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diff --git a/3773-h/3773-h.htm b/3773-h/3773-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b782591 --- /dev/null +++ b/3773-h/3773-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5934 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Hopes and Fears for Art, by William Morris</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +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: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOPES AND FEARS FOR ART*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1919 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>HOPES & FEARS FOR<br /> +ART. FIVE LECTURES<br /> +BY WILLIAM MORRIS</h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>POCKET EDITION</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br /> +39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW +YORK</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">1919</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p>1st Edition,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center">Ellis & White,</p> +</td> +<td><p>1882</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>2nd ,,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center">do.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1883</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>3rd ,,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center">do.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1883</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>4th ,,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center">Longmans</p> +</td> +<td><p>1896</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>5th ,,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center">do.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1898</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>6th ,,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center">do.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1903</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>7th ,,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center">do.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1911</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p style="text-align: center">Included in Longmans’ +Pocket<br /> +Library, February 1919</p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Lesser Arts</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Art of the People</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Beauty of Life</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page71">71</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Making the Best of It</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Prospects of Architecture in Civilisation</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>THE +LESSER ARTS <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1" +class="citation">[1]</a></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Hereafter</span> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>is</i> 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.</p> +<p>To give people pleasure in the things they must perforce +<i>use</i>, that is one great office of decoration; to give +people pleasure in the things they must perforce <i>make</i>, +that is the other use of it.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Stones of Venice</i> 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.</p> +<p>Nevertheless there <i>is</i> 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 <i>popular</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>It is because I must now ask you this question: All these good +things—will you have them? will you cast them from you?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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 <i>artists</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>philosophy</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, +<i>may</i> 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.</p> +<p>And then—what then?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>I said, <i>to see</i> 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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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: <i>Bell-wether took the +leap</i>, <i>and we all went over</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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>i.e.</i> +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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>without</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>this</i> +end, <i>general capability in dealing with the arts</i>.</p> +<p>For I wish specially to impress this upon you, that +<i>designing</i> 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.</p> +<p>As to the kind of drawing that should be taught to men engaged +in ornamental work, there is only <i>one best</i> 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 <i>direct</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>men</i>?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>buying</i> goods at +their due price; with the pleasure of <i>selling</i> goods that +we could be proud of both for fair price and fair workmanship: +with the pleasure of working soundly and without haste at +<i>making</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>bad</i> work, in unsuccessful labour; why should we +decorate <i>that</i>? and how can we bear to be always +unsuccessful in our labour?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>manners</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a +few, or freedom for a few.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <span +class="GutSmall">LIBERTY</span>, so we shall one day achieve +<span class="GutSmall">EQUALITY</span>, which, and which only, +means <span class="GutSmall">FRATERNITY</span>, and so have +leisure from poverty and all its griping, sordid cares.</p> +<p>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 <i>servant</i>, every one +scorning to be any man’s <i>master</i>: men will then +assuredly be happy in their work, and that happiness will +assuredly bring forth decorative, noble, <i>popular</i> art.</p> +<p>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 +<i>best</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>hope</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>THE +ART OF THE PEOPLE <a name="citation38"></a><a href="#footnote38" +class="citation">[38]</a></h2> +<blockquote><p>‘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.’—<span class="smcap">Daniel +Defoe</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I <span class="smcap">know</span> 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 <i>all</i> met together +because of the interest we take in what concerns these arts, I +would rather address myself to you <i>all</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>artistically</i> 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.</p> +<p>What is wrong, then, with us or the arts, since what was once +accounted so glorious, is now deemed paltry?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>How, then, shall we, the minority, carry out the duty which +our position thrusts upon us, of striving to grow into a +majority?</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>must</i> we turn to +then?</p> +<p>To what else, save to our work, our daily labour?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>What shall we do then? what shall our necessary hours of +labour bring forth?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <a name="citation50"></a><a +href="#footnote50" class="citation">[50]</a> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>friends</i>; though such a feeble folk as I have told you of +one could scarce care to call foes.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="citation61"></a><a href="#footnote61" +class="citation">[61]</a> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>art which is to be made by the people and for the +people</i>, <i>as a happiness to the maker and the +user</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>But I will say at least, Courage! for things wonderful, +unhoped-for, glorious, have happened even in this short while I +have been alive.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>THE +BEAUTY OF LIFE <a name="citation71"></a><a href="#footnote71" +class="citation">[71]</a></h2> +<blockquote><p>‘—propter vitam vivendi perdere +causas.’—<i>Juvenal</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I <span class="smcap">stand</span> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>all</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>art</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>not</i> always so.</p> +<p>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, <i>all</i> +people shared in art.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Wholly unconscious—yes, but we are no longer so: there +lies the sting of it, and there also the hope.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>made by the people for the people +as a joy for the maker and the user</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>But how shall they and we, and all of us, move? What is +the remedy?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>all</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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; <a +name="citation96"></a><a href="#footnote96" +class="citation">[96]</a> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>Well, and as to the smoke Act itself: I don’t know what +heed you pay to it in Birmingham, <a name="citation100"></a><a +href="#footnote100" class="citation">[100]</a> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="citation103"></a><a href="#footnote103" +class="citation">[103]</a> 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.</p> +<p>But here again see how helpless those are who care about art +or nature amidst the hurry of the Century of Commerce.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Art made by +the people and for the people as a joy to the maker and the +user</i>?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>However, I must try to answer the question I have supposed +put, how are we to pay for decent houses?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<p>‘<i>Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to +be useful or believe to be beautiful</i>.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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: <i>Have nothing in your houses which you +do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Art made by the people and for the +people</i>, <i>a joy to the maker and the user</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>MAKING THE BEST OF IT <a name="citation114"></a><a +href="#footnote114" class="citation">[114]</a></h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">have</span> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Well, I have spoken of three qualifications to that +degradation of our dwellings which characterises this period of +history only.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Now, to my mind, the first step towards this end is, to follow +the fashion of our nation, so often, so <i>very</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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>i.e.</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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. <a name="citation128"></a><a href="#footnote128" +class="citation">[128]</a></p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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>i.e.</i>, 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.</p> +<p>Tints of green from pure and pale to deepish and grey: always +remembering that the purer the paler, and the deeper the +greyer.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>raison +d’être</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Without order your work cannot even exist; without meaning, it +were better not to exist.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>look</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Yes, such a man will stop the machine perhaps; but it is only +through him that you can have art, <i>i.e.</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>can</i> make that bargain aforesaid, +who shall say? I know well—who could fail to know +it?—that the difficulties are great.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>THE +PROSPECTS OF ARCHITECTURE IN CIVILISATION <a +name="citation169"></a><a href="#footnote169" +class="citation">[169]</a></h2> +<blockquote><p>‘—the horrible doctrine that this +universe is a Cockney Nightmare—which no creature ought for +a moment to believe or listen to.’—<span +class="smcap">Thomas Carlyle</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>is</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Therefore I will say that the contrast between past art and +present, the universal beauty of men’s habitations as they +<i>were</i> fashioned, and the universal ugliness of them as they +<i>are</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>not</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>No, there was no effort or wonder about it when it was built, +though its beauty makes it strange now.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Do you like it? You I mean, who have not studied art and +do not think you care about it?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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. <a +name="citation186"></a><a href="#footnote186" +class="citation">[186]</a></p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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>i.e.</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>For this is the essence of art, and the thing that is eternal +to it, whatever else may be passing and accidental.</p> +<p>Here it is, you see, wherein the art of to-day is so far +astray, would that I could say wherein it <i>has been</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>may</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>all</i> 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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>know</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>shall</i> be rightly +understood?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>is</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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: <a +name="citation208"></a><a href="#footnote208" +class="citation">[208]</a> Let us call this kind of work +Mechanical Toil.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> <i>Delivered before the +Trades’ Guild of Learning</i>, <i>December</i> 4, 1877.</p> +<p><a name="footnote38"></a><a href="#citation38" +class="footnote">[38]</a> <i>Delivered before the +Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design</i>, +<i>February</i> 19, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote50"></a><a href="#citation50" +class="footnote">[50]</a> Now incorporated in the +<i>Handbook of Indian Art</i>, by Dr. (now Sir George) Birdwood, +published by the Science and Art Department.</p> +<p><a name="footnote61"></a><a href="#citation61" +class="footnote">[61]</a> These were originally published +in <i>Fun</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote71"></a><a href="#citation71" +class="footnote">[71]</a> <i>Delivered before the +Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design</i>, +<i>February</i> 19, 1880.</p> +<p><a name="footnote96"></a><a href="#citation96" +class="footnote">[96]</a> 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote100"></a><a href="#citation100" +class="footnote">[100]</a> 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote103"></a><a href="#citation103" +class="footnote">[103]</a> Not <i>quite</i> 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote114"></a><a href="#citation114" +class="footnote">[114]</a> <i>A Paper read before tile +Trades’ Guild of Learning and the Birmingham Society of +Artists</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote128"></a><a href="#citation128" +class="footnote">[128]</a> 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote169"></a><a href="#citation169" +class="footnote">[169]</a> <i>Delivered at the London +Institution</i>, <i>March</i> 10, 1880.</p> +<p><a name="footnote186"></a><a href="#citation186" +class="footnote">[186]</a> Indeed it is a new world now, +when the new Cowley dog-holes must needs slay Magdalen +Bridge!—Nov. 1881.</p> +<p><a name="footnote208"></a><a href="#citation208" +class="footnote">[208]</a> Or, to put it plainer still, the +unlimited breeding of mechanical workmen as <i>mechanical +workmen</i>, not as <i>men</i>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOPES AND FEARS FOR ART***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 3773-h.htm or 3773-h.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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