scarcely say not into two equal +parts; no one out of the island of Laputa could do that. For the rest, +unless again we have a very elaborate scheme of decoration, I think +dividing it once, making it into two spaces is enough. Now there are +practically two ways of doing that: you may either have a narrow frieze +below the cornice, and hang the wall thence to the floor, or you may have +a moderate dado, say 4 feet 6 inches high, and hang the wall from the +cornice to the top of the dado. Either way is good according to +circumstances; the first with the tall hanging and the narrow frieze is +fittest if your wall is to be covered with stuffs, tapestry, or +panelling, in which case making the frieze a piece of delicate painting +is desirable in default of such plaster-work as I have spoken of above; +or even if the proportions of the room very much cry out for it, you may, +in default of hand-painting, use a strip of printed paper, though this, I +must say, is a makeshift of makeshifts. The division into dado, and wall +hung from thence to the cornice, is fittest for a wall which is to be +covered with painted decoration, or its makeshift, paper-hangings. As to +these, I would earnestly dissuade you from using more than one pattern in +one room, unless one of them be but a breaking of the surface with a +pattern so insignificant as scarce to be noticeable. I have seen a good +deal of the practice of putting pattern over pattern in paper-hangings, +and it seems to me a very unsatisfactory one, and I am, in short, +convinced, as I hinted just now, that cheap recurring patterns in a +material which has no play of light in it, and no special beauty of its +own, should be employed rather sparingly, or they destroy all refinement +of decoration and blunt our enjoyment of whatever beauty may lie in the +designs of such things. + +Before I leave this subject of the spacing out of the wall for +decoration, I should say that in dealing with a very high room it is best +to put nothing that attracts the eye above a level of about eight feet +from the floor—to let everything above that be mere air and space, as it +were. I think you will find that this will tend to take off that look of +dreariness that often besets tall rooms. + +So much then for the spacing out of our wall. We have now to consider +what the covering of it is to be, which subject, before we have done with +it, will take us over a great deal of ground and lead us into the +consideration of designing for flat spaces in general with work other +than picture work. + +To clear the way, I have a word or two to say about the treatment of the +wood-work in our room. If I could I would have no wood-work in it that +needed flat painting, meaning by that word a mere paying it over with +four coats of tinted lead-pigment ground in oils or varnish, but unless +one can have a noble wood, such as oak, I don’t see what else is to be +done. I have never seen deal stained transparently with success, and its +natural colour is poor, and will not enter into any scheme of decoration, +while polishing it makes it worse. In short, it is such a poor material +that it must be hidden unless it be used on a big scale as mere timber. +Even then, in a church roof or what not, colouring it with distemper will +not hurt it, and in a room I should certainly do this to the wood-work of +roof and ceiling, while I painted such wood-work as came within touch of +hand. As to the colour of this, it should, as a rule, be of the same +general tone as the walls, but a shade or two darker in tint. Very dark +wood-work makes a room dreary and disagreeable, while unless the +decoration be in a very bright key of colour, it does not do to have the +wood-work lighter than the walls. For the rest, if you are lucky enough +to be able to use oak, and plenty of it, found your decoration on that, +leaving it just as it comes from the plane. + +Now, as you are not bound to use anything for the decoration of your +walls but simple tints, I will here say a few words on the main colours, +before I go on to what is more properly decoration, only in speaking of +them one can scarce think only of such tints as are fit to colour a wall +with, of which, to say truth, there are not many. + +Though we may each have our special preferences among the main colours, +which we shall do quite right to indulge, it is a sign of disease in an +artist to have a prejudice against any particular colour, though such +prejudices are common and violent enough among people imperfectly +educated in art, or with naturally dull perceptions of it. Still, +colours have their ways in decoration, so to say, both positively in +themselves, and relatively to each man’s way of using them. So I may be +excused for setting down some things I seem to have noticed about these +ways. + +Yellow is not a colour that can be used in masses unless it be much +broken or mingled with other colours, and even then it wants some +material to help it out, which has great play of light and shade in it. +You know people are always calling yellow things golden, even when they +are not at all the colour of gold, which, even unalloyed, is not a bright +yellow. That shows that delightful yellows are not very positive, and +that, as aforesaid, they need gleaming materials to help them. The light +bright yellows, like jonquil and primrose, are scarcely usable in art, +save in silk, whose gleam takes colour from and adds light to the local +tint, just as sunlight does to the yellow blossoms which are so common in +Nature. In dead materials, such as distemper colour, a positive yellow +can only be used sparingly in combination with other tints. + +Red is also a difficult colour to use, unless it be helped by some beauty +of material, for, whether it tend toward yellow and be called scarlet, or +towards blue and be crimson, there is but little pleasure in it, unless +it be deep and full. If the scarlet pass a certain degree of impurity it +falls into the hot brown-red, very disagreeable in large masses. If the +crimson be much reduced it tends towards a cold colour called in these +latter days magenta, impossible for an artist to use either by itself or +in combination. The finest tint of red is a central one between crimson +and scarlet, and is a very powerful colour indeed, but scarce to be got +in a flat tint. A crimson broken by greyish-brown, and tending towards +russet, is also a very useful colour, but, like all the finest reds, is +rather a dyer’s colour than a house-painter’s; the world being very rich +in soluble reds, which of course are not the most enduring of pigments, +though very fast as soluble colours. + +Pink, though one of the most beautiful colours in combination, is not +easy to use as a flat tint even over moderate spaces; the more orangy +shades of it are the most useful, a cold pink being a colour much to be +avoided. + +As to purple, no one in his senses would think of using it bright in +masses. In combination it may be used somewhat bright, if it be warm and +tend towards red; but the best and most characteristic shade of purple is +nowise bright, but tends towards russet. Egyptian porphyry, especially +when contrasted with orange, as in the pavement of St. Mark’s at Venice, +will represent the colour for you. At the British Museum, and one or two +other famous libraries, are still left specimens of this tint, as +Byzantine art in its palmy days understood it. These are books written +with gold and silver on vellum stained purple, probably with the now lost +murex or fish-dye of the ancients, the tint of which dye-stuff Pliny +describes minutely and accurately in his ‘Natural History.’ I need +scarcely say that no ordinary flat tint could reproduce this most +splendid of colours. + +Though green (at all events in England) is the colour widest used by +Nature, yet there is not so much bright green used by her as many people +seem to think; the most of it being used for a week or two in spring, +when the leafage is small, and blended with the greys and other negative +colours of the twigs; when ‘leaves grow large and long,’ as the ballad +has it, they also grow grey. I believe it has been noted by Mr. Ruskin, +and it certainly seems true, that the pleasure we take in the young +spring foliage comes largely from its tenderness of tone rather than its +brightness of hue. Anyhow, you may be sure that if we try to outdo +Nature’s green tints on our walls we shall fail, and make ourselves +uncomfortable to boot. We must, in short, be very careful of bright +greens, and seldom, if ever, use them at once bright and strong. + +On the other hand, do not fall into the trap of a dingy bilious-looking +yellow-green, a colour to which I have a special and personal hatred, +because (if you will excuse my mentioning personal matters) I have been +supposed to have somewhat brought it into vogue. I assure you I am not +really responsible for it. + +The truth is, that to get a green that is at once pure and neither cold +nor rank, and not too bright to live with, is of simple things as +difficult as anything a decorator has to do; but it can be done,—and +without the help of special material; and when done such a green is so +useful, and so restful to the eyes, that in this matter also we are bound +to follow Nature and make large use of that work-a-day colour green. + +But if green be called a work-a-day colour, surely blue must be called +the holiday one, and those who long most for bright colours may please +themselves most with it; for if you duly guard against getting it cold if +it tend towards red, or rank if it tend towards green, you need not be +much afraid of its brightness. Now, as red is above all a dyer’s colour, +so blue is especially a pigment and an enamel colour; the world is rich +in insoluble blues, many of which are practically indestructible. + +I have said that there are not many tints fit to colour a wall with: this +is my list of them as far as I know; a solid red, not very deep, but +rather describable as a full pink, and toned both with yellow and blue, a +very fine colour if you can hit it; a light orangy pink, to be used +rather sparingly. A pale golden tint, _i.e._, a yellowish-brown; a very +difficult colour to hit. A colour between these two last; call it pale +copper colour. All these three you must be careful over, for if you get +them muddy or dirty you are lost. + +Tints of green from pure and pale to deepish and grey: always remembering +that the purer the paler, and the deeper the greyer. + +Tints of pure pale blue from a greenish one, the colour of a starling’s +egg, to a grey ultramarine colour, hard to use because so full of colour, +but incomparable when right. In these you must carefully avoid the point +at which the green overcomes the blue and turns it rank, or that at which +the red overcomes the blue and produces those woeful hues of pale +lavender and starch blue which have not seldom been favourites with +decorators of elegant drawing-rooms and respectable dining-rooms. + +You will understand that I am here speaking of distemper tinting, and in +that material these are all the tints I can think of; if you use bolder, +deeper or stronger colours I think you will find yourself beaten out of +monochrome in order to get your colour harmonious. + +One last word as to distemper which is not monochrome, and its makeshift, +paper-hanging. I think it is always best not to force the colour, but to +be content with getting it either quite light or quite grey in these +materials, and in no case very dark, trusting for richness to stuffs, or +to painting which allows of gilding being introduced. + +I must finish these crude notes about general colour by reminding you +that you must be moderate with your colour on the walls of an ordinary +dwelling-room; according to the material you are using, you may go along +the scale from light and bright to deep and rich, but some soberness of +tone is absolutely necessary if you would not weary people till they cry +out against all decoration. But I suppose this is a caution which only +very young decorators are likely to need. It is the right-hand +defection; the left-hand falling away is to get your colour dingy and +muddy, a worse fault than the other because less likely to be curable. +All right-minded craftsmen who work in colour will strive to make their +work as bright as possible, as full of colour as the nature of the work +will allow it to be. The meaning they may be bound to express, the +nature of its material, or the use it may be put to may limit this +fulness; but in whatever key of colour they are working, if they do not +succeed in getting the colour pure and clear, they have not learned their +craft, and if they do not see their fault when it is present in their +work, they are not likely to learn it. + +Now, hitherto we have not got further into the matter of decoration than +to talk of its arrangement. Before I speak of some general matters +connected with our subject, I must say a little on the design of the +patterns which will form the chief part of your decoration. The subject +is a wide and difficult one, and my time much too short to do it any +justice, but here and there, perhaps, a hint may crop up, and I may put +it in a way somewhat new. + +On the whole, in speaking of these patterns I shall be thinking of those +that necessarily recur; designs which have to be carried out by more or +less mechanical appliances, such as the printing block or the loom. + +Since we have been considering colour lately, we had better take that +side first, though I know it will be difficult to separate the +consideration of it from that of the other necessary qualifications of +design. + +The first step away from monochrome is breaking the ground by putting a +pattern on it of the same colour, but of a lighter or darker shade, the +first being the best and most natural way. I need say but little on this +as a matter of colour, though many very important designs are so treated. +One thing I have noticed about these damasks, as I should call them; that +of the three chief colours, red is the one where the two shades must be +the nearest to one another, or you get the effect poor and weak; while in +blue you may have a great deal of difference without losing colour, and +green holds a middle place between the two. + +Next, if you make these two shades different in tint as well as, or +instead of, in depth, you have fairly got out of monochrome, and will +find plenty of difficulties in getting your two tints to go well +together. The putting, for instance, of a light greenish blue on a deep +reddish one, turquoise on sapphire, will try all your skill. The +Persians practise this feat, but not often without adding a third colour, +and so getting into the next stage. In fact, this plan of relieving the +pattern by shifting its tint as well as its depth, is chiefly of use in +dealing with quite low-toned colours—golden browns or greys, for +instance. In dealing with the more forcible ones, you will find it in +general necessary to add a third colour at least, and so get into the +next stage. + +This is the relieving a pattern of more than one colour, but all the +colours light, upon a dark ground. This is above all useful in cases +where your palette is somewhat limited; say, for instance, in a figured +cloth which has to be woven mechanically, and where you have but three or +four colours in a line, including the ground. + +You will not find this a difficult way of relieving your pattern, if you +only are not too ambitious of getting the diverse superimposed colours +too forcible on the one hand, so that they fly out from one another, or +on the other hand too delicate, so that they run together into confusion. +The excellence of this sort of work lies in a clear but soft relief of +the form, in colours each beautiful in itself, and harmonious one with +the other on ground whose colour is also beautiful, though unobtrusive. +Hardness ruins the work, confusion of form caused by timidity of colour +annoys the eye, and makes it restless, and lack of colour is felt as +destroying the _raison d’être_ of it. So you see it taxes the designer +heavily enough after all. Nevertheless I still call it the easiest way +of complete pattern-designing. + +I have spoken of it as the placing of a light pattern on dark ground. I +should mention that in the fully developed form of the design I am +thinking of there is often an impression given, of there being more than +one plane in the pattern. Where the pattern is strictly on one plane, we +have not reached the full development of this manner of designing, the +full development of colour and form used together, but form predominant. + +We are not left without examples of this kind of design at its best. The +looms of Corinth, Palermo, and Lucca, in the twelfth, thirteenth, and +fourteenth centuries, turned out figured silk cloths, which were so +widely sought for, that you may see specimens of their work figured on +fifteenth-century screens in East Anglian churches, or the background of +pictures by the Van Eycks, while one of the most important collections of +the actual goods is preserved in the treasury of the Mary Church at +Dantzig; the South Kensington Museum has also a very fine collection of +these, which I can’t help thinking are not quite as visible to the public +as they should be. They are, however, discoverable by the help of Dr. +Rock’s excellent catalogue published by the department, and I hope will, +as the Museum gains space, be more easy to see. + +Now to sum up: This method of pattern-designing must be considered the +Western and civilised method; that used by craftsmen who were always +seeing pictures, and whose minds were full of definite ideas of form. +Colour was essential to their work, and they loved it, and understood it, +but always subordinated it to form. + +There is next the method of relief by placing a dark figure on a light +ground. Sometimes this method is but the converse of the last, and is +not so useful, because it is capable of less variety and play of colour +and tone. Sometimes it must be looked on as a transition from the +last-mentioned method to the next of colour laid by colour. Thus used +there is something incomplete about it. One finds oneself longing for +more colours than one’s shuttles or blocks allow one. There is a need +felt for the speciality of the next method, where the dividing line is +used, and it gradually gets drawn into that method. Which, indeed, is +the last I have to speak to you of, and in which colour is laid by +colour. + +In this method it is necessary that the diverse colours should be +separated each by a line of another colour, and that not merely to mark +the form, but to complete the colour itself; which outlining, while it +serves the purpose of gradation, which in more naturalistic work is got +by shading, makes the design quite flat, and takes from it any idea of +there being more than one plane in it. + +This way of treating pattern design is so much more difficult than the +others, as to be almost an art by itself, and to demand a study apart. +As the method of relief by laying light upon dark may be called the +Western way of treatment and the civilised, so this is the Eastern, and, +to a certain extent, the uncivilised. + +But it has a wide range, from works where the form is of little +importance and only exists to make boundaries for colour, to those in +which the form is so studied, so elaborate, and so lovely, that it is +hardly true to say that the form is subordinate to the colour; while, on +the other hand, so much delight is taken in the colour, it is so +inventive and so unerringly harmonious, that it is scarcely possible to +think of the form without it—the two interpenetrate. + +Such things as these, which, as far as I know, are only found in Persian +art at its best, do carry the art of mere pattern-designing to its utmost +perfection, and it seems somewhat hard to call such an art uncivilised. +But, you see, its whole soul was given up to producing matters of +subsidiary art, as people call it; its carpets were of more importance +than its pictures; nay, properly speaking, they were its pictures. And +it may be that such an art never has a future of change before it, save +the change of death, which has now certainly come over that Eastern art; +while the more impatient, more aspiring, less sensuous art which belongs +to Western civilisation may bear many a change and not die utterly; nay, +may feed on its intellect alone for a season, and enduring the martyrdom +of a grim time of ugliness, may live on, rebuking at once the +narrow-minded pedant of science, and the luxurious tyrant of plutocracy, +till change bring back the spring again, and it blossoms once more into +pleasure. May it be so. + +Meanwhile, we may say for certain that colour for colour’s sake only will +never take real hold on the art of our civilisation, not even in its +subsidiary art. Imitation and affectation may deceive people into +thinking that such an instinct is quickening amongst us, but the +deception will not last. To have a meaning and to make others feel and +understand it, must ever be the aim and end of our Western art. + +Before I leave this subject of the colouring of patterns, I must warn you +against the abuse of the dotting, hatching, and lining of backgrounds, +and other mechanical contrivances for breaking them; such practices are +too often the resource to which want of invention is driven, and unless +used with great caution they vulgarise a pattern completely. Compare, +for instance, those Sicilian and other silk cloths I have mentioned with +the brocades (common everywhere) turned out from the looms of Lyons, +Venice, and Genoa, at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the +eighteenth centuries. The first perfectly simple in manufacture, +trusting wholly to beauty of design, and the play of light on the +naturally woven surface, while the latter eke out their gaudy feebleness +with spots and ribs and long floats, and all kinds of meaningless +tormenting of the web, till there is nothing to be learned from them save +a warning. + +So much for the colour of pattern-designing. Now, for a space, let us +consider some other things that are necessary to it, and which I am +driven to call its moral qualities, and which are finally reducible to +two—order and meaning. + +Without order your work cannot even exist; without meaning, it were +better not to exist. + +Now order imposes on us certain limitations, which partly spring from the +nature of the art itself, and partly from the materials in which we have +to work; and it is a sign of mere incompetence in either a school or an +individual to refuse to accept such limitations, or even not to accept +them joyfully and turn them to special account, much as if a poet should +complain of having to write in measure and rhyme. + +Now, in our craft the chief of the limitations that spring from the +essence of the art is that the decorator’s art cannot be imitative even +to the limited extent that the picture-painter’s art is. + +This you have been told hundreds of times, and in theory it is accepted +everywhere, so I need not say much about it—chiefly this, that it does +not excuse want of observation of nature, or laziness of drawing, as some +people seem to think. On the contrary, unless you know plenty about the +natural form that you are conventionalising, you will not only find it +impossible to give people a satisfactory impression of what is in your +own mind about it, but you will also be so hampered by your ignorance, +that you will not be able to make your conventionalised form ornamental. +It will not fill a space properly, or look crisp and sharp, or fulfil any +purpose you may strive to put it to. + +It follows from this that your convention must be your own, and not +borrowed from other times and peoples; or, at the least, that you must +make it your own by thoroughly understanding both the nature and the art +you are dealing with. If you do not heed this, I do not know but what +you may not as well turn to and draw laborious portraits of natural forms +of flower and bird and beast, and stick them on your walls anyhow. It is +true you will not get ornament so, but you may learn something for your +trouble; whereas, using an obviously true principle as a stalking-horse +for laziness of purpose and lack of invention, will but injure art all +round, and blind people to the truth of that very principle. + +Limitations also, both as to imitation and exuberance, are imposed on us +by the office our pattern has to fulfil. A small and often-recurring +pattern of a subordinate kind will bear much less naturalism than one in +a freer space and more important position, and the more obvious the +geometrical structure of a pattern is, the less its parts should tend +toward naturalism. This has been well understood from the earliest days +of art to the very latest times during which pattern-designing has clung +to any wholesome tradition, but is pretty generally unheeded at present. + +As to the limitations that arise from the material we may be working in, +we must remember that all material offers certain difficulties to be +overcome, and certain facilities to be made the most of. Up to a certain +point you must be the master of your material, but you must never be so +much the master as to turn it surly, so to say. You must not make it +your slave, or presently you will be a slave also. You must master it so +far as to make it express a meaning, and to serve your aim at beauty. +You may go beyond that necessary point for your own pleasure and +amusement, and still be in the right way; but if you go on after that +merely to make people stare at your dexterity in dealing with a difficult +thing, you have forgotten art along with the rights of your material, and +you will make not a work of art, but a mere toy; you are no longer an +artist, but a juggler. The history of the arts gives us abundant +examples and warnings in this matter. First clear steady principle, then +playing with the danger, and lastly falling into the snare, mark with the +utmost distinctness the times of the health, the decline, and the last +sickness of art. + +Allow me to give you one example in the noble art of mosaic. The +difficulty in it necessary to be overcome was the making of a pure and +true flexible line, not over thick, with little bits of glass or marble +nearly rectangular. Its glory lay in its durability, the lovely colour +to be got in it, the play of light on its faceted and gleaming surface, +and the clearness mingled with softness, with which forms were relieved +on the lustrous gold which was so freely used in its best days. +Moreover, however bright were the colours used, they were toned +delightfully by the greyness which the innumerable joints between the +tesseræ spread over the whole surface. + +Now the difficulty of the art was overcome in its earliest and best days, +and no care or pains were spared in making the most of its special +qualities, while for long and long no force was put upon the material to +make it imitate the qualities of brush-painting, either in power of +colour, in delicacy of gradation, or intricacy of treating a subject; +and, moreover, easy as it would have been to minimise the jointing of the +tesseræ, no attempt was made at it. + +But as time went on, men began to tire of the solemn simplicity of the +art, and began to aim at making it keep pace with the growing complexity +of picture painting, and, though still beautiful, it lost colour without +gaining form. From that point (say about 1460), it went on from bad to +worse, till at last men were set to work in it merely because it was an +intractable material in which to imitate oil-painting, and by this time +it was fallen from being a master art, the crowning beauty of the most +solemn buildings, to being a mere tax on the craftsmen’s patience, and a +toy for people who no longer cared for art. And just such a history may +be told of every art that deals with special material. + +Under this head of order should be included something about the structure +of patterns, but time for dealing with such an intricate question +obviously fails me; so I will but note that, whereas it has been said +that a recurring pattern should be constructed on a geometrical basis, it +is clear that it cannot be constructed otherwise; only the structure may +be more or less masked, and some designers take a great deal of pains to +do so. + +I cannot say that I think this always necessary. It may be so when the +pattern is on a very small scale, and meant to attract but little +attention. But it is sometimes the reverse of desirable in large and +important patterns, and, to my mind, all noble patterns should at least +_look_ large. Some of the finest and pleasantest of these show their +geometrical structure clearly enough; and if the lines of them grow +strongly and flow gracefully, I think they are decidedly helped by their +structure not being elaborately concealed. + +At the same time in all patterns which are meant to fill the eye and +satisfy the mind, there should be a certain mystery. We should not be +able to read the whole thing at once, nor desire to do so, nor be +impelled by that desire to go on tracing line after line to find out how +the pattern is made, and I think that the obvious presence of a +geometrical order, if it be, as it should be, beautiful, tends towards +this end, and prevents our feeling restless over a pattern. + +That every line in a pattern should have its due growth, and be traceable +to its beginning, this, which you have doubtless heard before, is +undoubtedly essential to the finest pattern work; equally so is it that +no stem should be so far from its parent stock as to look weak or +wavering. Mutual support and unceasing progress distinguish real and +natural order from its mockery, pedantic tyranny. + +Every one who has practised the designing of patterns knows the necessity +for covering the ground equably and richly. This is really to a great +extent the secret of obtaining the look of satisfying mystery aforesaid, +and it is the very test of capacity in a designer. + +Finally, no amount of delicacy is too great in drawing the curves of a +pattern, no amount of care in getting the leading lines right from the +first, can be thrown away, for beauty of detail cannot afterwards cure +any shortcoming in this. Remember that a pattern is either right or +wrong. It cannot be forgiven for blundering, as a picture may be which +has otherwise great qualities in it. It is with a pattern as with a +fortress, it is no stronger than its weakest point. A failure for ever +recurring torments the eye too much to allow the mind to take any +pleasure in suggestion and intention. + +As to the second moral quality of design, meaning, I include in that the +invention and imagination which forms the soul of this art, as of all +others, and which, when submitted to the bonds of order, has a body and a +visible existence. + +Now you may well think that there is less to be said of this than the +other quality; for form may be taught, but the spirit that breathes +through it cannot be. So I will content myself with saying this on these +qualities, that though a designer may put all manner of strangeness and +surprise into his patterns, he must not do so at the expense of beauty. +You will never find a case in this kind of work where ugliness and +violence are not the result of barrenness, and not of fertility of +invention. The fertile man, he of resource, has not to worry himself +about invention. He need but think of beauty and simplicity of +expression; his work will grow on and on, one thing leading to another, +as it fares with a beautiful tree. Whereas the laborious +paste-and-scissors man goes hunting up and down for oddities, sticks one +in here and another there, and tries to connect them with commonplace; +and when it is all done, the oddities are not more inventive than the +commonplace, nor the commonplace more graceful than the oddities. + +No pattern should be without some sort of meaning. True it is that that +meaning may have come down to us traditionally, and not be our own +invention, yet we must at heart understand it, or we can neither receive +it, nor hand it down to our successors. It is no longer tradition if it +is servilely copied, without change, the token of life. You may be sure +that the softest and loveliest of patterns will weary the steadiest +admirers of their school as soon as they see that there is no hope of +growth in them. For you know all art is compact of effort, of failure +and of hope, and we cannot but think that somewhere perfection lies +ahead, as we look anxiously for the better thing that is to come from the +good. + +Furthermore, you must not only mean something in your patterns, but must +also be able to make others understand that meaning. They say that the +difference between a genius and a madman is that the genius can get one +or two people to believe in him, whereas the madman, poor fellow, has +himself only for his audience. Now the only way in our craft of design +for compelling people to understand you is to follow hard on Nature; for +what else can you refer people to, or what else is there which everybody +can understand?—everybody that it is worth addressing yourself to, which +includes all people who can feel and think. + +Now let us end the talk about those qualities of invention and +imagination with a word of memory and of thanks to the designers of time +past. Surely he who runs may read them abundantly set forth in those +lesser arts they practised. Surely it had been pity indeed, if so much +of this had been lost as would have been if it had been crushed out by +the pride of intellect, that will not stoop to look at beauty, unless its +own kings and great men have had a hand in it. Belike the thoughts of +the men who wrought this kind of art could not have been expressed in +grander ways or more definitely, or, at least, would not have been; +therefore I believe I am not thinking only of my own pleasure, but of the +pleasure of many people, when I praise the usefulness of the lives of +these men, whose names are long forgotten, but whose works we still +wonder at. In their own way they meant to tell us how the flowers grew +in the gardens of Damascus, or how the hunt was up on the plains of +Kirman, or how the tulips shone among the grass in the Mid-Persian +valley, and how their souls delighted in it all, and what joy they had in +life; nor did they fail to make their meaning clear to some of us. + +But, indeed, they and other matters have led us afar from our makeshift +house, and the room we have to decorate therein. And there is still left +the fireplace to consider. + +Now I think there is nothing about a house in which a contrast is greater +between old and new than this piece of architecture. The old, either +delightful in its comfortable simplicity, or decorated with the noblest +and most meaning art in the place; the modern, mean, miserable, +uncomfortable, and showy, plastered about with wretched sham ornament, +trumpery of cast-iron, and brass and polished steel, and what +not—offensive to look at, and a nuisance to clean—and the whole thing +huddled up with rubbish of ash-pan, and fender, and rug, till surely the +hearths which we have been bidden so often to defend (whether there was a +chance of their being attacked or not) have now become a mere figure of +speech the meaning of which in a short time it will be impossible for +learned philologists to find out. + +I do most seriously advise you to get rid of all this, or as much of it +as you can without absolute ruin to your prospects in life; and even if +you do not know how to decorate it, at least have a hole in the wall of a +convenient shape, faced with such bricks or tiles as will at once bear +fire and clean; then some sort of iron basket in it, and out from that a +real hearth of cleanable brick or tile, which will not make you blush +when you look at it, and as little in the way of guard and fender as you +think will be safe; that will do to begin with. For the rest, if you +have wooden work about the fireplace, which is often good to have, don’t +mix up the wood and the tiles together; let the wood-work look like part +of the wall-covering, and the tiles like part of the chimney. + +As for movable furniture, even if time did not fail us, ’tis a large +subject—or a very small one—so I will but say, don’t have too much of it; +have none for mere finery’s sake, or to satisfy the claims of +custom—these are flat truisms, are they not? But really it seems as if +some people had never thought of them, for ’tis almost the universal +custom to stuff up some rooms so that you can scarcely move in them, and +to leave others deadly bare; whereas all rooms ought to look as if they +were lived in, and to have, so to say, a friendly welcome ready for the +incomer. + +A dining-room ought not to look as if one went into it as one goes into a +dentist’s parlour—for an operation, and came out of it when the operation +was over—the tooth out, or the dinner in. A drawing-room ought to look +as if some kind of work could be done in it less toilsome than being +bored. A library certainly ought to have books in it, not boots only, as +in Thackeray’s country snob’s house, but so ought each and every room in +the house more or less; also, though all rooms should look tidy, and even +very tidy, they ought not to look too tidy. + +Furthermore, no room of the richest man should look grand enough to make +a simple man shrink in it, or luxurious enough to make a thoughtful man +feel ashamed in it; it will not do so if Art be at home there, for she +has no foes so deadly as insolence and waste. Indeed, I fear that at +present the decoration of rich men’s houses is mostly wrought out at the +bidding of grandeur and luxury, and that art has been mostly cowed or +shamed out of them; nor when I come to think of it will I lament it +overmuch. Art was not born in the palace; rather she fell sick there, +and it will take more bracing air than that of rich men’s houses to heal +her again. If she is ever to be strong enough to help mankind once more, +she must gather strength in simple places; the refuge from wind and +weather to which the goodman comes home from field or hill-side; the +well-tidied space into which the craftsman draws from the litter of loom, +and smithy, and bench; the scholar’s island in the sea of books; the +artist’s clearing in the canvas-grove; it is from these places that Art +must come if she is ever again to be enthroned in that other kind of +building, which I think, under some name or other, whether you call it +church or hall of reason, or what not, will always be needed; the +building in which people meet to forget their own transient personal and +family troubles in aspirations for their fellows and the days to come, +and which to a certain extent make up to town-dwellers for their loss of +field, and river, and mountain. + +Well, it seems to me that these two kinds of buildings are all we have +really to think of, together with whatsoever outhouses, workshops, and +the like may be necessary. Surely the rest may quietly drop to pieces +for aught we care—unless it should be thought good in the interest of +history to keep one standing in each big town to show posterity what +strange, ugly, uncomfortable houses rich men dwelt in once upon a time. + +Meantime now, when rich men won’t have art, and poor men can’t, there is, +nevertheless, some unthinking craving for it, some restless feeling in +men’s minds of something lacking somewhere, which has made many +benevolent people seek for the possibility of cheap art. + +What do they mean by that? One art for the rich and another for the +poor? No, it won’t do. Art is not so accommodating as the justice or +religion of society, and she won’t have it. + +What then? there has been cheap art at some times certainly, at the +expense of the starvation of the craftsmen. But people can’t mean that; +and if they did, would, happily, no longer have the same chance of +getting it that they once had. Still they think art can be got round +some way or other—jockeyed, so to say. I rather think in this fashion: +that a highly gifted and carefully educated man shall, like Mr. +Pecksniff, squint at a sheet of paper, and that the results of that +squint shall set a vast number of well-fed, contented operatives (they +are ashamed to call them workmen) turning crank handles for ten hours +a-day, bidding them keep what gifts and education they may have been born +with for their—I was going to say leisure hours, but I don’t know how to, +for if I were to work ten hours a-day at work I despised and hated, I +should spend my leisure I hope in political agitation, but I fear—in +drinking. So let us say that the aforesaid operatives will have to keep +their inborn gifts and education for their dreams. Well, from this +system are to come threefold blessings—food and clothing, poorish +lodgings and a little leisure to the operatives, enormous riches to the +capitalists that rent them, together with moderate riches to the squinter +on the paper; and lastly, very decidedly lastly, abundance of cheap art +for the operatives or crank turners to buy—in their dreams. + +Well, there have been many other benevolent and economical schemes for +keeping your cake after you have eaten it, for skinning a flint, and +boiling a flea down for its tallow and glue, and this one of cheap art +may just go its way with the others. + +Yet to my mind real art is cheap, even at the price that must be paid for +it. That price is, in short, the providing of a handicraftsman who shall +put his own individual intelligence and enthusiasm into the goods he +fashions. So far from his labour being ‘divided,’ which is the technical +phrase for his always doing one minute piece of work, and never being +allowed to think of any other; so far from that, he must know all about +the ware he is making and its relation to similar wares; he must have a +natural aptitude for his work so strong, that no education can force him +away from his special bent. He must be allowed to think of what he is +doing, and to vary his work as the circumstances of it vary, and his own +moods. He must be for ever striving to make the piece he is at work at +better than the last. He must refuse at anybody’s bidding to turn out, I +won’t say a bad, but even an indifferent piece of work, whatever the +public want, or think they want. He must have a voice, and a voice worth +listening to in the whole affair. + +Such a man I should call, not an operative, but a workman. You may call +him an artist if you will, for I have been describing the qualities of +artists as I know them; but a capitalist will be apt to call him a +‘troublesome fellow,’ a radical of radicals, and, in fact, he will be +troublesome—mere grit and friction in the wheels of the money-grinding +machine. + +Yes, such a man will stop the machine perhaps; but it is only through him +that you can have art, _i.e._ civilisation unmaimed, if you really want +it; so consider, if you do want it, and will pay the price and give the +workman his due. + +What is his due? that is, what can he take from you, and be the man that +you want? Money enough to keep him from fear of want or degradation for +him and his; leisure enough from bread-earning work (even though it be +pleasant to him) to give him time to read and think, and connect his own +life with the life of the great world; work enough of the kind aforesaid, +and praise of it, and encouragement enough to make him feel good friends +with his fellows; and lastly (not least, for ’tis verily part of the +bargain), his own due share of art, the chief part of which will be a +dwelling that does not lack the beauty which Nature would freely allow +it, if our own perversity did not turn Nature out of doors. + +That is the bargain to be struck, such work and such wages; and I believe +that if the world wants the work and is willing to pay the wages, the +workmen will not long be wanting. + +On the other hand, if it be certain that the world—that is, modern +civilised society—will nevermore ask for such workmen, then I am as sure +as that I stand here breathing, that art is dying: that the spark still +smouldering is not to be quickened into life, but damped into death. And +indeed, often, in my fear of that, I think, ‘Would that I could see what +is to take the place of art!’ For, whether modern civilised society +_can_ make that bargain aforesaid, who shall say? I know well—who could +fail to know it?—that the difficulties are great. + +Too apt has the world ever been, ‘for the sake of life to cast away the +reasons for living,’ and perhaps is more and more apt to it as the +conditions of life get more intricate, as the race to avoid ruin, which +seems always imminent and overwhelming, gets swifter and more terrible. +Yet how would it be if we were to lay aside fear and turn in the face of +all that, and stand by our claim to have, one and all of us, reasons for +living. Mayhap the heavens would not fall on us if we did. + +Anyhow, let us make up our minds which we want, art, or the absence of +art, and be prepared if we want art, to give up many things, and in many +ways to change the conditions of life. Perhaps there are those who will +understand me when I say that that necessary change may make life poorer +for the rich, rougher for the refined, and, it may be, duller for the +gifted—for a while; that it may even take such forms that not the best or +wisest of us shall always be able to know it for a friend, but may at +whiles fight against it as a foe. Yet, when the day comes that gives us +visible token of art rising like the sun from below—when it is no longer +a justly despised whim of the rich, or a lazy habit of the so-called +educated, but a thing that labour begins to crave as a necessity, even as +labour is a necessity for all men—in that day how shall all trouble be +forgotten, all folly forgiven—even our own! + +Little by little it must come, I know. Patience and prudence must not be +lacking to us, but courage still less. Let us be a Gideon’s band. +‘Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return, and depart early from +Mount Gilead.’ And among that band let there be no delusions; let the +last encouraging lie have been told, the last after-dinner humbug spoken, +for surely, though the days seem dark, we may remember that men longed +for freedom while yet they were slaves; that it was in times when swords +were reddened every day that men began to think of peace and order, and +to strive to win them. + +We who think, and can enjoy the feast that Nature has spread for us, is +it not both our right and our duty to rebel against that slavery of the +waste of life’s joys, which people thoughtless and joyless, by no fault +of their own, have wrapped the world in? From our own selves we can tell +that there is hope of victory in our rebellion, since we have art enough +in our lives, not to content us, but to make us long for more, and that +longing drives us into trying to spread art and the longing for art; and +as it is with us so it will be with those that we win over: little by +little, we may well hope, will do its work, till at last a great many men +will have enough of art to see how little they have, and how much they +might better their lives, if every man had his due share of art—that is, +just so much as he could use if a fair chance were given him. + +Is that, indeed, too extravagant a hope? Have you not heard how it has +gone with many a cause before now? First few men heed it; next most men +contemn it; lastly, all men accept it—and the cause is won. + + + + +THE PROSPECTS OF ARCHITECTURE IN CIVILISATION {169} + + + ‘—the horrible doctrine that this universe is a Cockney + Nightmare—which no creature ought for a moment to believe or listen + to.’—THOMAS CARLYLE. + +THE word Architecture has, I suppose, to most of you the meaning of the +art of building nobly and ornamentally. Now I believe the practice of +this art to be one of the most important things which man can turn his +hand to, and the consideration of it to be worth the attention of serious +people, not for an hour only, but for a good part of their lives, even +though they may not have to do with it professionally. + +But, noble as that art is by itself, and though it is specially the art +of civilisation, it neither ever has existed nor never can exist alive +and progressive by itself, but must cherish and be cherished by all the +crafts whereby men make the things which they intend shall be beautiful, +and shall last somewhat beyond the passing day. + +It is this union of the arts, mutually helpful and harmoniously +subordinated one to another, which I have learned to think of as +Architecture, and when I use the word to-night, that is what I shall mean +by it and nothing narrower. + +A great subject truly, for it embraces the consideration of the whole +external surroundings of the life of man; we cannot escape from it if we +would so long as we are part of civilisation, for it means the moulding +and altering to human needs of the very face of the earth itself, except +in the outermost desert. + +Neither can we hand over our interests in it to a little band of learned +men, and bid them seek and discover, and fashion, that we may at last +stand by and wonder at the work, and learn a little of how ’twas all +done: ’tis we ourselves, each one of us, who must keep watch and ward +over the fairness of the earth, and each with his own soul and hand do +his due share therein, lest we deliver to our sons a lesser treasure than +our fathers left to us. Nor, again, is there time enough and to spare +that we may leave this matter alone till our latter days or let our sons +deal with it: for so busy and eager is mankind, that the desire of to-day +makes us utterly forget the desire of yesterday and the gain it brought; +and whensoever in any object of pursuit we cease to long for perfection, +corruption sure and speedy leads from life to death and all is soon over +and forgotten: time enough there may be for many things: for peopling the +desert; for breaking down the walls between nation and nation; for +learning the innermost secrets of the fashion of our souls and bodies, +the air we breathe, and the earth we tread on: time enough for subduing +all the forces of nature to our material wants: but no time to spare +before we turn our eyes and our longing to the fairness of the earth; +lest the wave of human need sweep over it and make it not a hopeful +desert as it once was, but a hopeless prison; lest man should find at +last that he has toiled and striven, and conquered, and set all things on +the earth under his feet, that he might live thereon himself unhappy. + +Most true it is that when any spot of earth’s surface has been marred by +the haste or carelessness of civilisation, it is heavy work to seek a +remedy, nay a work scarce conceivable; for the desire to live on any +terms which nature has implanted in us, and the terrible swift +multiplication of the race which is the result of it, thrusts out of +men’s minds all thought of other hopes, and bars the way before us as +with a wall of iron: no force but a force equal to that which marred can +ever mend, or give back those ruined places to hope and civilisation. + +Therefore I entreat you to turn your minds to thinking of what is to come +of Architecture, that is to say, the fairness of the earth amidst the +habitations of men: for the hope and the fear of it will follow us though +we try to escape it; it concerns us all, and needs the help of all; and +what we do herein must be done at once, since every day of our neglect +adds to the heap of troubles a blind force is making for us; till it may +come to this if we do not look to it, that we shall one day have to call, +not on peace and prosperity, but on violence and ruin to rid us of them. + +In making this appeal to you, I will not suppose that I am speaking to +any who refuse to admit that we who are part of civilisation are +responsible to posterity for what may befall the fairness of the earth in +our own days, for what we have done, in other words, towards the progress +of Architecture;—if any such exists among cultivated people, I need not +trouble myself about them; for they would not listen to me, nor should I +know what to say to them. + +On the other hand, there may be some here who have a knowledge of their +responsibility in this matter, but to whom the duty that it involves +seems an easy one, since they are fairly satisfied with the state of +Architecture as it now is: I do not suppose that they fail to note the +strange contrast which exists between the beauty that still clings to +some habitations of men and the ugliness which is the rule in others, but +it seems to them natural and inevitable, and therefore does not trouble +them: and they fulfil their duties to civilisation and the arts by +sometimes going to see the beautiful places, and gathering together a few +matters to remind them of these for the adornment of the ugly dwellings +in which their homes are enshrined: for the rest they have no doubt that +it is natural and not wrong that while all ancient towns, I mean towns +whose houses are largely ancient, should be beautiful and romantic, all +modern ones should be ugly and commonplace: it does not seem to them that +this contrast is of any import to civilisation, or that it expresses +anything save that one town _is_ ancient as to its buildings and the +other modern. If their thoughts carry them into looking any farther into +the contrasts between ancient art and modern, they are not dissatisfied +with the result: they may see things to reform here and there, but they +suppose, or, let me say, take for granted, that art is alive and healthy, +is on the right road, and that following that road, it will go on living +for ever, much as it is now. + +It is not unfair to say that this languid complacency is the general +attitude of cultivated people towards the arts: of course if they were +ever to think seriously of them, they would be startled into discomfort +by the thought that civilisation as it now is brings inevitable ugliness +with it: surely if they thought this, they would begin to think that this +was not natural and right; they would see that this was not what +civilisation aimed at in its struggling days: but they do not think +seriously of the arts because they have been hitherto defended by a law +of nature which forbids men to see evils which they are not ready to +redress. + +Hitherto: but there are not wanting signs that that defence may fail them +one day, and it has become the duty of all true artists, and all men who +love life though it be troublous better than death though it be peaceful, +to strive to pierce that defence and sting the world, cultivated and +uncultivated, into discontent and struggle. + +Therefore I will say that the contrast between past art and present, the +universal beauty of men’s habitations as they _were_ fashioned, and the +universal ugliness of them as they _are_ fashioned, is of the utmost +import to civilisation, and that it expresses much; it expresses no less +than a blind brutality which will destroy art at least, whatever else it +may leave alive: art is not healthy, it even scarcely lives; it is on the +wrong road, and if it follow that road will speedily meet its death on +it. + +Now perhaps you will say that by asserting that the general attitude of +cultivated people towards the arts is a languid complacency with this +unhealthy state of things, I am admitting that cultivated people +generally do not care about the arts, and that therefore this threatened +death of them will not frighten people much, even if the threat be +founded on truth: so that those are but beating the air who strive to +rouse people into discontent and struggle. + +Well, I will run the risk of offending you by speaking plainly, and +saying, that to me it seems over true that cultivated people in general +do _not_ care about the arts: nevertheless I will answer any possible +challenge as to the usefulness of trying to rouse them to thought about +the matter, by saying that they do not care about the arts because they +do not know what they mean, or what they lose in lacking them: +cultivated, that is rich, as they are, they are also under that harrow of +hard necessity which is driven onward so remorselessly by the competitive +commerce of the latter days; a system which is drawing near now I hope to +its perfection, and therefore to its death and change: the many millions +of civilisation, as labour is now organised, can scarce think seriously +of anything but the means of earning their daily bread; they do not know +of art, it does not touch their lives at all: the few thousands of +cultivated people whom Fate, not always as kind to them as she looks, has +placed above the material necessity for this hard struggle, are +nevertheless bound by it in spirit: the reflex of the grinding trouble of +those who toil to live that they may live to toil weighs upon them also, +and forbids them to look upon art as a matter of importance: they know it +but as a toy, not as a serious help to life: as they know it, it can no +more lift the burden from the conscience of the rich, than it can from +the weariness of the poor. They do not know what art means: as I have +said, they think that as labour is now organised art can go indefinitely +as it is now organised, practised by a few for a few, adding a little +interest, a little refinement to the lives of those who have come to look +upon intellectual interest and spiritual refinement as their birthright. + +No, no, it can never be: believe me, if it were otherwise possible that +it should be an enduring condition of humanity that there must be one +class utterly refined and another utterly brutal, art would bar the way +and forbid the monstrosity to exist:—such refinement would have to do as +well as it might without the aid of Art: it may be she will die, but it +cannot be that she will live the slave of the rich, and the token of the +enduring slavery of the poor. If the life of the world is to be +brutalised by her death, the rich must share that brutalisation with the +poor. + +I know that there are people of good-will now, as there have been in all +ages, who have conceived of art as going hand in hand with luxury, nay, +as being much the same thing; but it is an idea false from the root up, +and most hurtful to art, as I could demonstrate to you by many examples +if I had time, lacking which I will only meet it with one, which I hope +will be enough. + +We are here in the richest city of the richest country of the richest age +of the world: no luxury of time past can compare with our luxury; and yet +if you could clear your eyes from habitual blindness you would have to +confess that there is no crime against art, no ugliness, no vulgarity +which is not shared with perfect fairness and equality between the modern +hovels of Bethnal Green and the modern palaces of the West End: and then +if you looked at the matter deeply and seriously you would not regret it, +but rejoice at it, and as you went past some notable example of the +aforesaid palaces you would exult indeed as you said, ‘So that is all +that luxury and money can do for refinement.’ + +For the rest, if of late there has been any change for the better in the +prospects of the arts; if there has been a struggle both to throw off the +chains of dead and powerless tradition, and to understand the thoughts +and aspirations of those among whom those traditions were once alive +powerful and beneficent; if there has been abroad any spirit of +resistance to the flood of sordid ugliness that modern civilisation has +created to make modern civilisation miserable: in a word, if any of us +have had the courage to be discontented that art seems dying, and to hope +for her new birth, it is because others have been discontented and +hopeful in other matters than the arts; I believe most sincerely that the +steady progress of those whom the stupidity of language forces me to call +the lower classes in material, political, and social condition, has been +our real help in all that we have been able to do or to hope, although +both the helpers and the helped have been mostly unconscious of it. + +It is indeed in this belief, the belief in the beneficent progress of +civilisation, that I venture to face you and to entreat you to strive to +enter into the real meaning of the arts, which are surely the expression +of reverence for nature, and the crown of nature, the life of man upon +the earth. + +With this intent in view I may, I think, hope to move you, I do not say +to agree to all I urge upon you, yet at least to think the matter worth +thinking about; and if you once do that, I believe I shall have won you. +Maybe indeed that many things which I think beautiful you will deem of +small account; nay, that even some things I think base and ugly will not +vex your eyes or your minds: but one thing I know you will none of you +like to plead guilty to; blindness to the natural beauty of the earth; +and of that beauty art is the only possible guardian. + +No one of you can fail to know what neglect of art has done to this great +treasure of mankind: the earth which was beautiful before man lived on +it, which for many ages grew in beauty as men grew in numbers and power, +is now growing uglier day by day, and there the swiftest where +civilisation is the mightiest: this is quite certain; no one can deny it: +are you contented that it should be so? + +Surely there must be few of us to whom this degrading change has not been +brought home personally. I think you will most of you understand me but +too well when I ask you to remember the pang of dismay that comes on us +when we revisit some spot of country which has been specially sympathetic +to us in times past; which has refreshed us after toil, or soothed us +after trouble; but where now as we turn the corner of the road or crown +the hill’s brow we can see first the inevitable blue slate roof, and then +the blotched mud-coloured stucco, or ill-built wall of ill-made bricks of +the new buildings; then as we come nearer and see the arid and +pretentious little gardens, and cast-iron horrors of railings, and +miseries of squalid out-houses breaking through the sweet meadows and +abundant hedge-rows of our old quiet hamlet, do not our hearts sink +within us, and are we not troubled with a perplexity not altogether +selfish, when we think what a little bit of carelessness it takes to +destroy a world of pleasure and delight, which now whatever happens can +never be recovered? + +Well may we feel the perplexity and sickness of heart, which some day the +whole world shall feel to find its hopes disappointed, if we do not look +to it; for this is not what civilisation looked for: a new house added to +the old village, where is the harm of that? Should it not have been a +gain and not a loss; a sign of growth and prosperity which should have +rejoiced the eye of an old friend? a new family come in health and hope +to share the modest pleasures and labours of the place we loved; that +should have been no grief, but a fresh pleasure to us. + +Yes, and time was that it would have been so; the new house indeed would +have taken away a little piece of the flowery green sward, a few yards of +the teeming hedge-row; but a new order, a new beauty would have taken the +place of the old: the very flowers of the field would have but given +place to flowers fashioned by man’s hand and mind: the hedge-row oak +would have blossomed into fresh beauty in roof-tree and lintel and +door-post: and though the new house would have looked young and trim +beside the older houses and the ancient church; ancient even in those +days; yet it would have a piece of history for the time to come, and its +dear and dainty cream-white walls would have been a genuine link among +the numberless links of that long chain, whose beginnings we know not of, +but on whose mighty length even the many-pillared garth of Pallas, and +the stately dome of the Eternal Wisdom, are but single links, wondrous +and resplendent though they be. + +Such I say can a new house be, such it has been: for ’tis no ideal house +I am thinking of: no rare marvel of art, of which but few can ever be +vouchsafed to the best times and countries; no palace either, not even a +manor-house, but a yeoman’s steading at grandest, or even his shepherd’s +cottage: there they stand at this day, dozens of them yet, in some parts +of England: such an one, and of the smallest, is before my eyes as I +speak to you, standing by the roadside on one of the western slopes of +the Cotswolds: the tops of the great trees near it can see a long way off +the mountains of the Welsh border, and between a great county of hill, +and waving woodland, and meadow and plain where lies hidden many a famous +battlefield of our stout forefathers: there to the right a wavering patch +of blue is the smoke of Worcester town, but Evesham smoke, though near, +is unseen, so small it is: then a long line of haze just traceable shows +where the Avon wends its way thence towards Severn, till Bredon Hill +hides the sight both of it and Tewkesbury smoke: just below on either +side the Broadway lie the grey houses of the village street ending with a +lovely house of the fourteenth century; above the road winds serpentine +up the steep hill-side, whose crest looking westward sees the glorious +map I have been telling of spread before it, but eastward strains to look +on Oxfordshire, and thence all waters run towards Thames: all about lie +the sunny slopes, lovely of outline, flowery and sweetly grassed, dotted +with the best-grown and most graceful of trees: ’tis a beautiful +countryside indeed, not undignified, not unromantic, but most familiar. + +And there stands the little house that was new once, a labourer’s cottage +built of the Cotswold limestone, and grown now, walls and roof, a lovely +warm grey, though it was creamy white in its earliest day; no line of it +could ever have marred the Cotswold beauty; everything about it is solid +and well wrought: it is skilfully planned and well proportioned: there is +a little sharp and delicate carving about its arched doorway, and every +part of it is well cared for: ’tis in fact beautiful, a work of art and a +piece of nature—no less: there is no man who could have done it better +considering its use and its place. + +Who built it then? No strange race of men, but just the mason of +Broadway village: even such a man as is now running up down yonder three +or four cottages of the wretched type we know too well: nor did he get an +architect from London, or even Worcester, to design it: I believe ’tis +but two hundred years old, and at that time, though beauty still lingered +among the peasants’ houses, your learned architects were building houses +for the high gentry that were ugly enough, though solid and well built; +nor are its materials far-fetched; from the neighbouring field came its +walling stones; and at the top of the hill they are quarrying now as good +freestone as ever. + +No, there was no effort or wonder about it when it was built, though its +beauty makes it strange now. + +And are you contented that we should lose all this; this simple, harmless +beauty that was no hindrance or trouble to any man, and that added to the +natural beauty of the earth instead of marring it? + +You cannot be contented with it; all you can do is to try to forget it, +and to say that such things are the necessary and inevitable consequences +of civilisation. Is it so indeed? The loss of suchlike beauty is an +undoubted evil: but civilisation cannot mean at heart to produce evils +for mankind: such losses therefore must be accidents of civilisation, +produced by its carelessness, not its malice; and we, if we be men and +not machines, must try to amend them: or civilisation itself will be +undone. + +But, now let us leave the sunny slopes of the Cotswolds, and their little +grey houses, lest we fall a-dreaming over past time, and let us think +about the suburbs of London, neither dull nor unpleasant once, where +surely we ought to have some power to do something: let me remind you how +it fares with the beauty of the earth when some big house near our +dwelling-place, which has passed through many vicissitudes of rich +merchant’s dwelling, school, hospital, or what not, is at last to be +turned into ready money, and is sold to A, who lets it to B, who is going +to build houses on it which he will sell to C, who will let them to D, +and the other letters of the alphabet: well, the old house comes down; +that was to be looked for, and perhaps you don’t much mind it; it was +never a work of art, was stupid and unimaginative enough, though +creditably built, and without pretence; but even while it is being pulled +down, you hear the axe falling on the trees of its generous garden, which +it was such a pleasure even to pass by, and where man and nature together +have worked so long and patiently for the blessing of the neighbours: so +you see the boys dragging about the streets great boughs of the flowering +may-trees covered with blossom, and you know what is going to happen. +Next morning when you get up you look towards that great plane-tree which +has been such a friend to you so long through sun and rain and wind, +which was a world in itself of incident and beauty: but now there is a +gap and no plane-tree; next morning ’tis the turn of the great sweeping +layers of darkness that the ancient cedars thrust out from them, very +treasures of loveliness and romance; they are gone too: you may have a +faint hope left that the thick bank of lilac next your house may be +spared, since the newcomers may like lilac; but ’tis gone in the +afternoon, and the next day when you look in with a sore heart, you see +that once fair great garden turned into a petty miserable clay-trampled +yard, and everything is ready for the latest development of Victorian +architecture—which in due time (two months) arises from the wreck. + +Do you like it? You I mean, who have not studied art and do not think +you care about it? + +Look at the houses (there are plenty to choose from)! I will not say, +are they beautiful, for you say you don’t care whether they are or not: +but just look at the wretched pennyworths of material, of accommodation, +of ornament doled out to you! if there were one touch of generosity, of +honest pride, of wish to please about them, I would forgive them in the +lump. But there is none—not one. + +It is for this that you have sacrificed your cedars and planes and +may-trees, which I do believe you really liked—are you satisfied? + +Indeed you cannot be: all you can do is to go to your business, converse +with your family, eat, drink, and sleep, and try to forget it, but +whenever you think of it, you will admit that a loss without compensation +has befallen you and your neighbours. + +Once more neglect of art has done it; for though it is conceivable that +the loss of your neighbouring open space might in any case have been a +loss to you, still the building of a new quarter of a town ought not to +be an unmixed calamity to the neighbours: nor would it have been once: +for first, the builder doesn’t now murder the trees (at any rate not all +of them) for the trifling sum of money their corpses will bring him, but +because it will take him too much trouble to fit them into the planning +of his houses: so to begin with you would have saved the more part of +your trees; and I say your trees, advisedly, for they were at least as +much your trees, who loved them and would have saved them, as they were +the trees of the man who neglected and murdered them. And next, for any +space you would have lost, and for any unavoidable destruction of natural +growth, you would in the times of art have been compensated by orderly +beauty, by visible signs of the ingenuity of man and his delight both in +the works of nature and the works of his own hands. + +Yes indeed, if we had lived in Venice in early days, as islet after islet +was built upon, we should have grudged it but little, I think, though we +had been merchants and rich men, that the Greek shafted work, and the +carving of the Lombards was drawn nearer and nearer to us and blocked us +out a little from the sight of the blue Euganean hills or the Northern +mountains. Nay, to come nearer home, much as I know I should have loved +the willowy meadows between the network of the streams of Thames and +Cherwell; yet I should not have been ill content as Oxford crept +northward from its early home of Oseney, and Rewley, and the Castle, as +townsman’s house, and scholar’s hall, and the great College and the noble +church hid year by year more and more of the grass and flowers of +Oxfordshire. {186} + +That was the natural course of things then; men could do no otherwise +when they built than give some gift of beauty to the world: but all is +turned inside out now, and when men build they cannot but take away some +gift of beauty, which nature or their own forefathers have given to the +world. + +Wonderful it is indeed, and perplexing, that the course of civilisation +towards perfection should have brought this about: so perplexing, that to +some it seems as if civilisation were eating her own children, and the +arts first of all. + +I will not say that; time is big with so many a change; surely there must +be some remedy, and whether there be or no, at least it is better to die +seeking one, than to leave it alone and do nothing. + +I have said, are you satisfied? and assumed that you are not, though to +many you may seem to be at least helpless: yet indeed it is something or +even a great deal that I can reasonably assume that you are discontented: +fifty years ago, thirty years ago, nay perhaps twenty years ago, it would +have been useless to have asked such a question, it could only have been +answered in one way: We are perfectly satisfied: whereas now we may at +least hope that discontent will grow till some remedy will be sought for. + +And if sought for, should it not, in England at least, be as good as +found already, and acted upon? At first sight it seems so truly; for I +may say without fear of contradiction that we of the English middle +classes are the most powerful body of men that the world has yet seen, +and that anything we have set our heart upon we will have: and yet when +we come to look the matter in the face, we cannot fail to see that even +for us with all our strength it will be a hard matter to bring about that +birth of the new art: for between us and that which is to be, if art is +not to perish utterly, there is something alive and devouring; something +as it were a river of fire that will put all that tries to swim across to +a hard proof indeed, and scare from the plunge every soul that is not +made fearless by desire of truth and insight of the happy days to come +beyond. + +That fire is the hurry of life bred by the gradual perfection of +competitive commerce which we, the English middle classes, when we had +won our political liberty, set ourselves to further with an energy, an +eagerness, a single-heartedness that has no parallel in history; we would +suffer none to bar the way to us, we called on none to help us, we +thought of that one thing and forgot all else, and so attained to our +desire, and fashioned a terrible thing indeed from the very hearts of the +strongest of mankind. + +Indeed I don’t suppose that the feeble discontent with our own creation +that I have noted before can deal with such a force as this—not yet—not +till it swells to very strong discontent: nevertheless as we were blind +to its destructive power, and have not even yet learned all about that, +so we may well be blind to what it has of constructive force in it, and +that one day may give us a chance to deal with it again and turn it +toward accomplishing our new and worthier desire: in that day at least +when we have at last learned what we want, let us work no less +strenuously and fearlessly, I will not say to quench it, but to force it +to burn itself out, as we once did to quicken and sustain it. + +Meantime if we could but get ourselves ready by casting off certain old +prejudices and delusions in this matter of the arts, we should the sooner +reach the pitch of discontent which would drive us into action: such a +one I mean as the aforesaid idea that luxury fosters art, and especially +the Architectural arts; or its companion one, that the arts flourish best +in a rich country, _i.e._ a country where the contrast between rich and +poor is greatest; or this, the worst because the most plausible, the +assertion of the hierarchy of intellect in the arts: an old foe with a +new face indeed: born out of the times that gave the death-blow to the +political and social hierarchies, and waxing as they waned, it proclaimed +from a new side the divinity of the few and the subjugation of the many, +and cries out, like they did, that it is expedient, not that one man +should die for the people, but that the people should die for one man. + +Now perhaps these three things, though they have different forms, are in +fact but one thing; tyranny to wit: but however that may be, they are to +be met by one answer, and there is no other: if art which is now sick is +to live and not die, it must in the future be of the people for the +people, and by the people; it must understand all and be understood by +all: equality must be the answer to tyranny: if that be not attained, art +will die. + +The past art of what has grown to be civilised Europe from the time of +the decline of the ancient classical peoples, was the outcome of instinct +working on an unbroken chain of tradition: it was fed not by knowledge +but by hope, and though many a strange and wild illusion mingled with +that hope, yet was it human and fruitful ever: many a man it solaced, +many a slave in body it freed in soul; boundless pleasure it gave to +those who wrought it and those who used it: long and long it lived, +passing that torch of hope from hand to hand, while it kept but little +record of its best and noblest; for least of all things could it abide to +make for itself kings and tyrants: every man’s hand and soul it used, the +lowest as the highest, and in its bosom at least were all men free: it +did its work, not creating an art more perfect than itself, but rather +other things than art, freedom of thought and speech, and the longing for +light and knowledge and the coming days that should slay it: and so at +last it died in the hour of its highest hope, almost before the greatest +men that came of it had passed away from the world. It is dead now; no +longing will bring it back to us; no echo of it is left among the peoples +whom it once made happy. + +Of the art that is to come who may prophesy? But this at least seems to +follow from comparing that past with the confusion in which we are now +struggling and the light which glimmers through it; that that art will no +longer be an art of instinct, of ignorance which is hopeful to learn and +strives to see; since ignorance is now no longer hopeful. In this and in +many other ways it may differ from the past art, but in one thing it must +needs be like it; it will not be an esoteric mystery shared by a little +band of superior beings; it will be no more hierarchical than the art of +past time was, but like it will be a gift of the people to the people, a +thing which everybody can understand, and every one surround with love; +it will be a part of every life, and a hindrance to none. + +For this is the essence of art, and the thing that is eternal to it, +whatever else may be passing and accidental. + +Here it is, you see, wherein the art of to-day is so far astray, would +that I could say wherein it _has been_ astray; it has been sick because +of this packing and peeling with tyranny, and now with what of life it +has it must struggle back towards equality. + +There is the hard business for us! to get all simple people to care about +art, to get them to insist on making it part of their lives, whatever +becomes of systems of commerce and labour held perfect by some of us. + +This is henceforward for a long time to come the real business of art: +and—yes I will say it since I think it—of civilisation too for that +matter: but how shall we set to work about it? How shall we give people +without traditions of art eyes with which to see the works we do to move +them? How shall we give them leisure from toil, and truce with anxiety, +so that they may have time to brood over the longing for beauty which men +are born with, as ’tis said, even in London streets? And chiefly, for +this will breed the others swiftly and certainly, how shall we give them +hope and pleasure in their daily work? + +How shall we give them this soul of art without which men are worse than +savages? If they would but drive us to it! But what and where are the +forces that shall drive them to drive us? Where is the lever and the +standpoint? + +Hard questions indeed! but unless we are prepared to seek an answer for +them, our art is a mere toy, which may amuse us for a little, but which +will not sustain us at our need: the cultivated classes, as they are +called, will feel it slipping away from under them: till some of them +will but mock it as a worthless thing; and some will stand by and look at +it as a curious exercise of the intellect, useless when done, though +amusing to watch a-doing. How long will art live on those terms? Yet +such were even now the state of art were it not for that hope which I am +here to set forth to you, the hope of an art that shall express the soul +of the people. + +Therefore, I say, that in these days we men of civilisation have to +choose if we will cast art aside or not; if we choose to do so I have no +more to say, save that we _may_ find something to take its place for the +solace and joy of mankind, but I scarce think we shall: but if we refuse +to cast art aside, then must we seek an answer for those hard questions +aforesaid, of which this is the first. + +How shall we set about giving people without traditions of art eyes with +which to see works of art? It will doubtless take many years of striving +and success, before we can think of answering that question fully: and if +we strive to do our duty herein, long before it is answered fully there +will be some kind of a popular art abiding among us: but meantime, and +setting aside the answer which every artist must make to his own share of +the question, there is one duty obvious to us all; it is that we should +set ourselves, each one of us, to doing our best to guard the natural +beauty of the earth: we ought to look upon it as a crime, an injury to +our fellows, only excusable because of ignorance, to mar the natural +beauty, which is the property of all men; and scarce less than a crime to +look on and do nothing while others are marring it, if we can no longer +plead this ignorance. + +Now this duty, as it is the most obvious to us, and the first and +readiest way of giving people back their eyes, so happily it is the +easiest to set about; up to a certain point you will have all people of +good will to the public good on your side: nay, small as the beginning +is, something has actually been begun in this direction, and we may well +say, considering how hopeless things looked twenty years ago, that it is +marvellous in our eyes! Yet if we ever get out of the troubles that we +are now wallowing in, it will seem perhaps more marvellous still to those +that come after us that the dwellers in the richest city in the world +were at one time rather proud that the members of a small, humble, and +rather obscure, though I will say it, a beneficent society, should have +felt it their duty to shut their eyes to the apparent hopelessness of +attacking with their feeble means the stupendous evils they had become +alive to, so that they might be able to make some small beginnings +towards awakening the general public to a due sense of those evils. + +I say, that though I ask your earnest support for such associations as +the Kyrle and the Commons Preservation Societies, and though I feel sure +that they have begun at the right end, since neither gods nor governments +will help those who don’t help themselves; though we are bound to wait +for nobody’s help than our own in dealing with the devouring hideousness +and squalor of our great towns, and especially of London, for which the +whole country is responsible; yet it would be idle not to acknowledge +that the difficulties in our way are far too huge and wide-spreading to +be grappled by private or semi-private efforts only. + +All we can do in this way we must look on not as palliatives of an +unendurable state of things, but as tokens of what we desire; which is in +short the giving back to our country of the natural beauty of the earth, +which we are so ashamed of having taken away from it: and our chief duty +herein will be to quicken this shame and the pain that comes from it in +the hearts of our fellows: this I say is one of the chief duties of all +those who have any right to the title of cultivated men: and I believe +that if we are faithful to it, we may help to further a great impulse +towards beauty among us, which will be so irresistible that it will +fashion for itself a national machinery which will sweep away all +difficulties between us and a decent life, though they may have increased +a thousand-fold meantime, as is only too like to be the case. + +Surely that light will arise, though neither we nor our children’s +children see it, though civilisation may have to go down into dark places +enough meantime: surely one day making will be thought more honourable, +more worthy the majesty of a great nation than destruction. + +It is strange indeed, it is woeful, it is scarcely comprehensible, if we +come to think of it as men, and not as machines, that, after all the +progress of civilisation, it should be so easy for a little official +talk, a few lines on a sheet of paper, to set a terrible engine to work, +which without any trouble on our part will slay us ten thousand men, and +ruin who can say how many thousand of families; and it lies light enough +on the conscience of _all_ of us; while, if it is a question of striking +a blow at grievous and crushing evils which lie at our own doors, evils +which every thoughtful man feels and laments, and for which we alone are +responsible, not only is there no national machinery for dealing with +them, though they grow ranker and ranker every year, but any hint that +such a thing may be possible is received with laughter or with terror, or +with severe and heavy blame. The rights of property, the necessities of +morality, the interests of religion—these are the sacramental words of +cowardice that silence us! + +Sirs, I have spoken of thoughtful men who feel these evils: but think of +all the millions of men whom our civilisation has bred, who are not +thoughtful, and have had no chance of being so; how can you fail then to +acknowledge the duty of defending the fairness of the Earth? and what is +the use of our cultivation if it is to cultivate us into cowards? Let us +answer those feeble counsels of despair and say, We also have a property +which your tyranny of squalor cheats us of; we also have a morality which +its baseness crushes; we also have a religion which its injustice makes a +mock of. + +Well, whatever lesser helps there may be to our endeavour of giving +people back the eyes we have robbed them of, we may pass them by at +present, for they are chiefly of use to people who are beginning to get +their eyesight again; to people who, though they have no traditions of +art, can study those mighty impulses that once led nations and races: it +is to such that museums and art education are of service; but it is clear +they cannot get at the great mass of people, who will at present stare at +them in unintelligent wonder. + +Until our streets are decent and orderly, and our town gardens break the +bricks and mortar every here and there, and are open to all people; until +our meadows even near our towns become fair and sweet, and are unspoiled +by patches of hideousness: until we have clear sky above our heads and +green grass beneath our feet; until the great drama of the seasons can +touch our workmen with other feelings than the misery of winter and the +weariness of summer; till all this happens our museums and art schools +will be but amusements of the rich; and they will soon cease to be of any +use to them also, unless they make up their minds that they will do their +best to give us back the fairness of the Earth. + +In what I have been saying on this last point I have been thinking of our +own special duties as cultivated people; but in our endeavours towards +this end, as in all others, cultivated people cannot stand alone; nor can +we do much to open people’s eyes till they cry out to us to have them +opened. Now I cannot doubt that the longing to attack and overcome the +sordidness of the city life of to-day still dwells in the minds of +workmen, as well as in ours, but it can scarcely be otherwise than vague +and lacking guidance with men who have so little leisure, and are so +hemmed in with hideousness as they are. So this brings us to our second +question. How shall people in general get leisure enough from toil, and +truce enough with anxiety to give scope to their inborn longing for +beauty? + +Now the part of this question that is not involved in the next one, How +shall they get proper work to do? is I think in a fair way to be +answered. + +The mighty change which the success of competitive commerce has wrought +in the world, whatever it may have destroyed, has at least unwittingly +made one thing,—from out of it has been born the increasing power of the +working-class. The determination which this power has bred in it to +raise their class as a class will I doubt not make way and prosper with +our goodwill, or even in spite of it; but it seems to me that both to the +working-class and especially to ourselves it is important that it should +have our abundant goodwill, and also what help we may be able otherwise +to give it, by our determination to deal fairly with workmen, even when +that justice may seem to involve our own loss. The time of unreasonable +and blind outcry against the Trades Unions is, I am happy to think, gone +by; and has given place to the hope of a time when these great +Associations, well organised, well served, and earnestly supported, as I +_know_ them to be, will find other work before them than the temporary +support of their members and the adjustment of due wages for their +crafts: when that hope begins to be realised, and they find they can make +use of the help of us scattered units of the cultivated classes, I feel +sure that the claims of art, as we and they will then understand the +word, will by no means be disregarded by them. + +Meantime with us who are called artists, since most unhappily that word +means at present another thing than artisan: with us who either practise +the arts with our own hands, or who love them so wholly that we can enter +into the inmost feelings of those who do,—with us it lies to deal with +our last question, to stir up others to think of answering this: How +shall we give people in general hope and pleasure in their daily work in +such a way that in those days to come the word art _shall_ be rightly +understood? + +Of all that I have to say to you this seems to me the most important, +that our daily and necessary work, which we could not escape if we would, +which we would not forego if we could, should be human, serious, and +pleasurable, not machine-like, trivial, or grievous. I call this not +only the very foundation of Architecture in all senses of the word, but +of happiness also in all conditions of life. + +Let me say before I go further, that though I am nowise ashamed of +repeating the words of men who have been before me in both senses, of +time and insight, I mean, I should be ashamed of letting you think that I +forget their labours on which mine are founded. I know that the pith of +what I am saying on this subject was set forth years ago, and for the +first time by Mr. Ruskin in that chapter of the Stones of Venice, which +is entitled, ‘On the Nature of Gothic,’ in words more clear and eloquent +than any man else now living could use. So important do they seem to me, +that to my mind they should have been posted up in every school of art +throughout the country; nay, in every association of English-speaking +people which professes in any way to further the culture of mankind. But +I am sorry to have to say it, my excuse for doing little more now than +repeating those words is that they have been less heeded than most things +which Mr. Ruskin has said: I suppose because people have been afraid of +them, lest they should find the truth they express sticking so fast in +their minds that it would either compel them to act on it or confess +themselves slothful and cowardly. + +Nor can I pretend to wonder at that: for if people were once to accept it +as true, that it is nothing but just and fair that every man’s work +should have some hope and pleasure always present in it, they must try to +bring the change about that would make it so: and all history tells of no +greater change in man’s life than that would be. + +Nevertheless, great as the change may be, Architecture has no prospects +in civilisation unless the change be brought about: and ’tis my business +to-day, I will not say to convince you of this, but to send some of you +away uneasy lest perhaps it may be true; if I can manage that I shall +have spoken to some purpose. + +Let us see however in what light cultivated people, men not without +serious thoughts about life, look to this matter, lest perchance we may +seem to be beating the air only: when I have given you an example of this +way of thinking, I will answer it to the best of my power in the hopes of +making some of you uneasy, discontented, and revolutionary. + +Some few months ago I read in a paper the report of a speech made to the +assembled work-people of a famous firm of manufacturers (as they are +called). The speech was a very humane and thoughtful one, spoken by one +of the leaders of modern thought: the firm to whose people it was +addressed was and is famous not only for successful commerce, but also +for the consideration and goodwill with which it treats its work-people, +men and women. No wonder, therefore, that the speech was pleasant +reading; for the tone of it was that of a man speaking to his friends who +could well understand him and from whom he need hide nothing; but towards +the end of it I came across a sentence, which set me a-thinking so hard, +that I forgot all that had gone before. It was to this effect, and I +think nearly in these very words, ‘Since no man would work if it were not +that he hoped by working to earn leisure:’ and the context showed that +this was assumed as a self-evident truth. + +Well, for many years I have had my mind fixed on what I in my turn +regarded as an axiom which may be worded thus: No work which cannot be +done without pleasure in the doing is worth doing; so you may think I was +much disturbed at a grave and learned man taking such a completely +different view of it with such calmness of certainty. What a little way, +I thought, has all Ruskin’s fire and eloquence made in driving into +people so great a truth, a truth so fertile of consequences! + +Then I turned the intrusive sentence over again in my mind: ‘No man would +work unless he hoped by working to earn leisure:’ and I saw that this was +another way of putting it: first, all the work of the world is done +against the grain: second, what a man does in his ‘leisure’ is not work. + +A poor bribe the hope of such leisure to supplement the other inducement +to toil, which I take to be the fear of death by starvation: a poor +bribe; for the most of men, like those Yorkshire weavers and spinners +(and the more part far worse than they), work for such a very small share +of leisure that, one must needs say that if all their hope be in that, +they are pretty much beguiled of their hope! + +So I thought, and this next, that if it were indeed true and beyond +remedy, that no man would work unless he hoped by working to earn +leisure, the hell of theologians was but little needed; for a thickly +populated civilised country, where, you know, after all people must work +at something, would serve their turn well enough. Yet again I knew that +this theory of the general and necessary hatefulness of work was indeed +the common one, and that all sorts of people held it, who without being +monsters of insensibility grew fat and jolly nevertheless. + +So to explain this puzzle, I fell to thinking of the one life of which I +knew something—my own to wit—and out tumbled the bottom of the theory. + +For I tried to think what would happen to me if I were forbidden my +ordinary daily work; and I knew that I should die of despair and +weariness, unless I could straightway take to something else which I +could make my daily work: and it was clear to me that I worked not in the +least in the world for the sake of earning leisure by it, but partly +driven by the fear of starvation or disgrace, and partly, and even a very +great deal, because I love the work itself: and as for my leisure: well I +had to confess that part of it I do indeed spend as a dog does—in +contemplation, let us say; and like it well enough: but part of it also I +spend in work: which work gives me just as much pleasure as my +bread-earning work—neither more nor less; and therefore could be no bribe +or hope for my work-a-day hours. + +Then next I turned my thought to my friends: mere artists, and therefore, +you know, lazy people by prescriptive right: I found that the one thing +they enjoyed was their work, and that their only idea of happy leisure +was other work, just as valuable to the world as their work-a-day work: +they only differed from me in liking the dog-like leisure less and the +man-like labour more than I do. + +I got no further when I turned from mere artists, to important men—public +men: I could see no signs of their working merely to earn leisure: they +all worked for the work and the deeds’ sake. Do rich gentlemen sit up +all night in the House of Commons for the sake of earning leisure? if so, +’tis a sad waste of labour. Or Mr. Gladstone? he doesn’t seem to have +succeeded in winning much leisure by tolerably strenuous work; what he +does get he might have got on much easier terms, I am sure. + +Does it then come to this, that there are men, say a class of men, whose +daily work, though maybe they cannot escape from doing it, is chiefly +pleasure to them; and other classes of men whose daily work is wholly +irksome to them, and only endurable because they hope while they are +about it to earn thereby a little leisure at the day’s end? + +If that were wholly true the contrast between the two kinds of lives +would be greater than the contrast between the utmost delicacy of life +and the utmost hardship could show, or between the utmost calm and utmost +trouble. The difference would be literally immeasurable. + +But I dare not, if I would, in so serious a matter overstate the evils I +call on you to attack: it is not wholly true that such immeasurable +difference exists between the lives of divers classes of men, or the +world would scarce have got through to past the middle of this century: +misery, grudging, and tyranny would have destroyed us all. + +The inequality even at the worst is not really so great as that: any +employment in which a thing can be done better or worse has some pleasure +in it, for all men more or less like doing what they can do well: even +mechanical labour is pleasant to some people (to me amongst others) if it +be not too mechanical. + +Nevertheless though it be not wholly true that the daily work of some men +is merely pleasant and of others merely grievous; yet it is over true +both that things are not very far short of this, and also that if people +do not open their eyes in time they will speedily worsen. Some work, +nay, almost all the work done by artisans _is_ too mechanical; and those +that work at it must either abstract their thoughts from it altogether, +in which case they are but machines while they are at work; or else they +must suffer such dreadful weariness in getting through it, as one can +scarcely bear to think of. Nature desires that we shall at least live, +but seldom, I suppose, allows this latter misery to happen; and the +workmen who do purely mechanical work do as a rule become mere machines +as far as their work is concerned. Now as I am quite sure that no art, +not even the feeblest, rudest, or least intelligent, can come of such +work, so also I am sure that such work makes the workman less than a man +and degrades him grievously and unjustly, and that nothing can compensate +him or us for such degradation: and I want you specially to note that +this was instinctively felt in the very earliest days of what are called +the industrial arts. + +When a man turned the wheel, or threw the shuttle, or hammered the iron, +he was expected to make something more than a water-pot, a cloth, or a +knife: he was expected to make a work of art also: he could scarcely +altogether fail in this, he might attain to making a work of the greatest +beauty: this was felt to be positively necessary to the peace of mind +both of the maker and the user; and this is it which I have called +Architecture: the turning of necessary articles of daily use into works +of art. + +Certainly, when we come to think of it thus, there does seem to be little +less than that immeasurable contrast above mentioned between such work +and mechanical work: and most assuredly do I believe that the crafts +which fashion our familiar wares need this enlightenment of happiness no +less now than they did in the days of the early Pharaohs: but we have +forgotten this necessity, and in consequence have reduced handicraft to +such degradation, that a learned, thoughtful, and humane man can set +forth as an axiom that no man will work except to earn leisure thereby. + +But now let us forget any conventional ways of looking at the labour +which produces the matters of our daily life, which ways come partly from +the wretched state of the arts in modern times, and partly I suppose from +that repulsion to handicraft which seems to have beset some minds in all +ages: let us forget this, and try to think how it really fares with the +divers ways of work in handicrafts. + +I think one may divide the work with which Architecture is conversant +into three classes: first there is the purely mechanical: those who do +this are machines only, and the less they think of what they are doing +the better for the purpose, supposing they are properly drilled: the +purpose of this work, to speak plainly, is not the making of wares of any +kind, but what on the one hand is called employment, on the other what is +called money-making: that is to say, in other words, the multiplication +of the species of the mechanical workman, and the increase of the riches +of the man who sets him to work, called in our modern jargon by a strange +perversion of language, a manufacturer: {208} Let us call this kind of +work Mechanical Toil. + +The second kind is more or less mechanical as the case may be; but it can +always be done better or worse: if it is to be well done, it claims +attention from the workman, and he must leave on it signs of his +individuality: there will be more or less of art in it, over which the +workman has at least some control; and he will work on it partly to earn +his bread in not too toilsome or disgusting a way, but in a way which +makes even his work-hours pass pleasantly to him, and partly to make +wares, which when made will be a distinct gain to the world; things that +will be praised and delighted in. This work I would call Intelligent +Work. + +The third kind of work has but little if anything mechanical about it; it +is altogether individual; that is to say, that what any man does by means +of it could never have been done by any other man. Properly speaking, +this work is all pleasure: true, there are pains and perplexities and +weariness in it, but they are like the troubles of a beautiful life; the +dark places that make the bright ones brighter: they are the romance of +the work and do but elevate the workman, not depress him: I would call +this Imaginative Work. + +Now I can fancy that at first sight it may seem to you as if there were +more difference between this last and Intelligent Work, than between +Intelligent Work and Mechanical Toil: but ’tis not so. The difference +between these two is the difference between light and darkness, between +Ormuzd and Ahriman: whereas the difference between Intelligent work and +what for want of a better word I am calling Imaginative work, is a matter +of degree only; and in times when art is abundant and noble there is no +break in the chain from the humblest of the lower to the greatest of the +higher class; from the poor weaver’s who chuckles as the bright colour +comes round again, to the great painter anxious and doubtful if he can +give to the world the whole of his thought or only nine-tenths of it, +they are all artists—that is men; while the mechanical workman, who does +not note the difference between bright and dull in his colours, but only +knows them by numbers, is, while he is at his work, no man, but a +machine. Indeed when Intelligent work coexists with Imaginative, there +is no hard and fast line between them; in the very best and happiest +times of art, there is scarce any Intelligent work which is not +Imaginative also; and there is but little of effort or doubt, or sign of +unexpressed desires even in the highest of the Imaginative work: the +blessing of Equality elevates the lesser, and calms the greater, art. + +Now further, Mechanical Toil is bred of that hurry and thoughtfulness of +civilisation of which, as aforesaid, the middle classes of this country +have been such powerful furtherers: on the face of it it is hostile to +civilisation, a curse that civilisation has made for itself and can no +longer think of abolishing or controlling: such it seems, I say; but +since it bears with it change and tremendous change, it may well be that +there is something more than mere loss in it: it will full surely destroy +art as we know art, unless art newborn destroy it: yet belike at the +worst it will destroy other things beside which are the poison of art, +and in the long run itself also, and thus make way for the new art, of +whose form we know nothing. + +Intelligent work is the child of struggling, hopeful, progressive +civilisation: and its office is to add fresh interest to simple and +uneventful lives, to soothe discontent with innocent pleasure fertile of +deeds gainful to mankind; to bless the many toiling millions with hope +daily recurring, and which it will by no means disappoint. + +Imaginative work is the very blossom of civilisation triumphant and +hopeful; it would fain lead men to aspire towards perfection: each hope +that it fulfils gives birth to yet another hope: it bears in its bosom +the worth and the meaning of life and the counsel to strive to understand +everything; to fear nothing and to hate nothing: in a word, ’tis the +symbol and sacrament of the Courage of the World. + +Now thus it stands to-day with these three kinds of work; Mechanical Toil +has swallowed Intelligent Work and all the lower part of Imaginative +Work, and the enormous mass of the very worst now confronts the slender +but still bright array of the very best: what is left of art is rallied +to its citadel of the highest intellectual art, and stands at bay there. + +At first sight its hope of victory is slender indeed: yet to us now +living it seems as if man had not yet lost all that part of his soul +which longs for beauty: nay we cannot but hope that it is not yet dying. +If we are not deceived in that hope, if the art of to-day has really come +alive out of the slough of despond which we call the eighteenth century, +it will surely grow and gather strength and draw to it other forms of +intellect and hope that now scarcely know it; and then, whatever changes +it may go through, it will at the last be victorious, and bring abundant +content to mankind. On the other hand, if, as some think, it be but the +reflection and feeble ghost of that glorious autumn which ended the good +days of the mighty art of the Middle Ages, it will take but little +killing: Mechanical Toil will sweep over all the handiwork of man, and +art will be gone. + +I myself am too busy a man to trouble myself much as to what may happen +after that: I can only say that if you do not like the thought of that +dull blank, even if you know or care little for art, do not cast the +thought of it aside, but think of it again and again, and cherish the +trouble it breeds till such a future seems unendurable to you; and then +make up your minds that you will not bear it; and even if you distrust +the artists that now are, set yourself to clear the way for the artists +that are to come. We shall not count you among our enemies then, however +hardly you deal with us. + +I have spoken of one most important part of that task; I have prayed you +to set yourselves earnestly to protecting what is left, and recovering +what is lost of the Natural Fairness of the Earth: no less I pray you to +do what you may to raise up some firm ground amid the great flood of +mechanical toil, to make an effort to win human and hopeful work for +yourselves and your fellows. + +But if our first task of guarding the beauty of the Earth was hard, this +is far harder, nor can I pretend to think that we can attack our enemy +directly; yet indirectly surely something may be done, or at least the +foundations laid for something. + +For Art breeds Art, and every worthy work done and delighted in by maker +and user begets a longing for more: and since art cannot be fashioned by +mechanical toil, the demand for real art will mean a demand for +intelligent work, which if persisted in will in time create its due +supply—at least I hope so. + +I believe that what I am now saying will be well understood by those who +really care about art, but to speak plainly I know that these are rarely +to be found even among the cultivated classes: it must be confessed that +the middle classes of our civilisation have embraced luxury instead of +art, and that we are even so blindly base as to hug ourselves on it, and +to insult the memory of valiant people of past times and to mock at them +because they were not encumbered with the nuisances that foolish habit +has made us look on as necessaries. Be sure that we are not beginning to +prepare for the art that is to be, till we have swept all that out of our +minds, and are setting to work to rid ourselves of all the useless +luxuries (by some called comforts) that make our stuffy art-stifling +houses more truly savage than a Zulu’s kraal or an East Greenlander’s +snow hut. + +I feel sure that many a man is longing to set his hand to this if he only +durst; I believe that there are simple people who think that they are +dull to art, and who are really only perplexed and wearied by finery and +rubbish: if not from these, ’tis at least from the children of these that +we may look for the beginnings of the building up of the art that is to +be. + +Meanwhile, I say, till the beginning of new construction is obvious, let +us be at least destructive of the sham art: it is full surely one of the +curses of modern life, that if people have not time and eyes to discern +or money to buy the real object of their desire, they must needs have its +mechanical substitute. On this lazy and cowardly habit feeds and grows +and flourishes mechanical toil and all the slavery of mind and body it +brings with it: from this stupidity are born the itch of the public to +over-reach the tradesmen they deal with, the determination (usually +successful) of the tradesmen to over-reach them, and all the mockery and +flouting that has been cast of late (not without reason) on the British +tradesman and the British workman,—men just as honest as ourselves, if we +would not compel them to cheat us, and reward them for doing it. + +Now if the public knew anything of art, that is excellence in things made +by man, they would not abide the shams of it; and if the real thing were +not to be had, they would learn to do without, nor think their gentility +injured by the forbearance. + +Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very +foundation of refinement: a sanded floor and whitewashed walls, and the +green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy +palace amid the smoke with a regiment of housemaids always working to +smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is +the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings? + +So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art, at least learn to hate +sham art and reject it. It is not so much because the wretched thing is +so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it from you; it is +much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that +lies within them: look through them and see all that has gone to their +fashioning, and you will see how vain labour, and sorrow, and disgrace +have been their companions from the first,—and all this for trifles that +no man really needs! + +Learn to do without; there is virtue in those words; a force that rightly +used would choke both demand and supply of Mechanical Toil: would make it +stick to its last: the making of machines. + +And then from simplicity of life would rise up the longing for beauty, +which cannot yet be dead in men’s souls, and we know that nothing can +satisfy that demand but Intelligent work rising gradually into +Imaginative work; which will turn all ‘operatives’ into workmen, into +artists, into men. + +Now, I have been trying to show you how the hurry of modern Civilisation, +accompanied by the tyrannous Organisation of labour which was a necessity +to the full development of Competitive Commerce, has taken from the +people at large, gentle and simple, the eyes to discern and the hands to +fashion that popular art which was once the chief solace and joy of the +world: I have asked you to think of that as no light matter, but a +grievous mishap: I have prayed you to strive to remedy this evil: first +by guarding jealously what is left, and by trying earnestly to win back +what is lost of the Fairness of the Earth; and next by rejecting luxury, +that you may embrace art, if you can, or if indeed you in your short +lives cannot learn what art means, that you may at least live a simple +life fit for men. + +And in all I have been saying, what I have been really urging on you is +this—Reverence for the life of Man upon the Earth: let the past be past, +every whit of it that is not still living in us: let the dead bury their +dead, but let us turn to the living, and with boundless courage and what +hope we may, refuse to let the Earth be joyless in the days to come. + +What lies before us of hope or fear for this? Well, let us remember that +those past days whose art was so worthy, did nevertheless forget much of +what was due to the Life of Man upon the Earth; and so belike it was to +revenge this neglect that art was delivered to our hands for maiming: to +us, who were blinded by our eager chase of those things which our +forefathers had neglected, and by the chase of other things which seemed +revealed to us on our hurried way, not seldom, it may be for our +beguiling. + +And of that to which we were blinded, not all was unworthy: nay the most +of it was deep-rooted in men’s souls, and was a necessary part of their +Life upon the Earth, and claims our reverence still: let us add this +knowledge to our other knowledge: and there will still be a future for +the arts. Let us remember this, and amid simplicity of life turn our +eyes to real beauty that can be shared by all: and then though the days +worsen, and no rag of the elder art be left for our teaching, yet the new +art may yet arise among us, and even if it have the hands of a child +together with the heart of a troubled man, still it may bear on for us to +better times the tokens of our reverence for the Life of Man upon the +Earth. For we indeed freed from the bondage of foolish habit and dulling +luxury might at last have eyes wherewith to see: and should have to +babble to one another many things of our joy in the life around us: the +faces of people in the streets bearing the tokens of mirth and sorrow and +hope, and all the tale of their lives: the scraps of nature the busiest +of us would come across; birds and beasts and the little worlds they live +in; and even in the very town the sky above us and the drift of the +clouds across it; the wind’s hand on the slim trees, and its voice amid +their branches, and all the ever-recurring deeds of nature; nor would the +road or the river winding past our homes fail to tell us stories of the +country-side, and men’s doings in field and fell. And whiles we should +fall to muse on the times when all the ways of nature were mere wonders +to men, yet so well beloved of them that they called them by men’s names +and gave them deeds of men to do; and many a time there would come before +us memories of the deed of past times, and of the aspirations of those +mighty peoples whose deaths have made our lives, and their sorrows our +joys. + +How could we keep silence of all this? and what voice could tell it but +the voice of art: and what audience for such a tale would content us but +all men living on the Earth? + +This is what Architecture hopes to be: it will have this life, or else +death; and it is for us now living between the past and the future to say +whether it shall live or die. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{1} _Delivered before the Trades’ Guild of Learning_, _December_ 4, +1877. + +{38} _Delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of +Design_, _February_ 19, 1879. + +{50} Now incorporated in the _Handbook of Indian Art_, by Dr. (now Sir +George) Birdwood, published by the Science and Art Department. + +{61} These were originally published in _Fun_. + +{71} _Delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of +Design_, _February_ 19, 1880. + +{96} As I corrected these sheets for the press, the case of two such +pieces of destruction is forced upon me: first, the remains of the +Refectory of Westminster Abbey, with the adjacent Ashburnham House, a +beautiful work, probably by Inigo Jones; and second, Magdalen Bridge at +Oxford. Certainly this seems to mock my hope of the influence of +education on the Beauty of Life; since the first scheme of destruction is +eagerly pressed forward by the authorities of Westminster School, the +second scarcely opposed by the resident members of the University of +Oxford. + +{100} Since perhaps some people may read these words who are not of +Birmingham, I ought to say that it was authoritatively explained at the +meeting to which I addressed these words, that in Birmingham the law is +strictly enforced. + +{103} Not _quite_ always: in the little colony at Bedford Park, +Chiswick, as many trees have been left as possible, to the boundless +advantage of its quaint and pretty architecture. + +{114} _A Paper read before tile Trades’ Guild of Learning and the +Birmingham Society of Artists_. + +{128} I know that well-designed hammered iron trellises and gates have +been used happily enough, though chiefly in rather grandiose gardens, and +so they might be again—one of these days—but I fear not yet awhile. + +{169} _Delivered at the London Institution_, _March_ 10, 1880. + +{186} Indeed it is a new world now, when the new Cowley dog-holes must +needs slay Magdalen Bridge!—Nov. 1881. + +{208} Or, to put it plainer still, the unlimited breeding of mechanical +workmen as _mechanical workmen_, not as _men_. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOPES AND FEARS FOR ART*** + + +******* This file should be named 3773-0.txt or 3773-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/7/3773 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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