diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/haffa10.txt | 5815 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/haffa10.zip | bin | 0 -> 124884 bytes |
2 files changed, 5815 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/haffa10.txt b/old/haffa10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c657021 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/haffa10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5815 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext Hopes and Fears for Art, by William Morris +#12 in our series by William Morris + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. The words +are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they +need about what they can legally do with the texts. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Are Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below, including for donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 + + + +Title: Hopes and Fears for Art + +Author: William Morris + +Release Date: February, 2003 [Etext #3773] +[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule] +[The actual date this file first posted = 08/23/01] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Project Gutenberg Etext Hopes and Fears for Art, by William Morris +*******This file should be named haffa10.txt or haffa10.zip******* + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, haffa11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, haffa10a.txt + +This etext was produced by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, +from the 1919 Longmans, Green and Co. edition. + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after +the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our sites at: +http://gutenberg.net +http://promo.net/pg + + +Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement +can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 +or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext +files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+ +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 4,000 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of July 12, 2001 contributions are only being solicited from people in: +Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, +Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, +Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North +Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, +Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, +Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in about 45 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising +will begin in the additional states. Please feel +free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork +to legally request donations in all 50 states. If +your state is not listed and you would like to know +if we have added it since the list you have, just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in +states where we are not yet registered, we know +of no prohibition against accepting donations +from donors in these states who approach us with +an offer to donate. + + +International donations are accepted, +but we don't know ANYTHING about how +to make them tax-deductible, or +even if they CAN be made deductible, +and don't have the staff to handle it +even if there are ways. + +All donations should be made to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541, +and has been approved as a 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal +Revenue Service (IRS). Donations are tax-deductible to the maximum +extent permitted by law. As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the +additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +*** + + +Example command-line FTP session: + +ftp ftp.ibiblio.org +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext02, etc. +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07/27/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, +from the 1919 Longmans, Green and Co. edition. + + + + + +HOPES AND FEARS FOR ART + +by William Morris + + + + +Contents: + +The Lesser Arts +The Art of the People +The Beauty of Life +Making the Best of It +The Prospects of Architecture in Civilisation + + + +THE LESSER ARTS {1} + + + +Hereafter I hope in another lecture to have the pleasure of laying +before you an historical survey of the lesser, or as they are called +the Decorative Arts, and I must confess it would have been +pleasanter to me to have begun my talk with you by entering at once +upon the subject of the history of this great industry; but, as I +have something to say in a third lecture about various matters +connected with the practice of Decoration among ourselves in these +days, I feel that I should be in a false position before you, and +one that might lead to confusion, or overmuch explanation, if I did +not let you know what I think on the nature and scope of these arts, +on their condition at the present time, and their outlook in times +to come. In doing this it is like enough that I shall say things +with which you will very much disagree; I must ask you therefore +from the outset to believe that whatever I may blame or whatever I +may praise, I neither, when I think of what history has been, am +inclined to lament the past, to despise the present, or despair of +the future; that I believe all the change and stir about us is a +sign of the world's life, and that it will lead--by ways, indeed, of +which we have no guess--to the bettering of all mankind. + +Now as to the scope and nature of these Arts I have to say, that +though when I come more into the details of my subject I shall not +meddle much with the great art of Architecture, and less still with +the great arts commonly called Sculpture and Painting, yet I cannot +in my own mind quite sever them from those lesser so-called +Decorative Arts, which I have to speak about: it is only in latter +times, and under the most intricate conditions of life, that they +have fallen apart from one another; and I hold that, when they are +so parted, it is ill for the Arts altogether: the lesser ones +become trivial, mechanical, unintelligent, incapable of resisting +the changes pressed upon them by fashion or dishonesty; while the +greater, however they may be practised for a while by men of great +minds and wonder-working hands, unhelped by the lesser, unhelped by +each other, are sure to lose their dignity of popular arts, and +become nothing but dull adjuncts to unmeaning pomp, or ingenious +toys for a few rich and idle men. + +However, I have not undertaken to talk to you of Architecture, +Sculpture, and Painting, in the narrower sense of those words, +since, most unhappily as I think, these master-arts, these arts more +specially of the intellect, are at the present day divorced from +decoration in its narrower sense. Our subject is that great body of +art, by means of which men have at all times more or less striven to +beautify the familiar matters of everyday life: a wide subject, a +great industry; both a great part of the history of the world, and a +most helpful instrument to the study of that history. + +A very great industry indeed, comprising the crafts of house- +building, painting, joinery and carpentry, smiths' work, pottery and +glass-making, weaving, and many others: a body of art most +important to the public in general, but still more so to us +handicraftsmen; since there is scarce anything that they use, and +that we fashion, but it has always been thought to be unfinished +till it has had some touch or other of decoration about it. True it +is that in many or most cases we have got so used to this ornament, +that we look upon it as if it had grown of itself, and note it no +more than the mosses on the dry sticks with which we light our +fires. So much the worse! for there IS the decoration, or some +pretence of it, and it has, or ought to have, a use and a meaning. +For, and this is at the root of the whole matter, everything made by +man's hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; +beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it +is discordant with Nature, and thwarts her; it cannot be +indifferent: we, for our parts, are busy or sluggish, eager or +unhappy, and our eyes are apt to get dulled to this eventfulness of +form in those things which we are always looking at. Now it is one +of the chief uses of decoration, the chief part of its alliance with +nature, that it has to sharpen our dulled senses in this matter: +for this end are those wonders of intricate patterns interwoven, +those strange forms invented, which men have so long delighted in: +forms and intricacies that do not necessarily imitate nature, but in +which the hand of the craftsman is guided to work in the way that +she does, till the web, the cup, or the knife, look as natural, nay +as lovely, as the green field, the river bank, or the mountain +flint. + +To give people pleasure in the things they must perforce USE, that +is one great office of decoration; to give people pleasure in the +things they must perforce MAKE, that is the other use of it. + +Does not our subject look important enough now? I say that without +these arts, our rest would be vacant and uninteresting, our labour +mere endurance, mere wearing away of body and mind. + +As for that last use of these arts, the giving us pleasure in our +work, I scarcely know how to speak strongly enough of it; and yet if +I did not know the value of repeating a truth again and again, I +should have to excuse myself to you for saying any more about this, +when I remember how a great man now living has spoken of it: I mean +my friend Professor John Ruskin: if you read the chapter in the 2nd +vol. of his Stones of Venice entitled, 'On the Nature of Gothic, and +the Office of the Workman therein,' you will read at once the truest +and the most eloquent words that can possibly be said on the +subject. What I have to say upon it can scarcely be more than an +echo of his words, yet I repeat there is some use in reiterating a +truth, lest it be forgotten; so I will say this much further: we +all know what people have said about the curse of labour, and what +heavy and grievous nonsense are the more part of their words +thereupon; whereas indeed the real curses of craftsmen have been the +curse of stupidity, and the curse of injustice from within and from +without: no, I cannot suppose there is anybody here who would think +it either a good life, or an amusing one, to sit with one's hands +before one doing nothing--to live like a gentleman, as fools call +it. + +Nevertheless there IS dull work to be done, and a weary business it +is setting men about such work, and seeing them through it, and I +would rather do the work twice over with my own hands than have such +a job: but now only let the arts which we are talking of beautify +our labour, and be widely spread, intelligent, well understood both +by the maker and the user, let them grow in one word POPULAR, and +there will be pretty much an end of dull work and its wearing +slavery; and no man will any longer have an excuse for talking about +the curse of labour, no man will any longer have an excuse for +evading the blessing of labour. I believe there is nothing that +will aid the world's progress so much as the attainment of this; I +protest there is nothing in the world that I desire so much as this, +wrapped up, as I am sure it is, with changes political and social, +that in one way or another we all desire. + +Now if the objection be made, that these arts have been the +handmaids of luxury, of tyranny, and of superstition, I must needs +say that it is true in a sense; they have been so used, as many +other excellent things have been. But it is also true that, among +some nations, their most vigorous and freest times have been the +very blossoming times of art: while at the same time, I must allow +that these decorative arts have flourished among oppressed peoples, +who have seemed to have no hope of freedom: yet I do not think that +we shall be wrong in thinking that at such times, among such +peoples, art, at least, was free; when it has not been, when it has +really been gripped by superstition, or by luxury, it has +straightway begun to sicken under that grip. Nor must you forget +that when men say popes, kings, and emperors built such and such +buildings, it is a mere way of speaking. You look in your history- +books to see who built Westminster Abbey, who built St. Sophia at +Constantinople, and they tell you Henry III., Justinian the Emperor. +Did they? or, rather, men like you and me, handicraftsmen, who have +left no names behind them, nothing but their work? + +Now as these arts call people's attention and interest to the +matters of everyday life in the present, so also, and that I think +is no little matter, they call our attention at every step to that +history, of which, I said before, they are so great a part; for no +nation, no state of society, however rude, has been wholly without +them: nay, there are peoples not a few, of whom we know scarce +anything, save that they thought such and such forms beautiful. So +strong is the bond between history and decoration, that in the +practice of the latter we cannot, if we would, wholly shake off the +influence of past times over what we do at present. I do not think +it is too much to say that no man, however original he may be, can +sit down to-day and draw the ornament of a cloth, or the form of an +ordinary vessel or piece of furniture, that will be other than a +development or a degradation of forms used hundreds of years ago; +and these, too, very often, forms that once had a serious meaning, +though they are now become little more than a habit of the hand; +forms that were once perhaps the mysterious symbols of worships and +beliefs now little remembered or wholly forgotten. Those who have +diligently followed the delightful study of these arts are able as +if through windows to look upon the life of the past:- the very +first beginnings of thought among nations whom we cannot even name; +the terrible empires of the ancient East; the free vigour and glory +of Greece; the heavy weight, the firm grasp of Rome; the fall of her +temporal Empire which spread so wide about the world all that good +and evil which men can never forget, and never cease to feel; the +clashing of East and West, South and North, about her rich and +fruitful daughter Byzantium; the rise, the dissensions, and the +waning of Islam; the wanderings of Scandinavia; the Crusades; the +foundation of the States of modern Europe; the struggles of free +thought with ancient dying system--with all these events and their +meaning is the history of popular art interwoven; with all this, I +say, the careful student of decoration as an historical industry +must be familiar. When I think of this, and the usefulness of all +this knowledge, at a time when history has become so earnest a study +amongst us as to have given us, as it were, a new sense: at a time +when we so long to know the reality of all that has happened, and +are to be put off no longer with the dull records of the battles and +intrigues of kings and scoundrels,--I say when I think of all this, +I hardly know how to say that this interweaving of the Decorative +Arts with the history of the past is of less importance than their +dealings with the life of the present: for should not these +memories also be a part of our daily life? + +And now let me recapitulate a little before I go further, before we +begin to look into the condition of the arts at the present day. +These arts, I have said, are part of a great system invented for the +expression of a man's delight in beauty: all peoples and times have +used them; they have been the joy of free nations, and the solace of +oppressed nations; religion has used and elevated them, has abused +and degraded them; they are connected with all history, and are +clear teachers of it; and, best of all, they are the sweeteners of +human labour, both to the handicraftsman, whose life is spent in +working in them, and to people in general who are influenced by the +sight of them at every turn of the day's work: they make our toil +happy, our rest fruitful. + +And now if all I have said seems to you but mere open-mouthed praise +of these arts, I must say that it is not for nothing that what I +have hitherto put before you has taken that form. + +It is because I must now ask you this question: All these good +things--will you have them? will you cast them from you? + +Are you surprised at my question--you, most of whom, like myself, +are engaged in the actual practice of the arts that are, or ought to +be, popular? + +In explanation, I must somewhat repeat what I have already said. +Time was when the mystery and wonder of handicrafts were well +acknowledged by the world, when imagination and fancy mingled with +all things made by man; and in those days all handicraftsmen were +ARTISTS, as we should now call them. But the thought of man became +more intricate, more difficult to express; art grew a heavier thing +to deal with, and its labour was more divided among great men, +lesser men, and little men; till that art, which was once scarce +more than a rest of body and soul, as the hand cast the shuttle or +swung the hammer, became to some men so serious labour, that their +working lives have been one long tragedy of hope and fear, joy and +trouble. This was the growth of art: like all growth, it was good +and fruitful for awhile; like all fruitful growth, it grew into +decay; like all decay of what was once fruitful, it will grow into +something new. + +Into decay; for as the arts sundered into the greater and the +lesser, contempt on one side, carelessness on the other arose, both +begotten of ignorance of that PHILOSOPHY of the Decorative Arts, a +hint of which I have tried just now to put before you. The artist +came out from the handicraftsmen, and left them without hope of +elevation, while he himself was left without the help of +intelligent, industrious sympathy. Both have suffered; the artist +no less than the workman. It is with art as it fares with a company +of soldiers before a redoubt, when the captain runs forward full of +hope and energy, but looks not behind him to see if his men are +following, and they hang back, not knowing why they are brought +there to die. The captain's life is spent for nothing, and his men +are sullen prisoners in the redoubt of Unhappiness and Brutality. + +I must in plain words say of the Decorative Arts, of all the arts, +that it is not so much that we are inferior in them to all who have +gone before us, but rather that they are in a state of anarchy and +disorganisation, which makes a sweeping change necessary and +certain. + +So that again I ask my question, All that good fruit which the arts +should bear, will you have it? will you cast it from you? Shall +that sweeping change that must come, be the change of loss or of +gain? + +We who believe in the continuous life of the world, surely we are +bound to hope that the change will bring us gain and not loss, and +to strive to bring that gain about. + +Yet how the world may answer my question, who can say? A man in his +short life can see but a little way ahead, and even in mine +wonderful and unexpected things have come to pass. I must needs say +that therein lies my hope rather than in all I see going on round +about us. Without disputing that if the imaginative arts perish, +some new thing, at present unguessed of, MAY be put forward to +supply their loss in men's lives, I cannot feel happy in that +prospect, nor can I believe that mankind will endure such a loss for +ever: but in the meantime the present state of the arts and their +dealings with modern life and progress seem to me to point, in +appearance at least, to this immediate future; that the world, which +has for a long time busied itself about other matters than the arts, +and has carelessly let them sink lower and lower, till many not +uncultivated men, ignorant of what they once were, and hopeless of +what they might yet be, look upon them with mere contempt; that the +world, I say, thus busied and hurried, will one day wipe the slate, +and be clean rid in her impatience of the whole matter with all its +tangle and trouble. + +And then--what then? + +Even now amid the squalor of London it is hard to imagine what it +will be. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, with the crowd of +lesser arts that belong to them, these, together with Music and +Poetry, will be dead and forgotten, will no longer excite or amuse +people in the least: for, once more, we must not deceive ourselves; +the death of one art means the death of all; the only difference in +their fate will be that the luckiest will be eaten the last--the +luckiest, or the unluckiest: in all that has to do with beauty the +invention and ingenuity of man will have come to a dead stop; and +all the while Nature will go on with her eternal recurrence of +lovely changes--spring, summer, autumn, and winter; sunshine, rain, +and snow; storm and fair weather; dawn, noon, and sunset; day and +night--ever bearing witness against man that he has deliberately +chosen ugliness instead of beauty, and to live where he is strongest +amidst squalor or blank emptiness. + +You see, sirs, we cannot quite imagine it; any more, perhaps, than +our forefathers of ancient London, living in the pretty, carefully +whitened houses, with the famous church and its huge spire rising +above them,--than they, passing about the fair gardens running down +to the broad river, could have imagined a whole county or more +covered over with hideous hovels, big, middle-sized, and little, +which should one day be called London. + +Sirs, I say that this dead blank of the arts that I more than dread +is difficult even now to imagine; yet I fear that I must say that if +it does not come about, it will be owing to some turn of events +which we cannot at present foresee: but I hold that if it does +happen, it will only last for a time, that it will be but a burning +up of the gathered weeds, so that the field may bear more +abundantly. I hold that men would wake up after a while, and look +round and find the dulness unbearable, and begin once more +inventing, imitating, and imagining, as in earlier days. + +That faith comforts me, and I can say calmly if the blank space must +happen, it must, and amidst its darkness the new seed must sprout. +So it has been before: first comes birth, and hope scarcely +conscious of itself; then the flower and fruit of mastery, with hope +more than conscious enough, passing into insolence, as decay follows +ripeness; and then--the new birth again. + +Meantime it is the plain duty of all who look seriously on the arts +to do their best to save the world from what at the best will be a +loss, the result of ignorance and unwisdom; to prevent, in fact, +that most discouraging of all changes, the supplying the place of an +extinct brutality by a new one; nay, even if those who really care +for the arts are so weak and few that they can do nothing else, it +may be their business to keep alive some tradition, some memory of +the past, so that the new life when it comes may not waste itself +more than enough in fashioning wholly new forms for its new spirit. + +To what side then shall those turn for help, who really understand +the gain of a great art in the world, and the loss of peace and good +life that must follow from the lack of it? I think that they must +begin by acknowledging that the ancient art, the art of unconscious +intelligence, as one should call it, which began without a date, at +least so long ago as those strange and masterly scratchings on +mammoth-bones and the like found but the other day in the drift-- +that this art of unconscious intelligence is all but dead; that what +little of it is left lingers among half-civilised nations, and is +growing coarser, feebler, less intelligent year by year; nay, it is +mostly at the mercy of some commercial accident, such as the arrival +of a few shiploads of European dye-stuffs or a few dozen orders from +European merchants: this they must recognise, and must hope to see +in time its place filled by a new art of conscious intelligence, the +birth of wiser, simpler, freer ways of life than the world leads +now, than the world has ever led. + +I said, TO SEE this in time; I do not mean to say that our own eyes +will look upon it: it may be so far off, as indeed it seems to +some, that many would scarcely think it worth while thinking of: +but there are some of us who cannot turn our faces to the wall, or +sit deedless because our hope seems somewhat dim; and, indeed, I +think that while the signs of the last decay of the old art with all +the evils that must follow in its train are only too obvious about +us, so on the other hand there are not wanting signs of the new dawn +beyond that possible night of the arts, of which I have before +spoken; this sign chiefly, that there are some few at least who are +heartily discontented with things as they are, and crave for +something better, or at least some promise of it--this best of +signs: for I suppose that if some half-dozen men at any time +earnestly set their hearts on something coming about which is not +discordant with nature, it will come to pass one day or other; +because it is not by accident that an idea comes into the heads of a +few; rather they are pushed on, and forced to speak or act by +something stirring in the heart of the world which would otherwise +be left without expression. + +By what means then shall those work who long for reform in the arts, +and who shall they seek to kindle into eager desire for possession +of beauty, and better still, for the development of the faculty that +creates beauty? + +People say to me often enough: If you want to make your art succeed +and flourish, you must make it the fashion: a phrase which I +confess annoys me; for they mean by it that I should spend one day +over my work to two days in trying to convince rich, and supposed +influential people, that they care very much for what they really do +not care in the least, so that it may happen according to the +proverb: Bell-wether took the leap, and we all went over. Well, +such advisers are right if they are content with the thing lasting +but a little while; say till you can make a little money--if you +don't get pinched by the door shutting too quickly: otherwise they +are wrong: the people they are thinking of have too many strings to +their bow, and can turn their backs too easily on a thing that +fails, for it to be safe work trusting to their whims: it is not +their fault, they cannot help it, but they have no chance of +spending time enough over the arts to know anything practical of +them, and they must of necessity be in the hands of those who spend +their time in pushing fashion this way and that for their own +advantage. + +Sirs, there is no help to be got out of these latter, or those who +let themselves be led by them: the only real help for the +decorative arts must come from those who work in them; nor must they +be led, they must lead. + +You whose hands make those things that should be works of art, you +must be all artists, and good artists too, before the public at +large can take real interest in such things; and when you have +become so, I promise you that you shall lead the fashion; fashion +shall follow your hands obediently enough. + +That is the only way in which we can get a supply of intelligent +popular art: a few artists of the kind so-called now, what can they +do working in the teeth of difficulties thrown in their way by what +is called Commerce, but which should be called greed of money? +working helplessly among the crowd of those who are ridiculously +called manufacturers, i.e. handicraftsmen, though the more part of +them never did a stroke of hand-work in their lives, and are nothing +better than capitalists and salesmen. What can these grains of sand +do, I say, amidst the enormous mass of work turned out every year +which professes in some way to be decorative art, but the decoration +of which no one heeds except the salesmen who have to do with it, +and are hard put to it to supply the cravings of the public for +something new, not for something pretty? + +The remedy, I repeat, is plain if it can be applied; the +handicraftsman, left behind by the artist when the arts sundered, +must come up with him, must work side by side with him: apart from +the difference between a great master and a scholar, apart from the +differences of the natural bent of men's minds, which would make one +man an imitative, and another an architectural or decorative artist, +there should be no difference between those employed on strictly +ornamental work; and the body of artists dealing with this should +quicken with their art all makers of things into artists also, in +proportion to the necessities and uses of the things they would +make. + +I know what stupendous difficulties, social and economical, there +are in the way of this; yet I think that they seem to be greater +than they are: and of one thing I am sure, that no real living +decorative art is possible if this is impossible. + +It is not impossible, on the contrary it is certain to come about, +if you are at heart desirous to quicken the arts; if the world will, +for the sake of beauty and decency, sacrifice some of the things it +is so busy over (many of which I think are not very worthy of its +trouble), art will begin to grow again; as for those difficulties +above mentioned, some of them I know will in any case melt away +before the steady change of the relative conditions of men; the +rest, reason and resolute attention to the laws of nature, which are +also the laws of art, will dispose of little by little: once more, +the way will not be far to seek, if the will be with us. + +Yet, granted the will, and though the way lies ready to us, we must +not be discouraged if the journey seem barren enough at first, nay, +not even if things seem to grow worse for a while: for it is +natural enough that the very evil which has forced on the beginning +of reform should look uglier, while on the one hand life and wisdom +are building up the new, and on the other folly and deadness are +hugging the old to them. + +In this, as in all other matters, lapse of time will be needed +before things seem to straighten, and the courage and patience that +does not despise small things lying ready to be done; and care and +watchfulness, lest we begin to build the wall ere the footings are +well in; and always through all things much humility that is not +easily cast down by failure, that seeks to be taught, and is ready +to learn. + +For your teachers, they must be Nature and History: as for the +first, that you must learn of it is so obvious that I need not dwell +upon that now: hereafter, when I have to speak more of matters of +detail, I may have to speak of the manner in which you must learn of +Nature. As to the second, I do not think that any man but one of +the highest genius, could do anything in these days without much +study of ancient art, and even he would be much hindered if he +lacked it. If you think that this contradicts what I said about the +death of that ancient art, and the necessity I implied for an art +that should be characteristic of the present day, I can only say +that, in these times of plenteous knowledge and meagre performance, +if we do not study the ancient work directly and learn to understand +it, we shall find ourselves influenced by the feeble work all round +us, and shall be copying the better work through the copyists and +WITHOUT understanding it, which will by no means bring about +intelligent art. Let us therefore study it wisely, be taught by it, +kindled by it; all the while determining not to imitate or repeat +it; to have either no art at all, or an art which we have made our +own. + +Yet I am almost brought to a stand-still when bidding you to study +nature and the history of art, by remembering that this is London, +and what it is like: how can I ask working-men passing up and down +these hideous streets day by day to care about beauty? If it were +politics, we must care about that; or science, you could wrap +yourselves up in the study of facts, no doubt, without much caring +what goes on about you--but beauty! do you not see what terrible +difficulties beset art, owing to a long neglect of art--and neglect +of reason, too, in this matter? It is such a heavy question by what +effort, by what dead-lift, you can thrust this difficulty from you, +that I must perforce set it aside for the present, and must at least +hope that the study of history and its monuments will help you +somewhat herein. If you can really fill your minds with memories of +great works of art, and great times of art, you will, I think, be +able to a certain extent to look through the aforesaid ugly +surroundings, and will be moved to discontent of what is careless +and brutal now, and will, I hope, at last be so much discontented +with what is bad, that you will determine to bear no longer that +short-sighted, reckless brutality of squalor that so disgraces our +intricate civilisation. + +Well, at any rate, London is good for this, that it is well off for +museums,--which I heartily wish were to be got at seven days in the +week instead of six, or at least on the only day on which an +ordinarily busy man, one of the taxpayers who support them, can as a +rule see them quietly,--and certainly any of us who may have any +natural turn for art must get more help from frequenting them than +one can well say. It is true, however, that people need some +preliminary instruction before they can get all the good possible to +be got from the prodigious treasures of art possessed by the country +in that form: there also one sees things in a piecemeal way: nor +can I deny that there is something melancholy about a museum, such a +tale of violence, destruction, and carelessness, as its treasured +scraps tell us. + +But moreover you may sometimes have an opportunity of studying +ancient art in a narrower but a more intimate, a more kindly form, +the monuments of our own land. Sometimes only, since we live in the +middle of this world of brick and mortar, and there is little else +left us amidst it, except the ghost of the great church at +Westminster, ruined as its exterior is by the stupidity of the +restoring architect, and insulted as its glorious interior is by the +pompous undertakers' lies, by the vainglory and ignorance of the +last two centuries and a half--little besides that and the matchless +Hall near it: but when we can get beyond that smoky world, there, +out in the country we may still see the works of our fathers yet +alive amidst the very nature they were wrought into, and of which +they are so completely a part: for there indeed if anywhere, in the +English country, in the days when people cared about such things, +was there a full sympathy between the works of man, and the land +they were made for:- the land is a little land; too much shut up +within the narrow seas, as it seems, to have much space for swelling +into hugeness: there are no great wastes overwhelming in their +dreariness, no great solitudes of forests, no terrible untrodden +mountain-walls: all is measured, mingled, varied, gliding easily +one thing into another: little rivers, little plains; swelling, +speedily-changing uplands, all beset with handsome orderly trees; +little hills, little mountains, netted over with the walls of sheep- +walks: all is little; yet not foolish and blank, but serious +rather, and abundant of meaning for such as choose to seek it: it +is neither prison nor palace, but a decent home. + +All which I neither praise nor blame, but say that so it is: some +people praise this homeliness overmuch, as if the land were the very +axle-tree of the world; so do not I, nor any unblinded by pride in +themselves and all that belongs to them: others there are who scorn +it and the tameness of it: not I any the more: though it would +indeed be hard if there were nothing else in the world, no wonders, +no terrors, no unspeakable beauties: yet when we think what a small +part of the world's history, past, present, and to come, is this +land we live in, and how much smaller still in the history of the +arts, and yet how our forefathers clung to it, and with what care +and pains they adorned it, this unromantic, uneventful-looking land +of England, surely by this too our hearts may be touched, and our +hope quickened. + +For as was the land, such was the art of it while folk yet troubled +themselves about such things; it strove little to impress people +either by pomp or ingenuity: not unseldom it fell into commonplace, +rarely it rose into majesty; yet was it never oppressive, never a +slave's nightmare nor an insolent boast: and at its best it had an +inventiveness, an individuality that grander styles have never +overpassed: its best too, and that was in its very heart, was given +as freely to the yeoman's house, and the humble village church, as +to the lord's palace or the mighty cathedral: never coarse, though +often rude enough, sweet, natural and unaffected, an art of peasants +rather than of merchant-princes or courtiers, it must be a hard +heart, I think, that does not love it: whether a man has been born +among it like ourselves, or has come wonderingly on its simplicity +from all the grandeur over-seas. A peasant art, I say, and it clung +fast to the life of the people, and still lived among the cottagers +and yeomen in many parts of the country while the big houses were +being built 'French and fine': still lived also in many a quaint +pattern of loom and printing-block, and embroiderer's needle, while +over-seas stupid pomp had extinguished all nature and freedom, and +art was become, in France especially, the mere expression of that +successful and exultant rascality, which in the flesh no long time +afterwards went down into the pit for ever. + +Such was the English art, whose history is in a sense at your doors, +grown scarce indeed, and growing scarcer year by year, not only +through greedy destruction, of which there is certainly less than +there used to be, but also through the attacks of another foe, +called nowadays 'restoration.' + +I must not make a long story about this, but also I cannot quite +pass it over, since I have pressed on you the study of these ancient +monuments. Thus the matter stands: these old buildings have been +altered and added to century after century, often beautifully, +always historically; their very value, a great part of it, lay in +that: they have suffered almost always from neglect also, often +from violence (that latter a piece of history often far from +uninteresting), but ordinary obvious mending would almost always +have kept them standing, pieces of nature and of history. + +But of late years a great uprising of ecclesiastical zeal, +coinciding with a great increase of study, and consequently of +knowledge of mediaeval architecture, has driven people into spending +their money on these buildings, not merely with the purpose of +repairing them, of keeping them safe, clean, and wind and water- +tight, but also of 'restoring' them to some ideal state of +perfection; sweeping away if possible all signs of what has befallen +them at least since the Reformation, and often since dates much +earlier: this has sometimes been done with much disregard of art +and entirely from ecclesiastical zeal, but oftener it has been well +meant enough as regards art: yet you will not have listened to what +I have said to-night if you do not see that from my point of view +this restoration must be as impossible to bring about, as the +attempt at it is destructive to the buildings so dealt with: I +scarcely like to think what a great part of them have been made +nearly useless to students of art and history: unless you knew a +great deal about architecture you perhaps would scarce understand +what terrible damage has been done by that dangerous 'little +knowledge' in this matter: but at least it is easy to be +understood, that to deal recklessly with valuable (and national) +monuments which, when once gone, can never be replaced by any +splendour of modern art, is doing a very sorry service to the State. + +You will see by all that I have said on this study of ancient art +that I mean by education herein something much wider than the +teaching of a definite art in schools of design, and that it must be +something that we must do more or less for ourselves: I mean by it +a systematic concentration of our thoughts on the matter, a studying +of it in all ways, careful and laborious practice of it, and a +determination to do nothing but what is known to be good in +workmanship and design. + +Of course, however, both as an instrument of that study we have been +speaking of, as well as of the practice of the arts, all +handicraftsmen should be taught to draw very carefully; as indeed +all people should be taught drawing who are not physically incapable +of learning it: but the art of drawing so taught would not be the +art of designing, but only a means towards THIS end, GENERAL +CAPABILITY IN DEALING WITH THE ARTS, + +For I wish specially to impress this upon you, that DESIGNING cannot +be taught at all in a school: continued practice will help a man +who is naturally a designer, continual notice of nature and of art: +no doubt those who have some faculty for designing are still +numerous, and they want from a school certain technical teaching, +just as they want tools: in these days also, when the best school, +the school of successful practice going on around you, is at such a +low ebb, they do undoubtedly want instruction in the history of the +arts: these two things schools of design can give: but the royal +road of a set of rules deduced from a sham science of design, that +is itself not a science but another set of rules, will lead +nowhere;--or, let us rather say, to beginning again. + +As to the kind of drawing that should be taught to men engaged in +ornamental work, there is only ONE BEST way of teaching drawing, and +that is teaching the scholar to draw the human figure: both because +the lines of a man's body are much more subtle than anything else, +and because you can more surely be found out and set right if you go +wrong. I do think that such teaching as this, given to all people +who care for it, would help the revival of the arts very much: the +habit of discriminating between right and wrong, the sense of +pleasure in drawing a good line, would really, I think, be education +in the due sense of the word for all such people as had the germs of +invention in them; yet as aforesaid, in this age of the world it +would be mere affectation to pretend to shut one's eyes to the art +of past ages: that also we must study. If other circumstances, +social and economical, do not stand in our way, that is to say, if +the world is not too busy to allow us to have Decorative Arts at +all, these two are the DIRECT means by which we shall get them; that +is, general cultivation of the powers of the mind, general +cultivation of the powers of the eye and hand. + +Perhaps that seems to you very commonplace advice and a very +roundabout road; nevertheless 'tis a certain one, if by any road you +desire to come to the new art, which is my subject to-night: if you +do not, and if those germs of invention, which, as I said just now, +are no doubt still common enough among men, are left neglected and +undeveloped, the laws of Nature will assert themselves in this as in +other matters, and the faculty of design itself will gradually fade +from the race of man. Sirs, shall we approach nearer to perfection +by casting away so large a part of that intelligence which makes us +MEN? + +And now before I make an end, I want to call your attention to +certain things, that, owing to our neglect of the arts for other +business, bar that good road to us and are such an hindrance, that, +till they are dealt with, it is hard even to make a beginning of our +endeavour. And if my talk should seem to grow too serious for our +subject, as indeed I think it cannot do, I beg you to remember what +I said earlier, of how the arts all hang together. Now there is one +art of which the old architect of Edward the Third's time was +thinking--he who founded New College at Oxford, I mean--when he took +this for his motto: 'Manners maketh man:' he meant by manners the +art of morals, the art of living worthily, and like a man. I must +needs claim this art also as dealing with my subject. + +There is a great deal of sham work in the world, hurtful to the +buyer, more hurtful to the seller, if he only knew it, most hurtful +to the maker: how good a foundation it would be towards getting +good Decorative Art, that is ornamental workmanship, if we craftsmen +were to resolve to turn out nothing but excellent workmanship in all +things, instead of having, as we too often have now, a very low +average standard of work, which we often fall below. + +I do not blame either one class or another in this matter, I blame +all: to set aside our own class of handicraftsmen, of whose +shortcomings you and I know so much that we need talk no more about +it, I know that the public in general are set on having things +cheap, being so ignorant that they do not know when they get them +nasty also; so ignorant that they neither know nor care whether they +give a man his due: I know that the manufacturers (so called) are +so set on carrying out competition to its utmost, competition of +cheapness, not of excellence, that they meet the bargain-hunters +half way, and cheerfully furnish them with nasty wares at the cheap +rate they are asked for, by means of what can be called by no +prettier name than fraud. England has of late been too much busied +with the counting-house and not enough with the workshop: with the +result that the counting-house at the present moment is rather +barren of orders. + +I say all classes are to blame in this matter, but also I say that +the remedy lies with the handicraftsmen, who are not ignorant of +these things like the public, and who have no call to be greedy and +isolated like the manufacturers or middlemen; the duty and honour of +educating the public lies with them, and they have in them the seeds +of order and organisation which make that duty the easier. + +When will they see to this and help to make men of us all by +insisting on this most weighty piece of manners; so that we may +adorn life with the pleasure of cheerfully BUYING goods at their due +price; with the pleasure of SELLING goods that we could be proud of +both for fair price and fair workmanship: with the pleasure of +working soundly and without haste at MAKING goods that we could be +proud of?--much the greatest pleasure of the three is that last, +such a pleasure as, I think, the world has none like it. + +You must not say that this piece of manners lies out of my subject: +it is essentially a part of it and most important: for I am bidding +you learn to be artists, if art is not to come to an end amongst us: +and what is an artist but a workman who is determined that, whatever +else happens, his work shall be excellent? or, to put it in another +way: the decoration of workmanship, what is it but the expression +of man's pleasure in successful labour? But what pleasure can there +be in BAD work, in unsuccessful labour; why should we decorate THAT? +and how can we bear to be always unsuccessful in our labour? + +As greed of unfair gain, wanting to be paid for what we have not +earned, cumbers our path with this tangle of bad work, of sham work, +so the heaped-up money which this greed has brought us (for greed +will have its way, like all other strong passions), this money, I +say, gathered into heaps little and big, with all the false +distinction which so unhappily it yet commands amongst us, has +raised up against the arts a barrier of the love of luxury and show, +which is of all obvious hindrances the worst to overpass: the +highest and most cultivated classes are not free from the vulgarity +of it, the lower are not free from its pretence. I beg you to +remember both as a remedy against this, and as explaining exactly +what I mean, that nothing can be a work of art which is not useful; +that is to say, which does not minister to the body when well under +command of the mind, or which does not amuse, soothe, or elevate the +mind in a healthy state. What tons upon tons of unutterable rubbish +pretending to be works of art in some degree would this maxim clear +out of our London houses, if it were understood and acted upon! To +my mind it is only here and there (out of the kitchen) that you can +find in a well-to-do house things that are of any use at all: as a +rule all the decoration (so called) that has got there is there for +the sake of show, not because anybody likes it. I repeat, this +stupidity goes through all classes of society: the silk curtains in +my Lord's drawing-room are no more a matter of art to him than the +powder in his footman's hair; the kitchen in a country farmhouse is +most commonly a pleasant and homelike place, the parlour dreary and +useless. + +Simplicity of life, begetting simplicity of taste, that is, a love +for sweet and lofty things, is of all matters most necessary for the +birth of the new and better art we crave for; simplicity everywhere, +in the palace as well as in the cottage. + +Still more is this necessary, cleanliness and decency everywhere, in +the cottage as well as in the palace: the lack of that is a serious +piece of MANNERS for us to correct: that lack and all the +inequalities of life, and the heaped-up thoughtlessness and disorder +of so many centuries that cause it: and as yet it is only a very +few men who have begun to think about a remedy for it in its widest +range: even in its narrower aspect, in the defacements of our big +towns by all that commerce brings with it, who heeds it? who tries +to control their squalor and hideousness? there is nothing but +thoughtlessness and recklessness in the matter: the helplessness of +people who don't live long enough to do a thing themselves, and have +not manliness and foresight enough to begin the work, and pass it on +to those that shall come after them. + +Is money to be gathered? cut down the pleasant trees among the +houses, pull down ancient and venerable buildings for the money that +a few square yards of London dirt will fetch; blacken rivers, hide +the sun and poison the air with smoke and worse, and it's nobody's +business to see to it or mend it: that is all that modern commerce, +the counting-house forgetful of the workshop, will do for us herein. + +And Science--we have loved her well, and followed her diligently, +what will she do? I fear she is so much in the pay of the counting- +house, the counting-house and the drill-sergeant, that she is too +busy, and will for the present do nothing. Yet there are matters +which I should have thought easy for her; say for example teaching +Manchester how to consume its own smoke, or Leeds how to get rid of +its superfluous black dye without turning it into the river, which +would be as much worth her attention as the production of the +heaviest of heavy black silks, or the biggest of useless guns. +Anyhow, however it be done, unless people care about carrying on +their business without making the world hideous, how can they care +about Art? I know it will cost much both of time and money to +better these things even a little; but I do not see how these can be +better spent than in making life cheerful and honourable for others +and for ourselves; and the gain of good life to the country at large +that would result from men seriously setting about the bettering of +the decency of our big towns would be priceless, even if nothing +specially good befell the arts in consequence: I do not know that +it would; but I should begin to think matters hopeful if men turned +their attention to such things, and I repeat that, unless they do +so, we can scarcely even begin with any hope our endeavours for the +bettering of the arts. + +Unless something or other is done to give all men some pleasure for +the eyes and rest for the mind in the aspect of their own and their +neighbours' houses, until the contrast is less disgraceful between +the fields where beasts live and the streets where men live, I +suppose that the practice of the arts must be mainly kept in the +hands of a few highly cultivated men, who can go often to beautiful +places, whose education enables them, in the contemplation of the +past glories of the world, to shut out from their view the everyday +squalors that the most of men move in. Sirs, I believe that art has +such sympathy with cheerful freedom, open-heartedness and reality, +so much she sickens under selfishness and luxury, that she will not +live thus isolated and exclusive. I will go further than this and +say that on such terms I do not wish her to live. I protest that it +would be a shame to an honest artist to enjoy what he had huddled up +to himself of such art, as it would be for a rich man to sit and eat +dainty food amongst starving soldiers in a beleaguered fort. + +I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or +freedom for a few. + +No, rather than art should live this poor thin life among a few +exceptional men, despising those beneath them for an ignorance for +which they themselves are responsible, for a brutality that they +will not struggle with,--rather than this, I would that the world +should indeed sweep away all art for awhile, as I said before I +thought it possible she might do; rather than the wheat should rot +in the miser's granary, I would that the earth had it, that it might +yet have a chance to quicken in the dark. + +I have a sort of faith, though, that this clearing way of all art +will not happen, that men will get wiser, as well as more learned; +that many of the intricacies of life, on which we now pride +ourselves more than enough, partly because they are new, partly +because they have come with the gain of better things, will be cast +aside as having played their part, and being useful no longer. I +hope that we shall have leisure from war,--war commercial, as well +as war of the bullet and the bayonet; leisure from the knowledge +that darkens counsel; leisure above all from the greed of money, and +the craving for that overwhelming distinction that money now brings: +I believe that as we have even now partly achieved LIBERTY, so we +shall one day achieve EQUALITY, which, and which only, means +FRATERNITY, and so have leisure from poverty and all its griping, +sordid cares. + +Then having leisure from all these things, amidst renewed simplicity +of life we shall have leisure to think about our work, that faithful +daily companion, which no man any longer will venture to call the +Curse of labour: for surely then we shall be happy in it, each in +his place, no man grudging at another; no one bidden to be any man's +SERVANT, every one scorning to be any man's MASTER: men will then +assuredly be happy in their work, and that happiness will assuredly +bring forth decorative, noble, POPULAR art. + +That art will make our streets as beautiful as the woods, as +elevating as the mountain-sides: it will be a pleasure and a rest, +and not a weight upon the spirits to come from the open country into +a town; every man's house will be fair and decent, soothing to his +mind and helpful to his work: all the works of man that we live +amongst and handle will be in harmony with nature, will be +reasonable and beautiful: yet all will be simple and inspiriting, +not childish nor enervating; for as nothing of beauty and splendour +that man's mind and hand may compass shall be wanting from our +public buildings, so in no private dwelling will there be any signs +of waste, pomp, or insolence, and every man will have his share of +the BEST. + +It is a dream, you may say, of what has never been and never will +be; true, it has never been, and therefore, since the world is alive +and moving yet, my hope is the greater that it one day will be: +true, it is a dream; but dreams have before now come about of things +so good and necessary to us, that we scarcely think of them more +than of the daylight, though once people had to live without them, +without even the hope of them. + +Anyhow, dream as it is, I pray you to pardon my setting it before +you, for it lies at the bottom of all my work in the Decorative +Arts, nor will it ever be out of my thoughts: and I am here with +you to-night to ask you to help me in realising this dream, this +HOPE. + + + +THE ART OF THE PEOPLE {2} + + + +'And the men of labour spent their strength in daily struggling for +bread to maintain the vital strength they labour with: so living in +a daily circulation of sorrow, living but to work, and working but +to live, as if daily bread were the only end of a wearisome life, +and a wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread.'--DANIEL +DEFOE. + +I know that a large proportion of those here present are either +already practising the Fine Arts, or are being specially educated to +that end, and I feel that I may be expected to address myself +specially to these. But since it is not to be doubted that we are +ALL met together because of the interest we take in what concerns +these arts, I would rather address myself to you ALL as representing +the public in general. Indeed, those of you who are specially +studying Art could learn little of me that would be useful to +yourselves only. You are already learning under competent masters-- +most competent, I am glad to know--by means of a system which should +teach you all you need, if you have been right in making the first +step of devoting yourselves to Art; I mean if you are aiming at the +right thing, and in some way or another understand what Art means, +which you may well do without being able to express it, and if you +are resolute to follow on the path which that inborn knowledge has +shown to you; if it is otherwise with you than this, no system and +no teachers will help you to produce real art of any kind, be it +never so humble. Those of you who are real artists know well enough +all the special advice I can give you, and in how few words it may +be said--follow nature, study antiquity, make your own art, and do +not steal it, grudge no expense of trouble, patience, or courage, in +the striving to accomplish the hard thing you have set yourselves to +do. You have had all that said to you twenty times, I doubt not; +and twenty times twenty have said it to yourselves, and now I have +said it again to you, and done neither you nor me good nor harm +thereby. So true it all is, so well known, and so hard to follow. + +But to me, and I hope to you, Art is a very serious thing, and +cannot by any means be dissociated from the weighty matters that +occupy the thoughts of men; and there are principles underlying the +practice of it, on which all serious-minded men, may--nay, must-- +have their own thoughts. It is on some of these that I ask your +leave to speak, and to address myself, not only to those who are +consciously interested in the arts, but to all those also who have +considered what the progress of civilisation promises and threatens +to those who shall come after us: what there is to hope and fear +for the future of the arts, which were born with the birth of +civilisation and will only die with its death--what on this side of +things, the present time of strife and doubt and change is preparing +for the better time, when the change shall have come, the strife be +lulled, and the doubt cleared: this is a question, I say, which is +indeed weighty, and may well interest all thinking men. + +Nay, so universally important is it, that I fear lest you should +think I am taking too much upon myself to speak to you on so weighty +a matter, nor should I have dared to do so, if I did not feel that I +am to-night only the mouthpiece of better men than myself; whose +hopes and fears I share; and that being so, I am the more emboldened +to speak out, if I can, my full mind on the subject, because I am in +a city where, if anywhere, men are not contented to live wholly for +themselves and the present, but have fully accepted the duty of +keeping their eyes open to whatever new is stirring, so that they +may help and be helped by any truth that there may be in it. Nor +can I forget, that, since you have done me the great honour of +choosing me for the President of your Society of Arts for the past +year, and of asking me to speak to you to-night, I should be doing +less than my duty if I did not, according to my lights, speak out +straightforwardly whatever seemed to me might be in a small degree +useful to you. Indeed, I think I am among friends, who may forgive +me if I speak rashly, but scarcely if I speak falsely. + +The aim of your Society and School of Arts is, as I understand it, +to further those arts by education widely spread. A very great +object is that, and well worthy of the reputation of this great +city; but since Birmingham has also, I rejoice to know, a great +reputation for not allowing things to go about shamming life when +the brains are knocked out of them, I think you should know and see +clearly what it is you have undertaken to further by these +institutions, and whether you really care about it, or only +languidly acquiesce in it--whether, in short, you know it to the +heart, and are indeed part and parcel of it, with your own will, or +against it; or else have heard say that it is a good thing if any +one care to meddle with it. + +If you are surprised at my putting that question for your +consideration, I will tell you why I do so. There are some of us +who love Art most, and I may say most faithfully, who see for +certain that such love is rare nowadays. We cannot help seeing, +that besides a vast number of people, who (poor souls!) are sordid +and brutal of mind and habits, and have had no chance or choice in +the matter, there are many high-minded, thoughtful, and cultivated +men who inwardly think the arts to be a foolish accident of +civilisation--nay, worse perhaps, a nuisance, a disease, a hindrance +to human progress. Some of these, doubtless, are very busy about +other sides of thought. They are, as I should put it, so +ARTISTICALLY engrossed by the study of science, politics, or what +not, that they have necessarily narrowed their minds by their hard +and praiseworthy labours. But since such men are few, this does not +account for a prevalent habit of thought that looks upon Art as at +best trifling. + +What is wrong, then, with us or the arts, since what was once +accounted so glorious, is now deemed paltry? + +The question is no light one; for, to put the matter in its clearest +light, I will say that the leaders of modern thought do for the most +part sincerely and single-mindedly hate and despise the arts; and +you know well that as the leaders are, so must the people be; and +that means that we who are met together here for the furthering of +Art by wide-spread education are either deceiving ourselves and +wasting our time, since we shall one day be of the same opinion as +the best men among us, or else we represent a small minority that is +right, as minorities sometimes are, while those upright men +aforesaid, and the great mass of civilised men, have been blinded by +untoward circumstances. + +That we are of this mind--the minority that is right--is, I hope, +the case. I hope we know assuredly that the arts we have met +together to further are necessary to the life of man, if the +progress of civilisation is not to be as causeless as the turning of +a wheel that makes nothing. + +How, then, shall we, the minority, carry out the duty which our +position thrusts upon us, of striving to grow into a majority? + +If we could only explain to those thoughtful men, and the millions +of whom they are the flower, what the thing is that we love, which +is to us as the bread we eat, and the air we breathe, but about +which they know nothing and feel nothing, save a vague instinct of +repulsion, then the seed of victory might be sown. This is hard +indeed to do; yet if we ponder upon a chapter of ancient or +mediaeval history, it seems to me some glimmer of a chance of doing +so breaks in upon us. Take for example a century of the Byzantine +Empire, weary yourselves with reading the names of the pedants, +tyrants, and tax-gatherers to whom the terrible chain which long- +dead Rome once forged, still gave the power of cheating people into +thinking that they were necessary lords of the world. Turn then to +the lands they governed, and read and forget a long string of the +causeless murders of Northern and Saracen pirates and robbers. That +is pretty much the sum of what so-called history has left us of the +tale of those days--the stupid languor and the evil deeds of kings +and scoundrels. Must we turn away then, and say that all was evil? +How then did men live from day to day? How then did Europe grow +into intelligence and freedom? It seems there were others than +those of whom history (so called) has left us the names and the +deeds. These, the raw material for the treasury and the slave- +market, we now call 'the people,' and we know that they were working +all that while. Yes, and that their work was not merely slaves' +work, the meal-trough before them and the whip behind them; for +though history (so called) has forgotten them, yet their work has +not been forgotten, but has made another history--the history of +Art. There is not an ancient city in the East or the West that does +not bear some token of their grief, and joy, and hope. From Ispahan +to Northumberland, there is no building built between the seventh +and seventeenth centuries that does not show the influence of the +labour of that oppressed and neglected herd of men. No one of them, +indeed, rose high above his fellows. There was no Plato, or +Shakespeare, or Michael Angelo amongst them. Yet scattered as it +was among many men, how strong their thought was, how long it +abided, how far it travelled! + +And so it was ever through all those days when Art was so vigorous +and progressive. Who can say how little we should know of many +periods, but for their art? History (so called) has remembered the +kings and warriors, because they destroyed; Art has remembered the +people, because they created. + +I think, then, that this knowledge we have of the life of past times +gives us some token of the way we should take in meeting those +honest and single-hearted men who above all things desire the +world's progress, but whose minds are, as it were, sick on this +point of the arts. Surely you may say to them: When all is gained +that you (and we) so long for, what shall we do then? That great +change which we are working for, each in his own way, will come like +other changes, as a thief in the night, and will be with us before +we know it; but let us imagine that its consummation has come +suddenly and dramatically, acknowledged and hailed by all right- +minded people; and what shall we do then, lest we begin once more to +heap up fresh corruption for the woeful labour of ages once again? +I say, as we turn away from the flagstaff where the new banner has +been just run up; as we depart, our ears yet ringing with the blare +of the heralds' trumpets that have proclaimed the new order of +things, what shall we turn to then, what MUST we turn to then? + +To what else, save to our work, our daily labour? + +With what, then, shall we adorn it when we have become wholly free +and reasonable? It is necessary toil, but shall it be toil only? +Shall all we can do with it be to shorten the hours of that toil to +the utmost, that the hours of leisure may be long beyond what men +used to hope for? and what then shall we do with the leisure, if we +say that all toil is irksome? Shall we sleep it all away?--Yes, and +never wake up again, I should hope, in that case. + +What shall we do then? what shall our necessary hours of labour +bring forth? + +That will be a question for all men in that day when many wrongs are +righted, and when there will be no classes of degradation on whom +the dirty work of the world can be shovelled; and if men's minds are +still sick and loathe the arts, they will not be able to answer that +question. + +Once men sat under grinding tyrannies, amidst violence and fear so +great, that nowadays we wonder how they lived through twenty-four +hours of it, till we remember that then, as now, their daily labour +was the main part of their lives, and that that daily labour was +sweetened by the daily creation of Art; and shall we who are +delivered from the evils they bore, live drearier days than they +did? Shall men, who have come forth from so many tyrannies, bind +themselves to yet another one, and become the slaves of nature, +piling day upon day of hopeless, useless toil? Must this go on +worsening till it comes to this at last--that the world shall have +come into its inheritance, and with all foes conquered and nought to +bind it, shall choose to sit down and labour for ever amidst grim +ugliness? How, then, were all our hopes cheated, what a gulf of +despair should we tumble into then? + +In truth, it cannot be; yet if that sickness of repulsion to the +arts were to go on hopelessly, nought else would be, and the +extinction of the love of beauty and imagination would prove to be +the extinction of civilisation. But that sickness the world will +one day throw off, yet will, I believe, pass through many pains in +so doing, some of which will look very like the death-throes of Art, +and some, perhaps, will be grievous enough to the poor people of the +world; since hard necessity, I doubt, works many of the world's +changes, rather than the purblind striving to see, which we call the +foresight of man. + +Meanwhile, remember that I asked just now, what was amiss in Art or +in ourselves that this sickness was upon us. Nothing is wrong or +can be with Art in the abstract--that must always be good for +mankind, or we are all wrong together: but with Art, as we of these +latter days have known it, there is much wrong; nay, what are we +here for to-night if that is not so? were not the schools of art +founded all over the country some thirty years ago because we had +found out that popular art was fading--or perhaps had faded out from +amongst us? + +As to the progress made since then in this country--and in this +country only, if at all--it is hard for me to speak without being +either ungracious or insincere, and yet speak I must. I say, then, +that an apparent external progress in some ways is obvious, but I do +not know how far that is hopeful, for time must try it, and prove +whether it be a passing fashion or the first token of a real stir +among the great mass of civilised men. To speak quite frankly, and +as one friend to another, I must needs say that even as I say those +words they seem too good to be true. And yet--who knows?--so wont +are we to frame history for the future as well as for the past, so +often are our eyes blind both when we look backward and when we look +forward, because we have been gazing so intently at our own days, +our own lines. May all be better than I think it! + +At any rate let us count our gains, and set them against less +hopeful signs of the times. In England, then--and as far as I know, +in England only--painters of pictures have grown, I believe, more +numerous, and certainly more conscientious in their work, and in +some cases--and this more especially in England--have developed and +expressed a sense of beauty which the world has not seen for the +last three hundred years. This is certainly a very great gain, +which is not easy to over-estimate, both for those who make the +pictures and those who use them. + +Furthermore, in England, and in England only, there has been a great +improvement in architecture and the arts that attend it--arts which +it was the special province of the afore-mentioned schools to revive +and foster. This, also, is a considerable gain to the users of the +works so made, but I fear a gain less important to most of those +concerned in making them. + +Against these gains we must, I am very sorry to say, set the fact +not easy to be accounted for, that the rest of the civilised world +(so called) seems to have done little more than stand still in these +matters; and that among ourselves these improvements have concerned +comparatively few people, the mass of our population not being in +the least touched by them; so that the great bulk of our +architecture--the art which most depends on the taste of the people +at large--grows worse and worse every day. I must speak also of +another piece of discouragement before I go further. I daresay many +of you will remember how emphatically those who first had to do with +the movement of which the foundation of our art-schools was a part, +called the attention of our pattern-designers to the beautiful works +of the East. This was surely most well judged of them, for they +bade us look at an art at once beautiful, orderly, living in our own +day, and above all, popular. Now, it is a grievous result of the +sickness of civilisation that this art is fast disappearing before +the advance of western conquest and commerce--fast, and every day +faster. While we are met here in Birmingham to further the spread +of education in art, Englishmen in India are, in their short- +sightedness, actively destroying the very sources of that education- +-jewellery, metal-work, pottery, calico-printing, brocade-weaving, +carpet-making--all the famous and historical arts of the great +peninsula have been for long treated as matters of no importance, to +be thrust aside for the advantage of any paltry scrap of so-called +commerce; and matters are now speedily coming to an end there. I +daresay some of you saw the presents which the native Princes gave +to the Prince of Wales on the occasion of his progress through +India. I did myself, I will not say with great disappointment, for +I guessed what they would be like, but with great grief, since there +was scarce here and there a piece of goods among these costly gifts, +things given as great treasures, which faintly upheld the ancient +fame of the cradle of the industrial arts. Nay, in some cases, it +would have been laughable, if it had not been so sad, to see the +piteous simplicity with which the conquered race had copied the +blank vulgarity of their lords. And this deterioration we are now, +as I have said, actively engaged in forwarding. I have read a +little book, {3} a handbook to the Indian Court of last year's Paris +Exhibition, which takes the occasion of noting the state of +manufactures in India one by one. 'Art manufactures,' you would +call them; but, indeed, all manufactures are, or were, 'art +manufactures' in India. Dr. Birdwood, the author of this book, is +of great experience in Indian life, a man of science, and a lover of +the arts. His story, by no means a new one to me, or others +interested in the East and its labour, is a sad one indeed. The +conquered races in their hopelessness are everywhere giving up the +genuine practice of their own arts, which we know ourselves, as we +have indeed loudly proclaimed, are founded on the truest and most +natural principles. The often-praised perfection of these arts is +the blossom of many ages of labour and change, but the conquered +races are casting it aside as a thing of no value, so that they may +conform themselves to the inferior art, or rather the lack of art, +of their conquerors. In some parts of the country the genuine arts +are quite destroyed; in many others nearly so; in all they have more +or less begun to sicken. So much so is this the case, that now for +some time the Government has been furthering this deterioration. As +for example, no doubt with the best intentions, and certainly in +full sympathy with the general English public, both at home and in +India, the Government is now manufacturing cheap Indian carpets in +the Indian gaols. I do not say that it is a bad thing to turn out +real work, or works of art, in gaols; on the contrary, I think it +good if it be properly managed. But in this case, the Government, +being, as I said, in full sympathy with the English public, has +determined that it will make its wares cheap, whether it make them +nasty or not. Cheap and nasty they are, I assure you; but, though +they are the worst of their kind, they would not be made thus, if +everything did not tend the same way. And it is the same everywhere +and with all Indian manufactures, till it has come to this--that +these poor people have all but lost the one distinction, the one +glory that conquest had left them. Their famous wares, so praised +by those who thirty years ago began to attempt the restoration of +popular art amongst ourselves, are no longer to be bought at +reasonable prices in the common market, but must be sought for and +treasured as precious relics for the museums we have founded for our +art education. In short, their art is dead, and the commerce of +modern civilisation has slain it. + +What is going on in India is also going on, more or less, all over +the East; but I have spoken of India chiefly because I cannot help +thinking that we ourselves are responsible for what is happening +there. Chance-hap has made us the lords of many millions out there; +surely, it behoves us to look to it, lest we give to the people whom +we have made helpless scorpions for fish and stones for bread. + +But since neither on this side, nor on any other, can art be +amended, until the countries that lead civilisation are themselves +in a healthy state about it, let us return to the consideration of +its condition among ourselves. And again I say, that obvious as is +that surface improvement of the arts within the last few years, I +fear too much that there is something wrong about the root of the +plant to exult over the bursting of its February buds. + +I have just shown you for one thing that lovers of Indian and +Eastern Art, including as they do the heads of our institutions for +art education, and I am sure many among what are called the +governing classes, are utterly powerless to stay its downward +course. The general tendency of civilisation is against them, and +is too strong for them. + +Again, though many of us love architecture dearly, and believe that +it helps the healthiness both of body and soul to live among +beautiful things, we of the big towns are mostly compelled to live +in houses which have become a byword of contempt for their ugliness +and inconvenience. The stream of civilisation is against us, and we +cannot battle against it. + +Once more those devoted men who have upheld the standard of truth +and beauty amongst us, and whose pictures, painted amidst +difficulties that none but a painter can know, show qualities of +mind unsurpassed in any age--these great men have but a narrow +circle that can understand their works, and are utterly unknown to +the great mass of the people: civilisation is so much against them, +that they cannot move the people. + +Therefore, looking at all this, I cannot think that all is well with +the root of the tree we are cultivating. Indeed, I believe that if +other things were but to stand still in the world, this improvement +before mentioned would lead to a kind of art which, in that +impossible case, would be in a way stable, would perhaps stand still +also. This would be an art cultivated professedly by a few, and for +a few, who would consider it necessary--a duty, if they could admit +duties--to despise the common herd, to hold themselves aloof from +all that the world has been struggling for from the first, to guard +carefully every approach to their palace of art. It would be a pity +to waste many words on the prospect of such a school of art as this, +which does in a way, theoretically at least, exist at present, and +has for its watchword a piece of slang that does not mean the +harmless thing it seems to mean--art for art's sake. Its fore- +doomed end must be, that art at last will seem too delicate a thing +for even the hands of the initiated to touch; and the initiated must +at last sit still and do nothing--to the grief of no one. + +Well, certainly, if I thought you were come here to further such an +art as this I could not have stood up and called you FRIENDS; though +such a feeble folk as I have told you of one could scarce care to +call foes. + +Yet, as I say, such men exist, and I have troubled you with speaking +of them, because I know that those honest and intelligent people, +who are eager for human progress, and yet lack part of the human +senses, and are anti-artistic, suppose that such men are artists, +and that this is what art means, and what it does for people, and +that such a narrow, cowardly life is what we, fellow-handicraftsmen, +aim at. I see this taken for granted continually, even by many who, +to say truth, ought to know better, and I long to put the slur from +off us; to make people understand that we, least of all men, wish to +widen the gulf between the classes, nay, worse still, to make new +classes of elevation, and new classes of degradation--new lords and +new slaves; that we, least of all men, want to cultivate the 'plant +called man' in different ways--here stingily, there wastefully: I +wish people to understand that the art we are striving for is a good +thing which all can share, which will elevate all; in good sooth, if +all people do not soon share it there will soon be none to share; if +all are not elevated by it, mankind will lose the elevation it has +gained. Nor is such an art as we long for a vain dream; such an art +once was in times that were worse than these, when there was less +courage, kindness, and truth in the world than there is now; such an +art there will be hereafter, when there will be more courage, +kindness, and truth than there is now in the world. + +Let us look backward in history once more for a short while, and +then steadily forward till my words are done: I began by saying +that part of the common and necessary advice given to Art students +was to study antiquity; and no doubt many of you, like me, have done +so; have wandered, for instance, through the galleries of the +admirable museum of South Kensington, and, like me, have been filled +with wonder and gratitude at the beauty which has been born from the +brain of man. Now, consider, I pray you, what these wonderful works +are, and how they were made; and indeed, it is neither in +extravagance nor without due meaning that I use the word 'wonderful' +in speaking of them. Well, these things are just the common +household goods of those past days, and that is one reason why they +are so few and so carefully treasured. They were common things in +their own day, used without fear of breaking or spoiling--no +rarities then--and yet we have called them 'wonderful.' + +And how were they made? Did a great artist draw the designs for +them--a man of cultivation, highly paid, daintily fed, carefully +housed, wrapped up in cotton wool, in short, when he was not at +work? By no means. Wonderful as these works are, they were made by +'common fellows,' as the phrase goes, in the common course of their +daily labour. Such were the men we honour in honouring those works. +And their labour--do you think it was irksome to them? Those of you +who are artists know very well that it was not; that it could not +be. Many a grin of pleasure, I'll be bound--and you will not +contradict me--went to the carrying through of those mazes of +mysterious beauty, to the invention of those strange beasts and +birds and flowers that we ourselves have chuckled over at South +Kensington. While they were at work, at least, these men were not +unhappy, and I suppose they worked most days, and the most part of +the day, as we do. + +Or those treasures of architecture that we study so carefully +nowadays--what are they? how were they made? There are great +minsters among them, indeed, and palaces of kings and lords, but not +many; and, noble and awe-inspiring as these may be, they differ only +in size from the little grey church that still so often makes the +commonplace English landscape beautiful, and the little grey house +that still, in some parts of the country at least, makes an English +village a thing apart, to be seen and pondered on by all who love +romance and beauty. These form the mass of our architectural +treasures, the houses that everyday people lived in, the unregarded +churches in which they worshipped. + +And, once more, who was it that designed and ornamented them? The +great architect, carefully kept for the purpose, and guarded from +the common troubles of common men? By no means. Sometimes, +perhaps, it was the monk, the ploughman's brother; oftenest his +other brother, the village carpenter, smith, mason, what not--'a +common fellow,' whose common everyday labour fashioned works that +are to-day the wonder and despair of many a hard-working +'cultivated' architect. And did he loathe his work? No, it is +impossible. I have seen, as we most of us have, work done by such +men in some out-of-the-way hamlet--where to-day even few strangers +ever come, and whose people seldom go five miles from their own +doors; in such places, I say, I have seen work so delicate, so +careful, and so inventive, that nothing in its way could go further. +And I will assert, without fear of contradiction, that no human +ingenuity can produce work such as this without pleasure being a +third party to the brain that conceived and the hand that fashioned +it. Nor are such works rare. The throne of the great Plantagenet, +or the great Valois, was no more daintily carved than the seat of +the village mass-john, or the chest of the yeoman's good-wife. + +So, you see, there was much going on to make life endurable in those +times. Not every day, you may be sure, was a day of slaughter and +tumult, though the histories read almost as if it were so; but every +day the hammer chinked on the anvil, and the chisel played about the +oak beam, and never without some beauty and invention being born of +it, and consequently some human happiness. + +That last word brings me to the very kernel and heart of what I have +come here to say to you, and I pray you to think of it most +seriously--not as to my words, but as to a thought which is stirring +in the world, and will one day grow into something. + +That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man +of his pleasure in labour. I do not believe he can be happy in his +labour without expressing that happiness; and especially is this so +when he is at work at anything in which he specially excels. A most +kind gift is this of nature, since all men, nay, it seems all things +too, must labour; so that not only does the dog take pleasure in +hunting, and the horse in running, and the bird in flying, but so +natural does the idea seem to us, that we imagine to ourselves that +the earth and the very elements rejoice in doing their appointed +work; and the poets have told us of the spring meadows smiling, of +the exultation of the fire, of the countless laughter of the sea. + +Nor until these latter days has man ever rejected this universal +gift, but always, when he has not been too much perplexed, too much +bound by disease or beaten down by trouble, has striven to make his +work at least happy. Pain he has too often found in his pleasure, +and weariness in his rest, to trust to these. What matter if his +happiness lie with what must be always with him--his work? + +And, once more, shall we, who have gained so much, forego this gain, +the earliest, most natural gain of mankind? If we have to a great +extent done so, as I verily fear we have, what strange fog-lights +must have misled us; or rather let me say, how hard pressed we must +have been in the battle with the evils we have overcome, to have +forgotten the greatest of all evils. I cannot call it less than +that. If a man has work to do which he despises, which does not +satisfy his natural and rightful desire for pleasure, the greater +part of his life must pass unhappily and without self-respect. +Consider, I beg of you, what that means, and what ruin must come of +it in the end. + +If I could only persuade you of this, that the chief duty of the +civilised world to-day is to set about making labour happy for all, +to do its utmost to minimise the amount of unhappy labour--nay, if I +could only persuade some two or three of you here present--I should +have made a good night's work of it. + +Do not, at any rate, shelter yourselves from any misgiving you may +have behind the fallacy that the art-lacking labour of to-day is +happy work: for the most of men it is not so. It would take long, +perhaps, to show you, and make you fully understand that the would- +be art which it produces is joyless. But there is another token of +its being most unhappy work, which you cannot fail to understand at +once--a grievous thing that token is--and I beg of you to believe +that I feel the full shame of it, as I stand here speaking of it; +but if we do not admit that we are sick, how can we be healed? This +hapless token is, that the work done by the civilised world is +mostly dishonest work. Look now: I admit that civilisation does +make certain things well, things which it knows, consciously or +unconsciously, are necessary to its present unhealthy condition. +These things, to speak shortly, are chiefly machines for carrying on +the competition in buying and selling, called falsely commerce; and +machines for the violent destruction of life--that is to say, +materials for two kinds of war; of which kinds the last is no doubt +the worst, not so much in itself perhaps, but because on this point +the conscience of the world is beginning to be somewhat pricked. +But, on the other hand, matters for the carrying on of a dignified +daily life, that life of mutual trust, forbearance, and help, which +is the only real life of thinking men--these things the civilised +world makes ill, and even increasingly worse and worse. + +If I am wrong in saying this, you know well I am only saying what is +widely thought, nay widely said too, for that matter. Let me give +an instance, familiar enough, of that wide-spread opinion. There is +a very clever book of pictures {4} now being sold at the railway +bookstalls, called 'The British Working Man, by one who does not +believe in him,'--a title and a book which make me both angry and +ashamed, because the two express much injustice, and not a little +truth in their quaint, and necessarily exaggerated way. It is quite +true, and very sad to say, that if any one nowadays wants a piece of +ordinary work done by gardener, carpenter, mason, dyer, weaver, +smith, what you will, he will be a lucky rarity if he get it well +done. He will, on the contrary, meet on every side with evasion of +plain duties, and disregard of other men's rights; yet I cannot see +how the 'British Working Man' is to be made to bear the whole burden +of this blame, or indeed the chief part of it. I doubt if it be +possible for a whole mass of men to do work to which they are +driven, and in which there is no hope and no pleasure, without +trying to shirk it--at any rate, shirked it has always been under +such circumstances. On the other hand, I know that there are some +men so right-minded, that they will, in despite of irksomeness and +hopelessness, drive right through their work. Such men are the salt +of the earth. But must there not be something wrong with a state of +society which drives these into that bitter heroism, and the most +part into shirking, into the depths often of half-conscious self- +contempt and degradation? Be sure that there is, that the blindness +and hurry of civilisation, as it now is, have to answer a heavy +charge as to that enormous amount of pleasureless work--work that +tries every muscle of the body and every atom of the brain, and +which is done without pleasure and without aim--work which everybody +who has to do with tries to shuffle off in the speediest way that +dread of starvation or ruin will allow him. + +I am as sure of one thing as that I am living and breathing, and it +is this: that the dishonesty in the daily arts of life, complaints +of which are in all men's mouths, and which I can answer for it does +exist, is the natural and inevitable result of the world in the +hurry of the war of the counting-house, and the war of the +battlefield, having forgotten--of all men, I say, each for the +other, having forgotten, that pleasure in our daily labour, which +nature cries out for as its due. + +Therefore, I say again, it is necessary to the further progress of +civilisation that men should turn their thoughts to some means of +limiting, and in the end of doing away with, degrading labour. + +I do not think my words hitherto spoken have given you any occasion +to think that I mean by this either hard or rough labour; I do not +pity men much for their hardships, especially if they be accidental; +not necessarily attached to one class or one condition, I mean. Nor +do I think (I were crazy or dreaming else) that the work of the +world can be carried on without rough labour; but I have seen enough +of that to know that it need not be by any means degrading. To +plough the earth, to cast the net, to fold the flock--these, and +such as these, which are rough occupations enough, and which carry +with them many hardships, are good enough for the best of us, +certain conditions of leisure, freedom, and due wages being granted. +As to the bricklayer, the mason, and the like--these would be +artists, and doing not only necessary, but beautiful, and therefore +happy work, if art were anything like what it should be. No, it is +not such labour as this which we need to do away with, but the toil +which makes the thousand and one things which nobody wants, which +are used merely as the counters for the competitive buying and +selling, falsely called commerce, which I have spoken of before--I +know in my heart, and not merely by my reason, that this toil cries +out to be done away with. But, besides that, the labour which now +makes things good and necessary in themselves, merely as counters +for the commercial war aforesaid, needs regulating and reforming. +Nor can this reform be brought about save by art; and if we were +only come to our right minds, and could see the necessity for making +labour sweet to all men, as it is now to very few--the necessity, I +repeat; lest discontent, unrest, and despair should at last swallow +up all society--If we, then, with our eyes cleared, could but make +some sacrifice of things which do us no good, since we unjustly and +uneasily possess them, then indeed I believe we should sow the seeds +of a happiness which the world has not yet known, of a rest and +content which would make it what I cannot help thinking it was meant +to be: and with that seed would be sown also the seed of real art, +the expression of man's happiness in his labour,--an art made by the +people, and for the people, as a happiness to the maker and the +user. + +That is the only real art there is, the only art which will be an +instrument to the progress of the world, and not a hindrance. Nor +can I seriously doubt that in your hearts you know that it is so, +all of you, at any rate, who have in you an instinct for art. I +believe that you agree with me in this, though you may differ from +much else that I have said. I think assuredly that this is the art +whose welfare we have met together to further, and the necessary +instruction in which we have undertaken to spread as widely as may +be. + +Thus I have told you something of what I think is to be hoped and +feared for the future of art; and if you ask me what I expect as a +practical outcome of the admission of these opinions, I must say at +once that I know, even if we were all of one mind, and that what I +think the right mind on this subject, we should still have much work +and many hindrances before us; we should still have need of all the +prudence, foresight, and industry of the best among us; and, even +so, our path would sometimes seem blind enough. And, to-day, when +the opinions which we think right, and which one day will be +generally thought so, have to struggle sorely to make themselves +noticed at all, it is early days for us to try to see our exact and +clearly mapped road. I suppose you will think it too commonplace of +me to say that the general education that makes men think, will one +day make them think rightly upon art. Commonplace as it is, I +really believe it, and am indeed encouraged by it, when I remember +how obviously this age is one of transition from the old to the new, +and what a strange confusion, from out of which we shall one day +come, our ignorance and half-ignorance is like to make of the +exhausted rubbish of the old and the crude rubbish of the new, both +of which lie so ready to our hands. + +But, if I must say, furthermore, any words that seem like words of +practical advice, I think my task is hard, and I fear I shall offend +some of you whatever I say; for this is indeed an affair of +morality, rather than of what people call art. + +However, I cannot forget that, in my mind, it is not possible to +dissociate art from morality, politics, and religion. Truth in +these great matters of principle is of one, and it is only in formal +treatises that it can be split up diversely. I must also ask you to +remember how I have already said, that though my mouth alone speaks, +it speaks, however feebly and disjointedly, the thoughts of many men +better than myself. And further, though when things are tending to +the best, we shall still, as aforesaid, need our best men to lead us +quite right; yet even now surely, when it is far from that, the +least of us can do some yeoman's service to the cause, and live and +die not without honour. + +So I will say that I believe there are two virtues much needed in +modern life, if it is ever to become sweet; and I am quite sure that +they are absolutely necessary in the sowing the seed of an ART WHICH +IS TO BE MADE BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE, AS A HAPPINESS TO +THE MAKER AND THE USER. These virtues are honesty, and simplicity +of life. To make my meaning clearer I will name the opposing vice +of the second of these--luxury to wit. Also I mean by honesty, the +careful and eager giving his due to every man, the determination not +to gain by any man's loss, which in my experience is not a common +virtue. + +But note how the practice of either of these virtues will make the +other easier to us. For if our wants are few, we shall have but +little chance of being driven by our wants into injustice; and if we +are fixed in the principle of giving every man his due, how can our +self-respect bear that we should give too much to ourselves? + +And in art, and in that preparation for it without which no art that +is stable or worthy can be, the raising, namely, of those classes +which have heretofore been degraded, the practice of these virtues +would make a new world of it. For if you are rich, your simplicity +of life will both go towards smoothing over the dreadful contrast +between waste and want, which is the great horror of civilised +countries, and will also give an example and standard of dignified +life to those classes which you desire to raise, who, as it is +indeed, being like enough to rich people, are given both to envy and +to imitate the idleness and waste that the possession of much money +produces. + +Nay, and apart from the morality of the matter, which I am forced to +speak to you of; let me tell you that though simplicity in art may +be costly as well as uncostly, at least it is not wasteful, and +nothing is more destructive to art than the want of it. I have +never been in any rich man's house which would not have looked the +better for having a bonfire made outside of it of nine-tenths of all +that it held. Indeed, our sacrifice on the side of luxury will, it +seems to me, be little or nothing: for, as far as I can make out, +what people usually mean by it, is either a gathering of possessions +which are sheer vexations to the owner, or a chain of pompous +circumstance, which checks and annoys the rich man at every step. +Yes, luxury cannot exist without slavery of some kind or other, and +its abolition will be blessed, like the abolition of other +slaveries, by the freeing both of the slaves and of their masters. + +Lastly, if, besides attaining to simplicity of life, we attain also +to the love of justice, then will all things be ready for the new +springtime of the arts. For those of us that are employers of +labour, how can we bear to give any man less money than he can +decently live on, less leisure than his education and self-respect +demand? or those of us who are workmen, how can we bear to fail in +the contract we have undertaken, or to make it necessary for a +foreman to go up and down spying out our mean tricks and evasions? +or we the shopkeepers--can we endure to lie about our wares, that we +may shuffle off our losses on to some one else's shoulders? or we +the public--how can we bear to pay a price for a piece of goods +which will help to trouble one man, to ruin another, and starve a +third? Or, still more, I think, how can we bear to use, how can we +enjoy something which has been a pain and a grief for the maker to +make? + +And now, I think, I have said what I came to say. I confess that +there is nothing new in it, but you know the experience of the world +is that a thing must be said over and over again before any great +number of men can be got to listen to it. Let my words to-night, +therefore, pass for one of the necessary times that the thought in +them must be spoken out. + +For the rest I believe that, however seriously these words may be +gainsayed, I have been speaking to an audience in whom any words +spoken from a sense of duty and in hearty goodwill, as mine have +been, will quicken thought and sow some good seed. At any rate, it +is good for a man who thinks seriously to face his fellows, and +speak out whatever really burns in him, so that men may seem less +strange to one another, and misunderstanding, the fruitful cause of +aimless strife, may be avoided. + +But if to any of you I have seemed to speak hopelessly, my words +have been lacking in art; and you must remember that hopelessness +would have locked my mouth, not opened it. I am, indeed, hopeful, +but can I give a date to the accomplishment of my hope, and say that +it will happen in my life or yours? + +But I will say at least, Courage! for things wonderful, unhoped-for, +glorious, have happened even in this short while I have been alive. + +Yes, surely these times are wonderful and fruitful of change, which, +as it wears and gathers new life even in its wearing, will one day +bring better things for the toiling days of men, who, with freer +hearts and clearer eyes, will once more gain the sense of outward +beauty, and rejoice in it. + +Meanwhile, if these hours be dark, as, indeed, in many ways they +are, at least do not let us sit deedless, like fools and fine +gentlemen, thinking the common toil not good enough for us, and +beaten by the muddle; but rather let us work like good fellows +trying by some dim candle-light to set our workshop ready against +to-morrow's daylight--that to-morrow, when the civilised world, no +longer greedy, strifeful, and destructive, shall have a new art, a +glorious art, made by the people and for the people, as a happiness +to the maker and the user. + + + +THE BEAUTY OF LIFE {5} + + + +'--propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.'--Juvenal. + +I stand before you this evening weighted with a disadvantage that I +did not feel last year;--I have little fresh to tell you; I can +somewhat enlarge on what I said then; here and there I may make bold +to give you a practical suggestion, or I may put what I have to say +in a way which will be clearer to some of you perhaps; but my +message is really the same as it was when I first had the pleasure +of meeting you. + +It is true that if all were going smoothly with art, or at all +events so smoothly that there were but a few malcontents in the +world, you might listen with some pleasure, and perhaps advantage, +to the talk of an old hand in the craft concerning ways of work, the +snares that beset success, and the shortest road to it, to a tale of +workshop receipts and the like: that would be a pleasant talk +surely between friends and fellow-workmen; but it seems to me as if +it were not for us as yet; nay, maybe we may live long and find no +time fit for such restful talk as the cheerful histories of the +hopes and fears of our workshops: anyhow to-night I cannot do it, +but must once again call the faithful of art to a battle wider and +more distracting than that kindly struggle with nature, to which all +true craftsmen are born; which is both the building-up and the +wearing-away of their lives. + +As I look round on this assemblage, and think of all that it +represents, I cannot choose but be moved to the soul by the troubles +of the life of civilised man, and the hope that thrusts itself +through them; I cannot refrain from giving you once again the +message with which, as it seems, some chance-hap has charged me: +that message is, in short, to call on you to face the latest danger +which civilisation is threatened with, a danger of her own breeding: +that men in struggling towards the complete attainment of all the +luxuries of life for the strongest portion of their race should +deprive their whole race of all the beauty of life: a danger that +the strongest and wisest of mankind, in striving to attain to a +complete mastery over nature, should destroy her simplest and +widest-spread gifts, and thereby enslave simple people to them, and +themselves to themselves, and so at last drag the world into a +second barbarism more ignoble, and a thousandfold more hopeless, +than the first. + +Now of you who are listening to me, there are some, I feel sure, who +have received this message, and taken it to heart, and are day by +day fighting the battle that it calls on you to fight: to you I can +say nothing but that if any word I speak discourage you, I shall +heartily wish I had never spoken at all: but to be shown the enemy, +and the castle we have got to storm, is not to be bidden to run from +him; nor am I telling you to sit down deedless in the desert because +between you and the promised land lies many a trouble, and death +itself maybe: the hope before you you know, and nothing that I can +say can take it away from you; but friend may with advantage cry out +to friend in the battle that a stroke is coming from this side or +that: take my hasty words in that sense, I beg of you. + +But I think there will be others of you in whom vague discontent is +stirring: who are oppressed by the life that surrounds you; +confused and troubled by that oppression, and not knowing on which +side to seek a remedy, though you are fain to do so: well, we, who +have gone further into those troubles, believe that we can help you: +true we cannot at once take your trouble from you; nay, we may at +first rather add to it; but we can tell you what we think of the way +out of it; and then amidst the many things you will have to do to +set yourselves and others fairly on that way, you will many days, +nay most days, forget your trouble in thinking of the good that lies +beyond it, for which you are working. + +But, again, there are others amongst you (and to speak plainly, I +daresay they are the majority), who are not by any means troubled by +doubt of the road the world is going, nor excited by any hope of its +bettering that road: to them the cause of civilisation is simple +and even commonplace: it wonder, hope, and fear no longer hang +about it; has become to us like the rising and setting of the sun; +it cannot err, and we have no call to meddle with it, either to +complain of its course, or to try to direct it. + +There is a ground of reason and wisdom in that way of looking at the +matter: surely the world will go on its ways, thrust forward by +impulses which we cannot understand or sway: but as it grows in +strength for the journey, its necessary food is the life and +aspirations of ALL of us: and we discontented strugglers with what +at times seems the hurrying blindness of civilisation, no less than +those who see nothing but smooth, unvarying progress in it, are bred +of civilisation also, and shall be used up to further it in some way +or other, I doubt not: and it may be of some service to those who +think themselves the only loyal subjects of progress to hear of our +existence, since their not hearing of it would not make an end of +it: it may set them a-thinking not unprofitably to hear of burdens +that they do not help to bear, but which are nevertheless real and +weighty enough to some of their fellow-men, who are helping, even as +they are, to form the civilisation that is to be. + +The danger that the present course of civilisation will destroy the +beauty of life--these are hard words, and I wish I could mend them, +but I cannot, while I speak what I believe to be the truth. + +That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few +people would venture to assert, and yet most civilised people act as +if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging both themselves and +those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is +meant by ART, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no +mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they +choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as +nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than +men. + +Now I ask you, as I have been asking myself this long while, what +proportion of the population in civilised countries has any share at +all in that necessity of life? + +I say that the answer which must be made to that question justifies +my fear that modern civilisation is on the road to trample out all +the beauty of life, and to make us less than men. + +Now if there should be any here who will say: It was always so; +there always was a mass of rough ignorance that knew and cared +nothing about art; I answer first, that if that be the case, then it +was always wrong, and we, as soon as we have become conscious of +that wrong, are bound to set it right if we can. + +But moreover, strange to say, and in spite of all the suffering that +the world has wantonly made for itself, and has in all ages so +persistently clung to, as if it were a good and holy thing, this +wrong of the mass of men being regardless of art was NOT always so. + +So much is now known of the periods of art that have left abundant +examples of their work behind them, that we can judge of the art of +all periods by comparing these with the remains of times of which +less has been left us; and we cannot fail to come to the conclusion +that down to very recent days everything that the hand of man +touched was more or less beautiful: so that in those days all +people who made anything shared in art, as well as all people who +used the things so made: that is, ALL people shared in art. + +But some people may say: And was that to be wished for? would not +this universal spreading of art stop progress in other matters, +hinder the work of the world? Would it not make us unmanly? or if +not that, would it not be intrusive, and push out other things +necessary also for men to study? + +Well, I have claimed a necessary place for art, a natural place, and +it would be in the very essence of it, that it would apply its own +rules of order and fitness to the general ways of life: it seems to +me, therefore, that people who are over-anxious of the outward +expression of beauty becoming too great a force among the other +forces of life, would, if they had had the making of the external +world, have been afraid of making an ear of wheat beautiful, lest it +should not have been good to eat. + +But indeed there seems no chance of art becoming universal, unless +on the terms that it shall have little self-consciousness, and for +the most part be done with little effort; so that the rough work of +the world would be as little hindered by it, as the work of external +nature is by the beauty of all her forms and moods: this was the +case in the times that I have been speaking of: of art which was +made by conscious effort, the result of the individual striving +towards perfect expression of their thoughts by men very specially +gifted, there was perhaps no more than there is now, except in very +wonderful and short periods; though I believe that even for such men +the struggle to produce beauty was not so bitter as it now is. But +if there were not more great thinkers than there are now, there was +a countless multitude of happy workers whose work did express, and +could not choose but express, some original thought, and was +consequently both interesting and beautiful: now there is certainly +no chance of the more individual art becoming common, and either +wearying us by its over-abundance, or by noisy self-assertion +preventing highly cultivated men taking their due part in the other +work of the world; it is too difficult to do: it will be always but +the blossom of all the half-conscious work below it, the fulfilment +of the shortcomings of less complete minds: but it will waste much +of its power, and have much less influence on men's minds, unless it +be surrounded by abundance of that commoner work, in which all men +once shared, and which, I say, will, when art has really awakened, +be done so easily and constantly, that it will stand in no man's way +to hinder him from doing what he will, good or evil. And as, on the +one hand, I believe that art made by the people and for the people +as a joy both to the maker and the user would further progress in +other matters rather than hinder it, so also I firmly believe that +that higher art produced only by great brains and miraculously +gifted hands cannot exist without it: I believe that the present +state of things in which it does exist, while popular art is, let us +say, asleep or sick, is a transitional state, which must end at last +either in utter defeat or utter victory for the arts. + +For whereas all works of craftsmanship were once beautiful, +unwittingly or not, they are now divided into two kinds, works of +art and non-works of art: now nothing made by man's hand can be +indifferent: it must be either beautiful and elevating, or ugly and +degrading; and those things that are without art are so +aggressively; they wound it by their existence, and they are now so +much in the majority that the works of art we are obliged to set +ourselves to seek for, whereas the other things are the ordinary +companions of our everyday life; so that if those who cultivate art +intellectually were inclined never so much to wrap themselves in +their special gifts and their high cultivation, and so live happily, +apart from other men, and despising them, they could not do so: +they are as it were living in an enemy's country; at every turn +there is something lying in wait to offend and vex their nicer sense +and educated eyes: they must share in the general discomfort--and I +am glad of it. + +So the matter stands: from the first dawn of history till quite +modern times, art, which nature meant to solace all, fulfilled its +purpose; all men shared in it; that was what made life romantic, as +people call it, in those days; that and not robber-barons and +inaccessible kings with their hierarchy of serving-nobles and other +such rubbish: but art grew and grew, saw empires sicken and +sickened with them; grew hale again, and haler, and grew so great at +last, that she seemed in good truth to have conquered everything, +and laid the material world under foot. Then came a change at a +period of the greatest life and hope in many ways that Europe had +known till then: a time of so much and such varied hope that people +call it the time of the New Birth: as far as the arts are concerned +I deny it that title; rather it seems to me that the great men who +lived and glorified the practice of art in those days, were the +fruit of the old, not the seed of the new order of things: but a +stirring and hopeful time it was, and many things were newborn then +which have since brought forth fruit enough: and it is strange and +perplexing that from those days forward the lapse of time, which, +through plenteous confusion and failure, has on the whole been +steadily destroying privilege and exclusiveness in other matters, +has delivered up art to be the exclusive privilege of a few, and has +taken from the people their birthright; while both wronged and +wrongers have been wholly unconscious of what they were doing. + +Wholly unconscious--yes, but we are no longer so: there lies the +sting of it, and there also the hope. + +When the brightness of the so-called Renaissance faded, and it faded +very suddenly, a deadly chill fell upon the arts: that New-birth +mostly meant looking back to past times, wherein the men of those +days thought they saw a perfection of art, which to their minds was +different in kind, and not in degree only, from the ruder suggestive +art of their own fathers: this perfection they were ambitious to +imitate, this alone seemed to be art to them, the rest was +childishness: so wonderful was their energy, their success so +great, that no doubt to commonplace minds among them, though surely +not to the great masters, that perfection seemed to be gained: and, +perfection being gained, what are you to do?--you can go no further, +you must aim at standing still--which you cannot do. + +Art by no means stood still in those latter days of the Renaissance, +but took the downward road with terrible swiftness, and tumbled down +at the bottom of the hill, where as if bewitched it lay long in +great content, believing itself to be the art of Michael Angelo, +while it was the art of men whom nobody remembers but those who want +to sell their pictures. + +Thus it fared with the more individual forms of art. As to the art +of the people; in countries and places where the greater art had +flourished most, it went step by step on the downward path with +that: in more out-of-the-way places, England for instance, it still +felt the influence of the life of its earlier and happy days, and in +a way lived on a while; but its life was so feeble, and, so to say, +illogical, that it could not resist any change in external +circumstances, still less could it give birth to anything new; and +before this century began, its last flicker had died out. Still, +while it was living, in whatever dotage, it did imply something +going on in those matters of daily use that we have been thinking +of, and doubtless satisfied some cravings for beauty: and when it +was dead, for a long time people did not know it, or what had taken +its place, crept so to say into its dead body--that pretence of art, +to wit, which is done with machines, though sometimes the machines +are called men, and doubtless are so out of working hours: +nevertheless long before it was quite dead it had fallen so low that +the whole subject was usually treated with the utmost contempt by +every one who had any pretence of being a sensible man, and in short +the whole civilised world had forgotten that there had ever been an +art MADE BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE AS A JOY FOR THE MAKER AND THE +USER. + +But now it seems to me that the very suddenness of the change ought +to comfort us, to make us look upon this break in the continuity of +the golden chain as an accident only, that itself cannot last: for +think how many thousand years it may be since that primeval man +graved with a flint splinter on a bone the story of the mammoth he +had seen, or told us of the slow uplifting of the heavily-horned +heads of the reindeer that he stalked: think I say of the space of +time from then till the dimming of the brightness of the Italian +Renaissance! whereas from that time till popular art died unnoticed +and despised among ourselves is just but two hundred years. + +Strange too, that very death is contemporaneous with new-birth of +something at all events; for out of all despair sprang a new time of +hope lighted by the torch of the French Revolution: and things that +have languished with the languishing of art, rose afresh and surely +heralded its new birth: in good earnest poetry was born again, and +the English Language, which under the hands of sycophantic verse- +makers had been reduced to a miserable jargon, whose meaning, if it +have a meaning, cannot be made out without translation, flowed +clear, pure, and simple, along with the music of Blake and +Coleridge: take those names, the earliest in date among ourselves, +as a type of the change that has happened in literature since the +time of George II. + +With that literature in which romance, that is to say humanity, was +re-born, there sprang up also a feeling for the romance of external +nature, which is surely strong in us now, joined with a longing to +know something real of the lives of those who have gone before us; +of these feelings united you will find the broadest expression in +the pages of Walter Scott: it is curious as showing how sometimes +one art will lag behind another in a revival, that the man who wrote +the exquisite and wholly unfettered naturalism of the Heart of +Midlothian, for instance, thought himself continually bound to seem +to feel ashamed of, and to excuse himself for, his love of Gothic +Architecture: he felt that it was romantic, and he knew that it +gave him pleasure, but somehow he had not found out that it was art, +having been taught in many ways that nothing could be art that was +not done by a named man under academical rules. + +I need not perhaps dwell much on what of change has been since: you +know well that one of the master-arts, the art of painting, has been +revolutionised. I have a genuine difficulty in speaking to you of +men who are my own personal friends, nay my masters: still, since I +cannot quite say nothing of them I must say the plain truth, which +is this; never in the whole history of art did any set of men come +nearer to the feat of making something out of nothing than that +little knot of painters who have raised English art from what it +was, when as a boy I used to go to the Royal Academy Exhibition, to +what it is now. + +It would be ungracious indeed for me who have been so much taught by +him, that I cannot help feeling continually as I speak that I am +echoing his words, to leave out the name of John Ruskin from an +account of what has happened since the tide, as we hope, began to +turn in the direction of art. True it is, that his unequalled style +of English and his wonderful eloquence would, whatever its subject- +matter, have gained him some sort of a hearing in a time that has +not lost its relish for literature; but surely the influence that he +has exercised over cultivated people must be the result of that +style and that eloquence expressing what was already stirring in +men's minds; he could not have written what he has done unless +people were in some sort ready for it; any more than those painters +could have begun their crusade against the dulness and incompetency +that was the rule in their art thirty years ago unless they had some +hope that they would one day move people to understand them. + +Well, we find that the gains since the turning-point of the tide are +these: that there are some few artists who have, as it were, caught +up the golden chain dropped two hundred years ago, and that there +are a few highly cultivated people who can understand them; and that +beyond these there is a vague feeling abroad among people of the +same degree, of discontent at the ignoble ugliness that surrounds +them. + +That seems to me to mark the advance that we have made since the +last of popular art came to an end amongst us, and I do not say, +considering where we then were, that it is not a great advance, for +it comes to this, that though the battle is still to win, there are +those who are ready for the battle. + +Indeed it would be a strange shame for this age if it were not so: +for as every age of the world has its own troubles to confuse it, +and its own follies to cumber it, so has each its own work to do, +pointed out to it by unfailing signs of the times; and it is unmanly +and stupid for the children of any age to say: We will not set our +hands to the work; we did not make the troubles, we will not weary +ourselves seeking a remedy for them: so heaping up for their sons a +heavier load than they can lift without such struggles as will wound +and cripple them sorely. Not thus our fathers served us, who, +working late and early, left us at last that seething mass of people +so terribly alive and energetic, that we call modern Europe; not +thus those served us, who have made for us these present days, so +fruitful of change and wondering expectation. + +The century that is now beginning to draw to an end, if people were +to take to nicknaming centuries, would be called the Century of +Commerce; and I do not think I undervalue the work that it has done: +it has broken down many a prejudice and taught many a lesson that +the world has been hitherto slow to learn: it has made it possible +for many a man to live free, who would in other times have been a +slave, body or soul, or both: if it has not quite spread peace and +justice through the world, as at the end of its first half we fondly +hoped it would, it has at least stirred up in many fresh cravings +for peace and justice: its work has been good and plenteous, but +much of it was roughly done, as needs was; recklessness has commonly +gone with its energy, blindness too often with its haste: so that +perhaps it may be work enough for the next century to repair the +blunders of that recklessness, to clear away the rubbish which that +hurried work has piled up; nay even we in the second half of its +last quarter may do something towards setting its house in order. + +You, of this great and famous town, for instance, which has had so +much to do with the Century of Commerce, your gains are obvious to +all men, but the price you have paid for them is obvious to many-- +surely to yourselves most of all: I do not say that they are not +worth the price; I know that England and the world could very ill +afford to exchange the Birmingham of to-day for the Birmingham of +the year 1700: but surely if what you have gained be more than a +mockery, you cannot stop at those gains, or even go on always piling +up similar ones. Nothing can make me believe that the present +condition of your Black Country yonder is an unchangeable necessity +of your life and position: such miseries as this were begun and +carried on in pure thoughtlessness, and a hundredth part of the +energy that was spent in creating them would get rid of them: I do +think if we were not all of us too prone to acquiesce in the base +byword 'after me the deluge,' it would soon be something more than +an idle dream to hope that your pleasant midland hills and fields +might begin to become pleasant again in some way or other, even +without depopulating them; or that those once lovely valleys of +Yorkshire in the 'heavy woollen district,' with their sweeping hill- +sides and noble rivers, should not need the stroke of ruin to make +them once more delightful abodes of men, instead of the dog-holes +that the Century of Commerce has made them. + +Well, people will not take the trouble or spend the money necessary +to beginning this sort of reforms, because they do not feel the +evils they live amongst, because they have degraded themselves into +something less than men; they are unmanly because they have ceased +to have their due share of art. + +For again I say that therein rich people have defrauded themselves +as well as the poor: you will see a refined and highly educated man +nowadays, who has been to Italy and Egypt, and where not, who can +talk learnedly enough (and fantastically enough sometimes) about +art, and who has at his fingers' ends abundant lore concerning the +art and literature of past days, sitting down without signs of +discomfort in a house, that with all its surroundings is just +brutally vulgar and hideous: all his education has not done more +for him than that. + +The truth is, that in art, and in other things besides, the laboured +education of a few will not raise even those few above the reach of +the evils that beset the ignorance of the great mass of the +population: the brutality of which such a huge stock has been +accumulated lower down, will often show without much peeling through +the selfish refinement of those who have let it accumulate. The +lack of art, or rather the murder of art, that curses our streets +from the sordidness of the surroundings of the lower classes, has +its exact counterpart in the dulness and vulgarity of those of the +middle classes, and the double-distilled dulness, and scarcely less +vulgarity of those of the upper classes. + +I say this is as it should be; it is just and fair as far as it +goes; and moreover the rich with their leisure are the more like to +move if they feel the pinch themselves. + +But how shall they and we, and all of us, move? What is the remedy? + +What remedy can there be for the blunders of civilisation but +further civilisation? You do not by any accident think that we have +gone as far in that direction as it is possible to go, do you?--even +in England, I mean? + +When some changes have come to pass, that perhaps will be speedier +than most people think, doubtless education will both grow in +quality and in quantity; so that it may be, that as the nineteenth +century is to be called the Century of Commerce, the twentieth may +be called the Century of Education. But that education does not end +when people leave school is now a mere commonplace; and how then can +you really educate men who lead the life of machines, who only think +for the few hours during which they are not at work, who in short +spend almost their whole lives in doing work which is not proper for +developing them body and mind in some worthy way? You cannot +educate, you cannot civilise men, unless you can give them a share +in art. + +Yes, and it is hard indeed as things go to give most men that share; +for they do not miss it, or ask for it, and it is impossible as +things are that they should either miss or ask for it. Nevertheless +everything has a beginning, and many great things have had very +small ones; and since, as I have said, these ideas are already +abroad in more than one form, we must not be too much discouraged at +the seemingly boundless weight we have to lift. + +After all, we are only bound to play our own parts, and do our own +share of the lifting, and as in no case that share can be great, so +also in all cases it is called for, it is necessary. Therefore let +us work and faint not; remembering that though it be natural, and +therefore excusable, amidst doubtful times to feel doubts of success +oppress us at whiles, yet not to crush those doubts, and work as if +we had them not, is simple cowardice, which is unforgivable. No man +has any right to say that all has been done for nothing, that all +the faithful unwearying strife of those that have gone before us +shall lead us nowhither; that mankind will but go round and round in +a circle for ever: no man has a right to say that, and then get up +morning after morning to eat his victuals and sleep a-nights, all +the while making other people toil to keep his worthless life a- +going. + +Be sure that some way or other will be found out of the tangle, even +when things seem most tangled, and be no less sure that some use +will then have come of our work, if it has been faithful, and +therefore unsparingly careful and thoughtful. + +So once more I say, if in any matters civilisation has gone astray, +the remedy lies not in standing still, but in more complete +civilisation. + +Now whatever discussion there may be about that often used and often +misused word, I believe all who hear me will agree with me in +believing from their hearts, and not merely in saying in +conventional phrase, that the civilisation which does not carry the +whole people with it, is doomed to fall, and give place to one which +at least aims at doing so. + +We talk of the civilisation of the ancient peoples, of the classical +times, well, civilised they were no doubt, some of their folk at +least: an Athenian citizen for instance led a simple, dignified, +almost perfect life; but there were drawbacks to happiness perhaps +in the lives of his slaves: and the civilisation of the ancients +was founded on slavery. + +Indeed that ancient society did give a model to the world, and +showed us for ever what blessings are freedom of life and thought, +self-restraint and a generous education: all those blessings the +ancient free peoples set forth to the world--and kept them to +themselves. + +Therefore no tyrant was too base, no pretext too hollow, for +enslaving the grandsons of the men of Salamis and Thermopylae: +therefore did the descendants of those stern and self-restrained +Romans, who were ready to give up everything, and life as the least +of things, to the glory of their commonweal, produce monsters of +license and reckless folly. Therefore did a little knot of Galilean +peasants overthrow the Roman Empire. + +Ancient civilisation was chained to slavery and exclusiveness, and +it fell; the barbarism that took its place has delivered us from +slavery and grown into modern civilisation; and that in its turn has +before it the choice of never-ceasing growth, or destruction by that +which has in it the seeds of higher growth. + +There is an ugly word for a dreadful fact, which I must make bold to +use--the residuum: that word since the time I first saw it used, +has had a terrible significance to me, and I have felt from my heart +that if this residuum were a necessary part of modern civilisation, +as some people openly, and many more tacitly, assume that it is, +then this civilisation carries with it the poison that shall one day +destroy it, even as its elder sister did: if civilisation is to go +no further than this, it had better not have gone so far: if it +does not aim at getting rid of this misery and giving some share in +the happiness and dignity of life to ALL the people that it has +created, and which it spends such unwearying energy in creating, it +is simply an organised injustice, a mere instrument for oppression, +so much the worse than that which has gone before it, as its +pretensions are higher, its slavery subtler, its mastery harder to +overthrow, because supported by such a dense mass of commonplace +well-being and comfort. + +Surely this cannot be: surely there is a distinct feeling abroad of +this injustice: so that if the residuum still clogs all the efforts +of modern civilisation to rise above mere population-breeding and +money-making, the difficulty of dealing with it is the legacy, first +of the ages of violence and almost conscious brutal injustice, and +next of the ages of thoughtlessness, of hurry and blindness; surely +all those who think at all of the future of the world are at work in +one way or other in striving to rid it of this shame. + +That to my mind is the meaning of what we call National Education, +which we have begun, and which is doubtless already bearing its +fruits, and will bear greater, when all people are educated, not +according to the money which they or their parents possess, but +according to the capacity of their minds. + +What effect that will have upon the future of the arts, I cannot +say, but one would surely think a very great effect; for it will +enable people to see clearly many things which are now as completely +hidden from them as if they were blind in body and idiotic in mind: +and this, I say, will act not only upon those who most directly feel +the evils of ignorance, but also upon those who feel them +indirectly,--upon us, the educated: the great wave of rising +intelligence, rife with so many natural desires and aspirations, +will carry all classes along with it, and force us all to see that +many things which we have been used to look upon as necessary and +eternal evils are merely the accidental and temporary growths of +past stupidity, and can be escaped from by due effort, and the +exercise of courage, goodwill, and forethought. + +And among those evils, I do, and must always, believe will fall that +one which last year I told you that I accounted the greatest of all +evils, the heaviest of all slaveries; that evil of the greater part +of the population being engaged for by far the most part of their +lives in work, which at the best cannot interest them, or develop +their best faculties, and at the worst (and that is the commonest, +too) is mere unmitigated slavish toil, only to be wrung out of them +by the sternest compulsion, a toil which they shirk all they can-- +small blame to them. And this toil degrades them into less than +men: and they will some day come to know it, and cry out to be made +men again, and art only can do it, and redeem them from this +slavery; and I say once more that this is her highest and most +glorious end and aim; and it is in her struggle to attain to it that +she will most surely purify herself, and quicken her own aspirations +towards perfection. + +But we--in the meantime we must not sit waiting for obvious signs of +these later and glorious days to show themselves on earth, and in +the heavens, but rather turn to the commonplace, and maybe often +dull work of fitting ourselves in detail to take part in them if we +should live to see one of them; or in doing our best to make the +path smooth for their coming, if we are to die before they are here. + +What, therefore, can we do, to guard traditions of time past that we +may not one day have to begin anew from the beginning with none to +teach us? What are we to do, that we may take heed to, and spread +the decencies of life, so that at the least we may have a field +where it will be possible for art to grow when men begin to long for +it: what finally can we do, each of us, to cherish some germ of +art, so that it may meet with others, and spread and grow little by +little into the thing that we need? + +Now I cannot pretend to think that the first of these duties is a +matter of indifference to you, after my experience of the +enthusiastic meeting that I had the honour of addressing here last +autumn on the subject of the (so called) restoration of St. Mark's +at Venice; you thought, and most justly thought, it seems to me, +that the subject was of such moment to art in general, that it was a +simple and obvious thing for men who were anxious on the matter to +address themselves to those who had the decision of it in their +hands; even though the former were called Englishmen, and the latter +Italians; for you felt that the name of lovers of art would cover +those differences: if you had any misgivings, you remembered that +there was but one such building in the world, and that it was worth +while risking a breach of etiquette, if any words of ours could do +anything towards saving it; well, the Italians were, some of them, +very naturally, though surely unreasonably, irritated, for a time, +and in some of their prints they bade us look at home; that was no +argument in favour of the wisdom of wantonly rebuilding St. Mark's +facade: but certainly those of us who have not yet looked at home +in this matter had better do so speedily, late and over late though +it be: for though we have no golden-pictured interiors like St. +Mark's Church at home, we still have many buildings which are both +works of ancient art and monuments of history: and just think what +is happening to them, and note, since we profess to recognise their +value, how helpless art is in the Century of Commerce! + +In the first place, many and many a beautiful and ancient building +is being destroyed all over civilised Europe as well as in England, +because it is supposed to interfere with the convenience of the +citizens, while a little forethought might save it without trenching +on that convenience; {6} but even apart from that, I say that if we +are not prepared to put up with a little inconvenience in our +lifetimes for the sake of preserving a monument of art which will +elevate and educate, not only ourselves, but our sons, and our sons' +sons, it is vain and idle of us to talk about art--or education +either. Brutality must be bred of such brutality. + +The same thing may be said about enlarging, or otherwise altering +for convenience' sake, old buildings still in use for something like +their original purposes: in almost all such cases it is really +nothing more than a question of a little money for a new site: and +then a new building can be built exactly fitted for the uses it is +needed for, with such art about it as our own days can furnish; +while the old monument is left to tell its tale of change and +progress, to hold out example and warning to us in the practice of +the arts: and thus the convenience of the public, the progress of +modern art, and the cause of education, are all furthered at once at +the cost of a little money. + +Surely if it be worth while troubling ourselves about the works of +art of to-day, of which any amount almost can be done, since we are +yet alive, it is worth while spending a little care, forethought, +and money in preserving the art of bygone ages, of which (woe worth +the while!) so little is left, and of which we can never have any +more, whatever good-hap the world may attain to. + +No man who consents to the destruction or the mutilation of an +ancient building has any right to pretend that he cares about art; +or has any excuse to plead in defence of his crime against +civilisation and progress, save sheer brutal ignorance. + +But before I leave this subject I must say a word or two about the +curious invention of our own days called Restoration, a method of +dealing with works of bygone days which, though not so degrading in +its spirit as downright destruction, is nevertheless little better +in its results on the condition of those works of art; it is obvious +that I have no time to argue the question out to-night, so I will +only make these assertions: + +That ancient buildings, being both works of art and monuments of +history, must obviously be treated with great care and delicacy: +that the imitative art of to-day is not, and cannot be the same +thing as ancient art, and cannot replace it; and that therefore if +we superimpose this work on the old, we destroy it both as art and +as a record of history: lastly, that the natural weathering of the +surface of a building is beautiful, and its loss disastrous. + +Now the restorers hold the exact contrary of all this: they think +that any clever architect to-day can deal off-hand successfully with +the ancient work; that while all things else have changed about us +since (say) the thirteenth century, art has not changed, and that +our workmen can turn out work identical with that of the thirteenth +century; and, lastly, that the weather-beaten surface of an ancient +building is worthless, and to be got rid of wherever possible. + +You see the question is difficult to argue, because there seem to be +no common grounds between the restorers and the anti-restorers: I +appeal therefore to the public, and bid them note, that though our +opinions may be wrong, the action we advise is not rash: let the +question be shelved awhile: if, as we are always pressing on +people, due care be taken of these monuments, so that they shall not +fall into disrepair, they will be always there to 'restore' whenever +people think proper and when we are proved wrong; but if it should +turn out that we are right, how can the 'restored' buildings be +restored? I beg of you therefore to let the question be shelved, +till art has so advanced among us, that we can deal authoritatively +with it, till there is no longer any doubt about the matter. + +Surely these monuments of our art and history, which, whatever the +lawyers may say, belong not to a coterie, or to a rich man here and +there, but to the nation at large, are worth this delay: surely the +last relics of the life of the 'famous men and our fathers that +begat us' may justly claim of us the exercise of a little patience. + +It will give us trouble no doubt, all this care of our possessions: +but there is more trouble to come; for I must now speak of something +else, of possessions which should be common to all of us, of the +green grass, and the leaves, and the waters, of the very light and +air of heaven, which the Century of Commerce has been too busy to +pay any heed to. And first let me remind you that I am supposing +every one here present professes to care about art. + +Well, there are some rich men among us whom we oddly enough call +manufacturers, by which we mean capitalists who pay other men to +organise manufacturers; these gentlemen, many of whom buy pictures +and profess to care about art, burn a deal of coal: there is an Act +in existence which was passed to prevent them sometimes and in some +places from pouring a dense cloud of smoke over the world, and, to +my thinking, a very lame and partial Act it is: but nothing hinders +these lovers of art from being a law to themselves, and making it a +point of honour with them to minimise the smoke nuisance as far as +their own works are concerned; and if they don't do so, when mere +money, and even a very little of that, is what it will cost them, I +say that their love of art is a mere pretence: how can you care +about the image of a landscape when you show by your deeds that you +don't care for the landscape itself? or what right have you to shut +yourself up with beautiful form and colour when you make it +impossible for other people to have any share in these things? + +Well, and as to the smoke Act itself: I don't know what heed you +pay to it in Birmingham, {7} but I have seen myself what heed is +paid to it in other places; Bradford for instance: though close by +them at Saltaire they have an example which I should have thought +might have shamed them; for the huge chimney there which serves the +acres of weaving and spinning sheds of Sir Titus Salt and his +brothers is as guiltless of smoke as an ordinary kitchen chimney. +Or Manchester: a gentleman of that city told me that the smoke Act +was a mere dead letter there: well, they buy pictures in Manchester +and profess to wish to further the arts: but you see it must be +idle pretence as far as their rich people are concerned: they only +want to talk about it, and have themselves talked of. + +I don't know what you are doing about this matter here; but you must +forgive my saying, that unless you are beginning to think of some +way of dealing with it, you are not beginning yet to pave your way +to success in the arts. + +Well, I have spoken of a huge nuisance, which is a type of the worst +nuisances of what an ill-tempered man might be excused for calling +the Century of Nuisances, rather than the Century of Commerce. I +will now leave it to the consciences of the rich and influential +among us, and speak of a minor nuisance which it is in the power of +every one of us to abate, and which, small as it is, is so +vexatious, that if I can prevail on a score of you to take heed to +it by what I am saying, I shall think my evening's work a good one. +Sandwich-papers I mean--of course you laugh: but come now, don't +you, civilised as you are in Birmingham, leave them all about the +Lickey hills and your public gardens and the like? If you don't I +really scarcely know with what words to praise you. When we +Londoners go to enjoy ourselves at Hampton Court, for instance, we +take special good care to let everybody know that we have had +something to eat: so that the park just outside the gates (and a +beautiful place it is) looks as if it had been snowing dirty paper. +I really think you might promise me one and all who are here present +to have done with this sluttish habit, which is the type of many +another in its way, just as the smoke nuisance is. I mean such +things as scrawling one's name on monuments, tearing down tree +boughs, and the like. + +I suppose 'tis early days in the revival of the arts to express +one's disgust at the daily increasing hideousness of the posters +with which all our towns are daubed. Still we ought to be disgusted +at such horrors, and I think make up our minds never to buy any of +the articles so advertised. I can't believe they can be worth much +if they need all that shouting to sell them. + +Again, I must ask what do you do with the trees on a site that is +going to be built over? do you try to save them, to adapt your +houses at all to them? do you understand what treasures they are in +a town or a suburb? or what a relief they will be to the hideous +dog-holes which (forgive me!) you are probably going to build in +their places? I ask this anxiously, and with grief in my soul, for +in London and its suburbs we always {8} begin by clearing a site +till it is as bare as the pavement: I really think that almost +anybody would have been shocked, if I could have shown him some of +the trees that have been wantonly murdered in the suburb in which I +live (Hammersmith to wit), amongst them some of those magnificent +cedars, for which we along the river used to be famous once. + +But here again see how helpless those are who care about art or +nature amidst the hurry of the Century of Commerce. + +Pray do not forget, that any one who cuts down a tree wantonly or +carelessly, especially in a great town or its suburbs, need make no +pretence of caring about art. + +What else can we do to help to educate ourselves and others in the +path of art, to be on the road to attaining an ART MADE BY THE +PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE AS A JOY TO THE MAKER AND THE USER? + +Why, having got to understand something of what art was, having got +to look upon its ancient monuments as friends that can tell us +something of times bygone, and whose faces we do not wish to alter, +even though they be worn by time and grief: having got to spend +money and trouble upon matters of decency, great and little; having +made it clear that we really do care about nature even in the +suburbs of a big town--having got so far, we shall begin to think of +the houses in which we live. + +For I must tell you that unless you are resolved to have good and +rational architecture, it is, once again, useless your thinking +about art at all. + +I have spoken of the popular arts, but they might all be summed up +in that one word Architecture; they are all parts of that great +whole, and the art of house-building begins it all: if we did not +know how to dye or to weave; if we had neither gold, nor silver, nor +silk; and no pigments to paint with, but half-a-dozen ochres and +umbers, we might yet frame a worthy art that would lead to +everything, if we had but timber, stone, and lime, and a few cutting +tools to make these common things not only shelter us from wind and +weather, but also express the thoughts and aspirations that stir in +us. + +Architecture would lead us to all the arts, as it did with earlier +men: but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed, +the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed. + +Now I do not think the greatest of optimists would deny that, taking +us one and all, we are at present housed in a perfectly shameful +way, and since the greatest part of us have to live in houses +already built for us, it must be admitted that it is rather hard to +know what to do, beyond waiting till they tumble about our ears. + +Only we must not lay the fault upon the builders, as some people +seem inclined to do: they are our very humble servants, and will +build what we ask for; remember, that rich men are not obliged to +live in ugly houses, and yet you see they do; which the builders may +be well excused for taking as a sign of what is wanted. + +Well, the point is, we must do what we can, and make people +understand what we want them to do for us, by letting them see what +we do for ourselves. + +Hitherto, judging us by that standard, the builders may well say, +that we want the pretence of a thing rather than the thing itself; +that we want a show of petty luxury if we are unrich, a show of +insulting stupidity if we are rich: and they are quite clear that +as a rule we want to get something that shall look as if it cost +twice as much as it really did. + +You cannot have Architecture on those terms: simplicity and +solidity are the very first requisites of it: just think if it is +not so: How we please ourselves with an old building by thinking of +all the generations of men that have passed through it! do we not +remember how it has received their joy, and borne their sorrow, and +not even their folly has left sourness upon it? it still looks as +kind to us as it did to them. And the converse of this we ought to +feel when we look at a newly-built house if it were as it should be: +we should feel a pleasure in thinking how he who had built it had +left a piece of his soul behind him to greet the new-comers one +after another long and long after he was gone:- but what sentiment +can an ordinary modern house move in us, or what thought--save a +hope that we may speedily forget its base ugliness? + +But if you ask me how we are to pay for this solidity and extra +expense, that seems to me a reasonable question; for you must +dismiss at once as a delusion the hope that has been sometimes +cherished, that you can have a building which is a work of art, and +is therefore above all things properly built, at the same price as a +building which only pretends to be this: never forget when people +talk about cheap art in general, by the way, that all art costs +time, trouble, and thought, and that money is only a counter to +represent these things. + +However, I must try to answer the question I have supposed put, how +are we to pay for decent houses? + +It seems to me that, by a great piece of good luck, the way to pay +for them is by doing that which alone can produce popular art among +us: living a simple life, I mean. Once more I say that the +greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere. + +When you hear of the luxuries of the ancients, you must remember +that they were not like our luxuries, they were rather indulgence in +pieces of extravagant folly than what we to-day call luxury; which +perhaps you would rather call comfort: well I accept the word, and +say that a Greek or Roman of the luxurious time would stare +astonished could he be brought back again, and shown the comforts of +a well-to-do middle-class house. + +But some, I know, think that the attainment of these very comforts +is what makes the difference between civilisation and +uncivilisation, that they are the essence of civilisation. Is it so +indeed? Farewell my hope then!--I had thought that civilisation +meant the attainment of peace and order and freedom, of goodwill +between man and man, of the love of truth and the hatred of +injustice, and by consequence the attainment of the good life which +these things breed, a life free from craven fear, but full of +incident: that was what I thought it meant, not more stuffed chairs +and more cushions, and more carpets and gas, and more dainty meat +and drink--and therewithal more and sharper differences between +class and class. + +If that be what it is, I for my part wish I were well out of it, and +living in a tent in the Persian desert, or a turf hut on the Iceland +hill-side. But however it be, and I think my view is the true view, +I tell you that art abhors that side of civilisation, she cannot +breathe in the houses that lie under its stuffy slavery. + +Believe me, if we want art to begin at home, as it must, we must +clear our houses of troublesome superfluities that are for ever in +our way: conventional comforts that are no real comforts, and do +but make work for servants and doctors: if you want a golden rule +that will fit everybody, this is it: + +'HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR HOUSES THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW TO BE USEFUL OR +BELIEVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL.' + +And if we apply that rule strictly, we shall in the first place show +the builders and such-like servants of the public what we really +want, we shall create a demand for real art, as the phrase goes; and +in the second place, we shall surely have more money to pay for +decent houses. + +Perhaps it will not try your patience too much if I lay before you +my idea of the fittings necessary to the sitting-room of a healthy +person: a room, I mean, in which he would not have to cook in much, +or sleep in generally, or in which he would not have to do any very +litter-making manual work. + +First a book-case with a great many books in it: next a table that +will keep steady when you write or work at it: then several chairs +that you can move, and a bench that you can sit or lie upon: next a +cupboard with drawers: next, unless either the book-case or the +cupboard be very beautiful with painting or carving, you will want +pictures or engravings, such as you can afford, only not stop-gaps, +but real works of art on the wall; or else the wall itself must be +ornamented with some beautiful and restful pattern: we shall also +want a vase or two to put flowers in, which latter you must have +sometimes, especially if you live in a town. Then there will be the +fireplace of course, which in our climate is bound to be the chief +object in the room. + +That is all we shall want, especially if the floor be good; if it be +not, as, by the way, in a modern house it is pretty certain not to +be, I admit that a small carpet which can be bundled out of the room +in two minutes will be useful, and we must also take care that it is +beautiful, or it will annoy us terribly. + +Now unless we are musical, and need a piano (in which case, as far +as beauty is concerned, we are in a bad way), that is quite all we +want: and we can add very little to these necessaries without +troubling ourselves, and hindering our work, our thought, and our +rest. + +If these things were done at the least cost for which they could be +done well and solidly, they ought not to cost much; and they are so +few, that those that could afford to have them at all, could afford +to spend some trouble to get them fitting and beautiful: and all +those who care about art ought to take great trouble to do so, and +to take care that there be no sham art amongst them, nothing that it +has degraded a man to make or sell. And I feel sure, that if all +who care about art were to take this pains, it would make a great +impression upon the public. + +This simplicity you may make as costly as you please or can, on the +other hand: you may hang your walls with tapestry instead of +whitewash or paper; or you may cover them with mosaic, or have them +frescoed by a great painter: all this is not luxury, if it be done +for beauty's sake, and not for show: it does not break our golden +rule: HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR HOUSES WHICH YOU DO NOT KNOW TO BE +USEFUL OR BELIEVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL. + +All art starts from this simplicity; and the higher the art rises, +the greater the simplicity. I have been speaking of the fittings of +a dwelling-house--a place in which we eat and drink, and pass +familiar hours; but when you come to places which people want to +make more specially beautiful because of the solemnity or dignity of +their uses, they will be simpler still, and have little in them save +the bare walls made as beautiful as may be. St. Mark's at Venice +has very little furniture in it, much less than most Roman Catholic +churches: its lovely and stately mother St. Sophia of +Constantinople had less still, even when it was a Christian church: +but we need not go either to Venice or Stamboul to take note of +that: go into one of our own mighty Gothic naves (do any of you +remember the first time you did so?) and note how the huge free +space satisfies and elevates you, even now when window and wall are +stripped of ornament: then think of the meaning of simplicity, and +absence of encumbering gew-gaws. + +Now after all, for us who are learning art, it is not far to seek +what is the surest way to further it; that which most breeds art is +art; every piece of work that we do which is well done, is so much +help to the cause; every piece of pretence and half-heartedness is +so much hurt to it. Most of you who take to the practice of art can +find out in no very long time whether you have any gifts for it or +not: if you have not, throw the thing up, or you will have a +wretched time of it yourselves, and will be damaging the cause by +laborious pretence: but if you have gifts of any kind, you are +happy indeed beyond most men; for your pleasure is always with you, +nor can you be intemperate in the enjoyment of it, and as you use +it, it does not lessen, but grows: if you are by chance weary of it +at night, you get up in the morning eager for it; or if perhaps in +the morning it seems folly to you for a while, yet presently, when +your hand has been moving a little in its wonted way, fresh hope has +sprung up beneath it and you are happy again. While others are +getting through the day like plants thrust into the earth, which +cannot turn this way or that but as the wind blows them, you know +what you want, and your will is on the alert to find it, and you, +whatever happens, whether it be joy or grief, are at least alive. + +Now when I spoke to you last year, after I had sat down I was half +afraid that I had on some points said too much, that I had spoken +too bitterly in my eagerness; that a rash word might have +discouraged some of you; I was very far from meaning that: what I +wanted to do, what I want to do to-night is to put definitely before +you a cause for which to strive. + +That cause is the Democracy of Art, the ennobling of daily and +common work, which will one day put hope and pleasure in the place +of fear and pain, as the forces which move men to labour and keep +the world a-going. + +If I have enlisted any one in that cause, rash as my words may have +been, or feeble as they may have been, they have done more good than +harm; nor do I believe that any words of mine can discourage any who +have joined that cause or are ready to do so: their way is too +clear before them for that, and every one of us can help the cause +whether he be great or little. + +I know indeed that men, wearied by the pettiness of the details of +the strife, their patience tried by hope deferred, will at whiles, +excusably enough, turn back in their hearts to other days, when if +the issues were not clearer, the means of trying them were simpler; +when, so stirring were the times, one might even have atoned for +many a blunder and backsliding by visibly dying for the cause. To +have breasted the Spanish pikes at Leyden, to have drawn sword with +Oliver: that may well seem to us at times amidst the tangles of to- +day a happy fate: for a man to be able to say, I have lived like a +fool, but now I will cast away fooling for an hour, and die like a +man--there is something in that certainly: and yet 'tis clear that +few men can be so lucky as to die for a cause, without having first +of all lived for it. And as this is the most that can be asked from +the greatest man that follows a cause, so it is the least that can +be taken from the smallest. + +So to us who have a Cause at heart, our highest ambition and our +simplest duty are one and the same thing: for the most part we +shall be too busy doing the work that lies ready to our hands, to +let impatience for visibly great progress vex us much; but surely +since we are servants of a Cause, hope must be ever with us, and +sometimes perhaps it will so quicken our vision that it will outrun +the slow lapse of time, and show us the victorious days when +millions of those who now sit in darkness will be enlightened by an +ART MADE BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE, A JOY TO THE MAKER AND +THE USER. + + + +MAKING THE BEST OF IT {9} + + + +I have to-night to talk to you about certain things which my +experience in my own craft has led me to notice, and which have bred +in my mind something like a set of rules or maxims, which guide my +practice. Every one who has followed a craft for long has such +rules in his mind, and cannot help following them himself, and +insisting on them practically in dealing with his pupils or workmen +if he is in any degree a master; and when these rules, or if you +will, impulses, are filling the minds and guiding the hands of many +craftsmen at one time, they are busy forming a distinct school, and +the art they represent is sure to be at least alive, however rude, +timid, or lacking it may be; and the more imperious these rules are, +the wider these impulses are spread, the more vigorously alive will +be the art they produce; whereas in times when they are felt but +lightly and rarely, when one man's maxims seem absurd or trivial to +his brother craftsman, art is either sick or slumbering, or so +thinly scattered amongst the great mass of men as to influence the +general life of the world little or nothing. + +For though this kind of rules of a craft may seem to some arbitrary, +I think that it is because they are the result of such intricate +combinations of circumstances, that only a great philosopher, if +even he, could express in words the sources of them, and give us +reasons for them all, and we who are craftsmen must be content to +prove them in practice, believing that their roots are founded in +human nature, even as we know that their first-fruits are to be +found in that most wonderful of all histories, the history of the +arts. + +Will you, therefore, look upon me as a craftsman who shares certain +impulses with many others, which impulses forbid him to question the +rules they have forced on him? so looking on me you may afford +perhaps to be more indulgent to me if I seem to dogmatise over much. + +Yet I cannot claim to represent any one craft. The division of +labour, which has played so great a part in furthering competitive +commerce, till it has become a machine with powers both reproductive +and destructive, which few dare to resist, and none can control or +foresee the result of, has pressed specially hard on that part of +the field of human culture in which I was born to labour. That +field of the arts, whose harvest should be the chief part of human +joy, hope, and consolation, has been, I say, dealt hardly with by +the division of labour, once the servant, and now the master of +competitive commerce, itself once the servant, and now the master of +civilisation; nay, so searching has been this tyranny, that it has +not passed by my own insignificant corner of labour, but as it has +thwarted me in many ways, so chiefly perhaps in this, that it has so +stood in the way of my getting the help from others which my art +forces me to crave, that I have been compelled to learn many crafts, +and belike, according to the proverb, forbidden to master any, so +that I fear my lecture will seem to you both to run over too many +things and not to go deep enough into any. + +I cannot help it. That above-mentioned tyranny has turned some of +us from being, as we should be, contented craftsmen, into being +discontented agitators against it, so that our minds are not at +rest, even when we have to talk over workshop receipts and maxims; +indeed I must confess that I should hold my peace on all matters +connected with the arts, if I had not a lurking hope to stir up both +others and myself to discontent with and rebellion against things as +they are, clinging to the further hope that our discontent may be +fruitful and our rebellion steadfast, at least to the end of our own +lives, since we believe that we are rebels not against the laws of +Nature, but the customs of folly. + +Nevertheless, since even rebels desire to live, and since even they +must sometimes crave for rest and peace--nay, since they must, as it +were, make for themselves strongholds from whence to carry on the +strife--we ought not to be accused of inconsistency, if to-night we +consider how to make the best of it. By what forethought, pains, +and patience, can we make endurable those strange dwellings--the +basest, the ugliest, and the most inconvenient that men have ever +built for themselves, and which our own haste, necessity, and +stupidity, compel almost all of us to live in? That is our present +question. + +In dealing with this subject, I shall perforce be chiefly speaking +of those middle-class dwellings of which I know most; but what I +have to say will be as applicable to any other kind; for there is no +dignity or unity of plan about any modern house, big or little. It +has neither centre nor individuality, but is invariably a congeries +of rooms tumbled together by chance hap. So that the unit I have to +speak of is a room rather than a house. + +Now there may be some here who have the good luck to dwell in those +noble buildings which our forefathers built, out of their very +souls, one may say; such good luck I call about the greatest that +can befall a man in these days. But these happy people have little +to do with our troubles of to-night, save as sympathetic onlookers. +All we have to do with them is to remind them not to forget their +duties to those places, which they doubtless love well; not to alter +them or torment them to suit any passing whim or convenience, but to +deal with them as if their builders, to whom they owe so much, could +still be wounded by the griefs and rejoice in the well-doing of +their ancient homes. Surely if they do this, they also will neither +be forgotten nor unthanked in the time to come. + +There may be others here who dwell in houses that can scarcely be +called noble--nay, as compared with the last-named kind, may be +almost called ignoble--but their builders still had some traditions +left them of the times of art. They are built solidly and +conscientiously at least, and if they have little or no beauty, yet +have a certain common-sense and convenience about them; nor do they +fail to represent the manners and feelings of their own time. The +earliest of these, built about the reign of Queen Anne, stretch out +a hand toward the Gothic times, and are not without picturesqueness, +especially when their surroundings are beautiful. The latest built +in the latter days of the Georges are certainly quite guiltless of +picturesqueness, but are, as above said, solid, and not +inconvenient. All these houses, both the so-called Queen Anne ones +and the distinctively Georgian, are difficult enough to decorate, +especially for those who have any leaning toward romance, because +they have still some style left in them which one cannot ignore; at +the same time that it is impossible for any one living out of the +time in which they were built to sympathise with a style whose +characteristics are mere whims, not founded on any principle. Still +they are at the worst not aggressively ugly or base, and it is +possible to live in them without serious disturbance to our work or +thoughts; so that by the force of contrast they have become bright +spots in the prevailing darkness of ugliness that has covered all +modern life. + +But we must not forget that that rebellion which we have met here, I +hope, to further, has begun, and to-day shows visible tokens of its +life; for of late there have been houses rising up among us here and +there which have certainly not been planned either by the common +cut-and-dried designers for builders, or by academical imitators of +bygone styles. Though they may be called experimental, no one can +say that they are not born of thought and principle, as well as of +great capacity for design. It is nowise our business to-night to +criticise them. I suspect their authors, who have gone through so +many difficulties (not of their own breeding) in producing them, +know their shortcomings much better than we can do, and are less +elated by their successes than we are. At any rate, they are gifts +to our country which will always be respected, whether the times +better or worsen, and I call upon you to thank their designers most +heartily for their forethought, labour, and hope. + +Well, I have spoken of three qualifications to that degradation of +our dwellings which characterises this period of history only. + +First, there are the very few houses which have been left us from +the times of art. Except that we may sometimes have the pleasure of +seeing these, we most of us have little enough to do with them. + +Secondly, there are those houses of the times when, though art was +sick and all but dead, men had not quite given it up as a bad job, +and at any rate had not learned systematic bad building; and when, +moreover, they had what they wanted, and their lives were expressed +by their architecture. Of these there are still left a good many +all over the country, but they are lessening fast before the +irresistible force of competition, and will soon be very rare +indeed. + +Thirdly, there are a few houses built and mostly inhabited by the +ringleaders of the rebellion against sordid ugliness, which we are +met here to further to-night. It is clear that as yet these are +very few,--or you could never have thought it worth your while to +come here to hear the simple words I have to say to you on this +subject. + +Now, these are the exceptions. The rest is what really amounts to +the dwellings of all our people, which are built without any hope of +beauty or care for it--without any thought that there can be any +pleasure in the look of an ordinary dwelling-house, and also (in +consequence of this neglect of manliness) with scarce any heed to +real convenience. It will, I hope, one day be hard to believe that +such houses were built for a people not lacking in honesty, in +independence of life, in elevation of thought, and consideration for +others; not a whit of all that do they express, but rather +hypocrisy, flunkeyism, and careless selfishness. The fact is, they +are no longer part of our lives. We have given it up as a bad job. +We are heedless if our houses express nothing of us but the very +worst side of our character both national and personal. + +This unmanly heedlessness, so injurious to civilisation, so unjust +to those that are to follow us, is the very thing we want to shake +people out of. We want to make them think about their homes, to +take the trouble to turn them into dwellings fit for people free in +mind and body--much might come of that I think. + +Now, to my mind, the first step towards this end is, to follow the +fashion of our nation, so often, so VERY often, called practical, +and leaving for a little an ideal scarce conceivable, to try to get +people to bethink them of what we can best do with those makeshifts +which we cannot get rid of all at once. + +I know that those lesser arts, by which alone this can be done, are +looked upon by many wise and witty people as not worth the notice of +a sensible man; but, since I am addressing a society of artists, I +believe I am speaking to people who have got beyond even that stage +of wisdom and wit, and that you think all the arts of importance. +Yet, indeed, I should think I had but little claim on your attention +if I deemed the question involved nothing save the gain of a little +more content and a little more pleasure for those who already have +abundance of content and pleasure; let me say it, that either I have +erred in the aim of my whole life, or that the welfare of these +lesser arts involves the question of the content and self-respect of +all craftsmen, whether you call them artists or artisans. So I say +again, my hope is that those who begin to consider carefully how to +make the best of the chambers in which they eat and sleep and study, +and hold converse with their friends, will breed in their minds a +wholesome and fruitful discontent with the sordidness that even when +they have done their best will surround their island of comfort, and +that as they try to appease this discontent they will find that +there is no way out of it but by insisting that all men's work shall +be fit for free men and not for machines: my extravagant hope is +that people will some day learn something of art, and so long for +more, and will find, as I have, that there is no getting it save by +the general acknowledgment of the right of every man to have fit +work to do in a beautiful home. Therein lies all that is +indestructible of the pleasure of life; no man need ask for more +than that, no man should be granted less; and if he falls short of +it, it is through waste and injustice that he is kept out of his +birthright. + +And now I will try what I can do in my hints on this making the best +of it, first asking your pardon for this, that I shall have to give +a great deal of negative advice, and be always saying 'don't'--that, +as you know, being much the lot of those who profess reform. + +Before we go inside our house, nay, before we look at its outside, +we may consider its garden, chiefly with reference to town +gardening; which, indeed, I, in common, I suppose, with most others +who have tried it, have found uphill work enough--all the more as in +our part of the world few indeed have any mercy upon the one thing +necessary for decent life in a town, its trees; till we have come to +this, that one trembles at the very sound of an axe as one sits at +one's work at home. However, uphill work or not, the town garden +must not be neglected if we are to be in earnest in making the best +of it. + +Now I am bound to say town gardeners generally do rather the reverse +of that: our suburban gardeners in London, for instance, oftenest +wind about their little bit of gravel walk and grass plot in +ridiculous imitation of an ugly big garden of the landscape- +gardening style, and then with a strange perversity fill up the +spaces with the most formal plants they can get; whereas the merest +common sense should have taught them to lay out their morsel of +ground in the simplest way, to fence it as orderly as might be, one +part from the other (if it be big enough for that) and the whole +from the road, and then to fill up the flower-growing space with +things that are free and interesting in their growth, leaving nature +to do the desired complexity, which she will certainly not fail to +do if we do not desert her for the florist, who, I must say, has +made it harder work than it should be to get the best of flowers. + +It is scarcely a digression to note his way of dealing with flowers, +which, moreover, gives us an apt illustration of that change without +thought of beauty, change for the sake of change, which has played +such a great part in the degradation of art in all times. So I ask +you to note the way he has treated the rose, for instance: the rose +has been grown double from I don't know when; the double rose was a +gain to the world, a new beauty was given us by it, and nothing +taken away, since the wild rose grows in every hedge. Yet even then +one might be excused for thinking that the wild rose was scarce +improved on, for nothing can be more beautiful in general growth or +in detail than a wayside bush of it, nor can any scent be as sweet +and pure as its scent. Nevertheless the garden rose had a new +beauty of abundant form, while its leaves had not lost the +wonderfully delicate texture of the wild one. The full colour it +had gained, from the blush rose to the damask, was pure and true +amidst all its added force, and though its scent had certainly lost +some of the sweetness of the eglantine, it was fresh still, as well +as so abundantly rich. Well, all that lasted till quite our own +day, when the florists fell upon the rose--men who could never have +enough--they strove for size and got it, a fine specimen of a +florist's rose being about as big as a moderate Savoy cabbage. They +tried for strong scent and got it--till a florist's rose has not +unseldom a suspicion of the scent of the aforesaid cabbage--not at +its best. They tried for strong colour and got it, strong and bad-- +like a conqueror. But all this while they missed the very essence +of the rose's being; they thought there was nothing in it but +redundance and luxury; they exaggerated these into coarseness, while +they threw away the exquisite subtilty of form, delicacy of texture, +and sweetness of colour, which, blent with the richness which the +true garden rose shares with many other flowers, yet makes it the +queen of them all--the flower of flowers. Indeed, the worst of this +is that these sham roses are driving the real ones out of existence. +If we do not look to it our descendants will know nothing of the +cabbage rose, the loveliest in form of all, or the blush rose with +its dark green stems and unequalled colour, or the yellow-centred +rose of the East, which carries the richness of scent to the very +furthest point it can go without losing freshness: they will know +nothing of all these, and I fear they will reproach the poets of +past time for having done according to their wont, and exaggerated +grossly the beauties of the rose. + +Well, as a Londoner perhaps I have said too much of roses, since we +can scarcely grow them among suburban smoke, but what I have said of +them applies to other flowers, of which I will say this much more. +Be very shy of double flowers; choose the old columbine where the +clustering doves are unmistakable and distinct, not the double one, +where they run into mere tatters. Choose (if you can get it) the +old china-aster with the yellow centre, that goes so well with the +purple-brown stems and curiously coloured florets, instead of the +lumps that look like cut paper, of which we are now so proud. Don't +be swindled out of that wonder of beauty, a single snowdrop; there +is no gain and plenty of loss in the double one. More loss still in +the double sunflower, which is a coarse-coloured and dull plant, +whereas the single one, though a late comer to our gardens, is by no +means to be despised, since it will grow anywhere, and is both +interesting and beautiful, with its sharply chiselled yellow florets +relieved by the quaintly patterned sad-coloured centre clogged with +honey and beset with bees and butterflies. + +So much for over-artificiality in flowers. A word or two about the +misplacing of them. Don't have ferns in your garden. The hart's +tongue in the clefts of the rock, the queer things that grow within +reach of the spray of the waterfall; these are right in their +places. Still more the brake on the woodside, whether in late +autumn, when its withered haulm helps out the well-remembered +woodland scent, or in spring, when it is thrusting its volutes +through last year's waste. But all this is nothing to a garden, and +is not to be got out of it; and if you try it you will take away +from it all possible romance, the romance of a garden. + +The same thing may be said about many plants, which are curiosities +only, which Nature meant to be grotesque, not beautiful, and which +are generally the growth of hot countries, where things sprout over +quick and rank. Take note that the strangest of these come from the +jungle and the tropical waste, from places where man is not at home, +but is an intruder, an enemy. Go to a botanical garden and look at +them, and think of those strange places to your heart's content. +But don't set them to starve in your smoke-drenched scrap of ground +amongst the bricks, for they will be no ornament to it. + +As to colour in gardens. Flowers in masses are mighty strong +colour, and if not used with a great deal of caution are very +destructive to pleasure in gardening. On the whole, I think the +best and safest plan is to mix up your flowers, and rather eschew +great masses of colour--in combination I mean. But there are some +flowers (inventions of men, i.e. florists) which are bad colour +altogether, and not to be used at all. Scarlet geraniums, for +instance, or the yellow calceolaria, which indeed are not uncommonly +grown together profusely, in order, I suppose, to show that even +flowers can be thoroughly ugly. + +Another thing also much too commonly seen is an aberration of the +human mind, which otherwise I should have been ashamed to warn you +of. It is technically called carpet-gardening. Need I explain it +further? I had rather not, for when I think of it even when I am +quite alone I blush with shame at the thought. + +I am afraid it is specially necessary in these days when making the +best of it is a hard job, and when the ordinary iron hurdles are so +common and so destructive of any kind of beauty in a garden, to say +when you fence anything in a garden use a live hedge, or stones set +flatwise (as they do in some parts of the Cotswold country), or +timber, or wattle, or, in short, anything but iron. {10} + +And now to sum up as to a garden. Large or small, it should look +both orderly and rich. It should be well fenced from the outside +world. It should by no means imitate either the wilfulness or the +wildness of Nature, but should look like a thing never to be seen +except near a house. It should, in fact, look like a part of the +house. It follows from this that no private pleasure-garden should +be very big, and a public garden should be divided and made to look +like so many flower-closes in a meadow, or a wood, or amidst the +pavement. + +It will be a key to right thinking about gardens if you consider in +what kind of places a garden is most desired. In a very beautiful +country, especially if it be mountainous, we can do without it well +enough; whereas in a flat and dull country we crave after it, and +there it is often the very making of the homestead. While in great +towns, gardens, both private and public, are positive necessities if +the citizens are to live reasonable and healthy lives in body and +mind. + +So much for the garden, of which, since I have said that it ought to +be part of the house, I hope I have not spoken too much. + +Now, as to the outside of our makeshift house, I fear it is too ugly +to keep us long. Let what painting you have to do about it be as +simple as possible, and be chiefly white or whitish; for when a +building is ugly in form it will bear no decoration, and to mark its +parts by varying colour will be the way to bring out its ugliness. +So I don't advise you to paint your houses blood-red and chocolate +with white facings, as seems to be getting the fashion in some parts +of London. You should, however, always paint your sash-bars and +window-frames white to break up the dreary space of window somewhat. +The only other thing I have to say, is to warn you against using at +all a hot brownish-red, which some decorators are very fond of. +Till some one invents a better name for it, let us call it cockroach +colour, and have naught to do with it. + +So we have got to the inside of our house, and are in the room we +are to live in, call it by what name you will. As to its +proportions, it will be great luck indeed in an ordinary modern +house if they are tolerable; but let us hope for the best. If it is +to be well proportioned, one of its parts, either its height, +length, or breadth, ought to exceed the others, or be marked +somehow. If it be square or so nearly as to seem so, it should not +be high; if it be long and narrow, it might be high without any +harm, but yet would be more interesting low; whereas if it be an +obvious but moderate oblong on plan, great height will be decidedly +good. + +As to the parts of a room that we have to think of, they are wall, +ceiling, floor, windows and doors, fireplace, and movables. Of +these the wall is of so much the most importance to a decorator, and +will lead us so far a-field that I will mostly clear off the other +parts first, as to the mere arrangement of them, asking you +meanwhile to understand that the greater part of what I shall be +saying as to the design of the patterns for the wall, I consider +more or less applicable to patterns everywhere. + +As to the windows then; I fear we must grumble again. In most +decent houses, or what are so called, the windows are much too big, +and let in a flood of light in a haphazard and ill-considered way, +which the indwellers are forced to obscure again by shutters, +blinds, curtains, screens, heavy upholsteries, and such other +nuisances. The windows, also, are almost always brought too low +down, and often so low down as to have their sills on a level with +our ankles, sending thereby a raking light across the room that +destroys all pleasantness of tone. The windows, moreover, are +either big rectangular holes in the wall, or, which is worse, have +ill-proportioned round or segmental heads, while the common custom +in 'good' houses is either to fill these openings with one huge +sheet of plate-glass, or to divide them across the middle with a +thin bar. If we insist on glazing them thus, we may make up our +minds that we have done the worst we can for our windows, nor can a +room look tolerable where it is so treated. You may see how people +feel this by their admiration of the tracery of a Gothic window, or +the lattice-work of a Cairo house. Our makeshift substitute for +those beauties must be the filling of the window with moderate-sized +panes of glass (plate-glass if you will) set in solid sash-bars; we +shall then at all events feel as if we were indoors on a cold day-- +as if we had a roof over our heads. + +As to the floor: a little time ago it was the universal custom for +those who could afford it to cover it all up into its dustiest and +crookedest corners with a carpet, good, bad, or indifferent. Now I +daresay you have heard from others, whose subject is the health of +houses rather than their art (if indeed the two subjects can be +considered apart, as they cannot really be), you have heard from +teachers like Dr. Richardson what a nasty and unwholesome custom +this is, so I will only say that it looks nasty and unwholesome. +Happily, however, it is now a custom so much broken into that we may +consider it doomed; for in all houses that pretend to any taste of +arrangement, the carpet is now a rug, large it may be, but at any +rate not looking immovable, and not being a trap for dust in the +corners. Still I would go further than this even and get rich +people no longer to look upon a carpet as a necessity for a room at +all, at least in the summer. This would have two advantages: 1st, +It would compel us to have better floors (and less drafty), our +present ones being one of the chief disgraces to modern building; +and 2ndly, since we should have less carpet to provide, what we did +have we could afford to have better. We could have a few real works +of art at the same price for which we now have hundreds of yards of +makeshift machine-woven goods. In any case it is a great comfort to +see the actual floor; and the said floor may be, as you know, made +very ornamental by either wood mosaic, or tile and marble mosaic; +the latter especially is such an easy art as far as mere +technicality goes, and so full of resources, that I think it is a +great pity it is not used more. The contrast between its grey tones +and the rich positive colour of Eastern carpet-work is so beautiful, +that the two together make satisfactory decoration for a room with +little addition. + +When wood mosaic or parquet-work is used, owing to the necessary +simplicity of the forms, I think it best not to vary the colour of +the wood. The variation caused by the diverse lie of the grain and +so forth, is enough. Most decorators will be willing, I believe, to +accept it as an axiom, that when a pattern is made of very simple +geometrical forms, strong contrast of colour is to be avoided. + +So much for the floor. As for its fellow, the ceiling, that is, I +must confess, a sore point with me in my attempts at making the best +of it. The simplest and most natural way of decorating a ceiling is +to show the underside of the joists and beams duly moulded, and if +you will, painted in patterns. How far this is from being possible +in our modern makeshift houses, I suppose I need not say. Then +there is a natural and beautiful way of ornamenting a ceiling by +working the plaster into delicate patterns, such as you see in our +Elizabethan and Jacobean houses; which often enough, richly designed +and skilfully wrought as they are, are by no means pedantically +smooth in finish--nay, may sometimes be called rough as to +workmanship. But, unhappily there are few of the lesser arts that +have fallen so low as the plasterer's. The cast work one sees +perpetually in pretentious rooms is a mere ghastly caricature of +ornament, which no one is expected to look at if he can help it. It +is simply meant to say, 'This house is built for a rich man.' The +very material of it is all wrong, as, indeed, mostly happens with an +art that has fallen sick. That richly designed, freely wrought +plastering of our old houses was done with a slowly drying tough +plaster, that encouraged the hand like modeller's clay, and could +not have been done at all with the brittle plaster used in ceilings +nowadays, whose excellence is supposed to consist in its smoothness +only. To be good, according to our present false standard, it must +shine like a sheet of hot-pressed paper, so that, for the present, +and without the expenditure of abundant time and trouble, this kind +of ceiling decoration is not to be hoped for. + +It may be suggested that we should paper our ceilings like our +walls, but I can't think that it will do. Theoretically, a paper- +hanging is so much distemper colour applied to a surface by being +printed on paper instead of being painted on plaster by the hand; +but practically, we never forget that it is paper, and a room +papered all over would be like a box to live in. Besides, the +covering a room all over with cheap recurring patterns in an +uninteresting material, is but a poor way out of our difficulty, and +one which we should soon tire of. + +There remains, then, nothing but to paint our ceilings cautiously +and with as much refinement as we can, when we can afford it: +though even that simple matter is complicated by the hideousness of +the aforesaid plaster ornaments and cornices, which are so very bad +that you must ignore them by leaving them unpainted, though even +this neglect, while you paint the flat of the ceiling, makes them in +a way part of the decoration, and so is apt to beat you out of every +scheme of colour conceivable. Still, I see nothing for it but +cautious painting, or leaving the blank white space alone, to be +forgotten if possible. This painting, of course, assumes that you +know better than to use gas in your rooms, which will indeed soon +reduce all your decorations to a pretty general average. + +So now we come to the walls of our room, the part which chiefly +concerns us, since no one will admit the possibility of leaving them +quite alone. And the first question is, how shall we space them out +horizontally? + +If the room be small and not high, or the wall be much broken by +pictures and tall pieces of furniture, I would not divide it +horizontally. One pattern of paper, or whatever it may be, or one +tint may serve us, unless we have in hand an elaborate and +architectural scheme of decoration, as in a makeshift house is not +like to be the case; but if it be a good-sized room, and the wall be +not much broken up, some horizontal division is good, even if the +room be not very high. + +How are we to divide it then? I need scarcely say not into two +equal parts; no one out of the island of Laputa could do that. For +the rest, unless again we have a very elaborate scheme of +decoration, I think dividing it once, making it into two spaces is +enough. Now there are practically two ways of doing that: you may +either have a narrow frieze below the cornice, and hang the wall +thence to the floor, or you may have a moderate dado, say 4 feet 6 +inches high, and hang the wall from the cornice to the top of the +dado. Either way is good according to circumstances; the first with +the tall hanging and the narrow frieze is fittest if your wall is to +be covered with stuffs, tapestry, or panelling, in which case making +the frieze a piece of delicate painting is desirable in default of +such plaster-work as I have spoken of above; or even if the +proportions of the room very much cry out for it, you may, in +default of hand-painting, use a strip of printed paper, though this, +I must say, is a makeshift of makeshifts. The division into dado, +and wall hung from thence to the cornice, is fittest for a wall +which is to be covered with painted decoration, or its makeshift, +paper-hangings. As to these, I would earnestly dissuade you from +using more than one pattern in one room, unless one of them be but a +breaking of the surface with a pattern so insignificant as scarce to +be noticeable. I have seen a good deal of the practice of putting +pattern over pattern in paper-hangings, and it seems to me a very +unsatisfactory one, and I am, in short, convinced, as I hinted just +now, that cheap recurring patterns in a material which has no play +of light in it, and no special beauty of its own, should be employed +rather sparingly, or they destroy all refinement of decoration and +blunt our enjoyment of whatever beauty may lie in the designs of +such things. + +Before I leave this subject of the spacing out of the wall for +decoration, I should say that in dealing with a very high room it is +best to put nothing that attracts the eye above a level of about +eight feet from the floor--to let everything above that be mere air +and space, as it were. I think you will find that this will tend to +take off that look of dreariness that often besets tall rooms. + +So much then for the spacing out of our wall. We have now to +consider what the covering of it is to be, which subject, before we +have done with it, will take us over a great deal of ground and lead +us into the consideration of designing for flat spaces in general +with work other than picture work. + +To clear the way, I have a word or two to say about the treatment of +the wood-work in our room. If I could I would have no wood-work in +it that needed flat painting, meaning by that word a mere paying it +over with four coats of tinted lead-pigment ground in oils or +varnish, but unless one can have a noble wood, such as oak, I don't +see what else is to be done. I have never seen deal stained +transparently with success, and its natural colour is poor, and will +not enter into any scheme of decoration, while polishing it makes it +worse. In short, it is such a poor material that it must be hidden +unless it be used on a big scale as mere timber. Even then, in a +church roof or what not, colouring it with distemper will not hurt +it, and in a room I should certainly do this to the wood-work of +roof and ceiling, while I painted such wood-work as came within +touch of hand. As to the colour of this, it should, as a rule, be +of the same general tone as the walls, but a shade or two darker in +tint. Very dark wood-work makes a room dreary and disagreeable, +while unless the decoration be in a very bright key of colour, it +does not do to have the wood-work lighter than the walls. For the +rest, if you are lucky enough to be able to use oak, and plenty of +it, found your decoration on that, leaving it just as it comes from +the plane. + +Now, as you are not bound to use anything for the decoration of your +walls but simple tints, I will here say a few words on the main +colours, before I go on to what is more properly decoration, only in +speaking of them one can scarce think only of such tints as are fit +to colour a wall with, of which, to say truth, there are not many. + +Though we may each have our special preferences among the main +colours, which we shall do quite right to indulge, it is a sign of +disease in an artist to have a prejudice against any particular +colour, though such prejudices are common and violent enough among +people imperfectly educated in art, or with naturally dull +perceptions of it. Still, colours have their ways in decoration, so +to say, both positively in themselves, and relatively to each man's +way of using them. So I may be excused for setting down some things +I seem to have noticed about these ways. + +Yellow is not a colour that can be used in masses unless it be much +broken or mingled with other colours, and even then it wants some +material to help it out, which has great play of light and shade in +it. You know people are always calling yellow things golden, even +when they are not at all the colour of gold, which, even unalloyed, +is not a bright yellow. That shows that delightful yellows are not +very positive, and that, as aforesaid, they need gleaming materials +to help them. The light bright yellows, like jonquil and primrose, +are scarcely usable in art, save in silk, whose gleam takes colour +from and adds light to the local tint, just as sunlight does to the +yellow blossoms which are so common in Nature. In dead materials, +such as distemper colour, a positive yellow can only be used +sparingly in combination with other tints. + +Red is also a difficult colour to use, unless it be helped by some +beauty of material, for, whether it tend toward yellow and be called +scarlet, or towards blue and be crimson, there is but little +pleasure in it, unless it be deep and full. If the scarlet pass a +certain degree of impurity it falls into the hot brown-red, very +disagreeable in large masses. If the crimson be much reduced it +tends towards a cold colour called in these latter days magenta, +impossible for an artist to use either by itself or in combination. +The finest tint of red is a central one between crimson and scarlet, +and is a very powerful colour indeed, but scarce to be got in a flat +tint. A crimson broken by greyish-brown, and tending towards +russet, is also a very useful colour, but, like all the finest reds, +is rather a dyer's colour than a house-painter's; the world being +very rich in soluble reds, which of course are not the most enduring +of pigments, though very fast as soluble colours. + +Pink, though one of the most beautiful colours in combination, is +not easy to use as a flat tint even over moderate spaces; the more +orangy shades of it are the most useful, a cold pink being a colour +much to be avoided. + +As to purple, no one in his senses would think of using it bright in +masses. In combination it may be used somewhat bright, if it be +warm and tend towards red; but the best and most characteristic +shade of purple is nowise bright, but tends towards russet. +Egyptian porphyry, especially when contrasted with orange, as in the +pavement of St. Mark's at Venice, will represent the colour for you. +At the British Museum, and one or two other famous libraries, are +still left specimens of this tint, as Byzantine art in its palmy +days understood it. These are books written with gold and silver on +vellum stained purple, probably with the now lost murex or fish-dye +of the ancients, the tint of which dye-stuff Pliny describes +minutely and accurately in his 'Natural History.' I need scarcely +say that no ordinary flat tint could reproduce this most splendid of +colours. + +Though green (at all events in England) is the colour widest used by +Nature, yet there is not so much bright green used by her as many +people seem to think; the most of it being used for a week or two in +spring, when the leafage is small, and blended with the greys and +other negative colours of the twigs; when 'leaves grow large and +long,' as the ballad has it, they also grow grey. I believe it has +been noted by Mr. Ruskin, and it certainly seems true, that the +pleasure we take in the young spring foliage comes largely from its +tenderness of tone rather than its brightness of hue. Anyhow, you +may be sure that if we try to outdo Nature's green tints on our +walls we shall fail, and make ourselves uncomfortable to boot. We +must, in short, be very careful of bright greens, and seldom, if +ever, use them at once bright and strong. + +On the other hand, do not fall into the trap of a dingy bilious- +looking yellow-green, a colour to which I have a special and +personal hatred, because (if you will excuse my mentioning personal +matters) I have been supposed to have somewhat brought it into +vogue. I assure you I am not really responsible for it. + +The truth is, that to get a green that is at once pure and neither +cold nor rank, and not too bright to live with, is of simple things +as difficult as anything a decorator has to do; but it can be done,- +-and without the help of special material; and when done such a +green is so useful, and so restful to the eyes, that in this matter +also we are bound to follow Nature and make large use of that work- +a-day colour green. + +But if green be called a work-a-day colour, surely blue must be +called the holiday one, and those who long most for bright colours +may please themselves most with it; for if you duly guard against +getting it cold if it tend towards red, or rank if it tend towards +green, you need not be much afraid of its brightness. Now, as red +is above all a dyer's colour, so blue is especially a pigment and an +enamel colour; the world is rich in insoluble blues, many of which +are practically indestructible. + +I have said that there are not many tints fit to colour a wall with: +this is my list of them as far as I know; a solid red, not very +deep, but rather describable as a full pink, and toned both with +yellow and blue, a very fine colour if you can hit it; a light +orangy pink, to be used rather sparingly. A pale golden tint, i.e., +a yellowish-brown; a very difficult colour to hit. A colour between +these two last; call it pale copper colour. All these three you +must be careful over, for if you get them muddy or dirty you are +lost. + +Tints of green from pure and pale to deepish and grey: always +remembering that the purer the paler, and the deeper the greyer. + +Tints of pure pale blue from a greenish one, the colour of a +starling's egg, to a grey ultramarine colour, hard to use because so +full of colour, but incomparable when right. In these you must +carefully avoid the point at which the green overcomes the blue and +turns it rank, or that at which the red overcomes the blue and +produces those woeful hues of pale lavender and starch blue which +have not seldom been favourites with decorators of elegant drawing- +rooms and respectable dining-rooms. + +You will understand that I am here speaking of distemper tinting, +and in that material these are all the tints I can think of; if you +use bolder, deeper or stronger colours I think you will find +yourself beaten out of monochrome in order to get your colour +harmonious. + +One last word as to distemper which is not monochrome, and its +makeshift, paper-hanging. I think it is always best not to force +the colour, but to be content with getting it either quite light or +quite grey in these materials, and in no case very dark, trusting +for richness to stuffs, or to painting which allows of gilding being +introduced. + +I must finish these crude notes about general colour by reminding +you that you must be moderate with your colour on the walls of an +ordinary dwelling-room; according to the material you are using, you +may go along the scale from light and bright to deep and rich, but +some soberness of tone is absolutely necessary if you would not +weary people till they cry out against all decoration. But I +suppose this is a caution which only very young decorators are +likely to need. It is the right-hand defection; the left-hand +falling away is to get your colour dingy and muddy, a worse fault +than the other because less likely to be curable. All right-minded +craftsmen who work in colour will strive to make their work as +bright as possible, as full of colour as the nature of the work will +allow it to be. The meaning they may be bound to express, the +nature of its material, or the use it may be put to may limit this +fulness; but in whatever key of colour they are working, if they do +not succeed in getting the colour pure and clear, they have not +learned their craft, and if they do not see their fault when it is +present in their work, they are not likely to learn it. + +Now, hitherto we have not got further into the matter of decoration +than to talk of its arrangement. Before I speak of some general +matters connected with our subject, I must say a little on the +design of the patterns which will form the chief part of your +decoration. The subject is a wide and difficult one, and my time +much too short to do it any justice, but here and there, perhaps, a +hint may crop up, and I may put it in a way somewhat new. + +On the whole, in speaking of these patterns I shall be thinking of +those that necessarily recur; designs which have to be carried out +by more or less mechanical appliances, such as the printing block or +the loom. + +Since we have been considering colour lately, we had better take +that side first, though I know it will be difficult to separate the +consideration of it from that of the other necessary qualifications +of design. + +The first step away from monochrome is breaking the ground by +putting a pattern on it of the same colour, but of a lighter or +darker shade, the first being the best and most natural way. I need +say but little on this as a matter of colour, though many very +important designs are so treated. One thing I have noticed about +these damasks, as I should call them; that of the three chief +colours, red is the one where the two shades must be the nearest to +one another, or you get the effect poor and weak; while in blue you +may have a great deal of difference without losing colour, and green +holds a middle place between the two. + +Next, if you make these two shades different in tint as well as, or +instead of, in depth, you have fairly got out of monochrome, and +will find plenty of difficulties in getting your two tints to go +well together. The putting, for instance, of a light greenish blue +on a deep reddish one, turquoise on sapphire, will try all your +skill. The Persians practise this feat, but not often without +adding a third colour, and so getting into the next stage. In fact, +this plan of relieving the pattern by shifting its tint as well as +its depth, is chiefly of use in dealing with quite low-toned +colours--golden browns or greys, for instance. In dealing with the +more forcible ones, you will find it in general necessary to add a +third colour at least, and so get into the next stage. + +This is the relieving a pattern of more than one colour, but all the +colours light, upon a dark ground. This is above all useful in +cases where your palette is somewhat limited; say, for instance, in +a figured cloth which has to be woven mechanically, and where you +have but three or four colours in a line, including the ground. + +You will not find this a difficult way of relieving your pattern, if +you only are not too ambitious of getting the diverse superimposed +colours too forcible on the one hand, so that they fly out from one +another, or on the other hand too delicate, so that they run +together into confusion. The excellence of this sort of work lies +in a clear but soft relief of the form, in colours each beautiful in +itself, and harmonious one with the other on ground whose colour is +also beautiful, though unobtrusive. Hardness ruins the work, +confusion of form caused by timidity of colour annoys the eye, and +makes it restless, and lack of colour is felt as destroying the +raison d'etre of it. So you see it taxes the designer heavily +enough after all. Nevertheless I still call it the easiest way of +complete pattern-designing. + +I have spoken of it as the placing of a light pattern on dark +ground. I should mention that in the fully developed form of the +design I am thinking of there is often an impression given, of there +being more than one plane in the pattern. Where the pattern is +strictly on one plane, we have not reached the full development of +this manner of designing, the full development of colour and form +used together, but form predominant. + +We are not left without examples of this kind of design at its best. +The looms of Corinth, Palermo, and Lucca, in the twelfth, +thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, turned out figured silk +cloths, which were so widely sought for, that you may see specimens +of their work figured on fifteenth-century screens in East Anglian +churches, or the background of pictures by the Van Eycks, while one +of the most important collections of the actual goods is preserved +in the treasury of the Mary Church at Dantzig; the South Kensington +Museum has also a very fine collection of these, which I can't help +thinking are not quite as visible to the public as they should be. +They are, however, discoverable by the help of Dr. Rock's excellent +catalogue published by the department, and I hope will, as the +Museum gains space, be more easy to see. + +Now to sum up: This method of pattern-designing must be considered +the Western and civilised method; that used by craftsmen who were +always seeing pictures, and whose minds were full of definite ideas +of form. Colour was essential to their work, and they loved it, and +understood it, but always subordinated it to form. + +There is next the method of relief by placing a dark figure on a +light ground. Sometimes this method is but the converse of the +last, and is not so useful, because it is capable of less variety +and play of colour and tone. Sometimes it must be looked on as a +transition from the last-mentioned method to the next of colour laid +by colour. Thus used there is something incomplete about it. One +finds oneself longing for more colours than one's shuttles or blocks +allow one. There is a need felt for the speciality of the next +method, where the dividing line is used, and it gradually gets drawn +into that method. Which, indeed, is the last I have to speak to you +of, and in which colour is laid by colour. + +In this method it is necessary that the diverse colours should be +separated each by a line of another colour, and that not merely to +mark the form, but to complete the colour itself; which outlining, +while it serves the purpose of gradation, which in more naturalistic +work is got by shading, makes the design quite flat, and takes from +it any idea of there being more than one plane in it. + +This way of treating pattern design is so much more difficult than +the others, as to be almost an art by itself, and to demand a study +apart. As the method of relief by laying light upon dark may be +called the Western way of treatment and the civilised, so this is +the Eastern, and, to a certain extent, the uncivilised. + +But it has a wide range, from works where the form is of little +importance and only exists to make boundaries for colour, to those +in which the form is so studied, so elaborate, and so lovely, that +it is hardly true to say that the form is subordinate to the colour; +while, on the other hand, so much delight is taken in the colour, it +is so inventive and so unerringly harmonious, that it is scarcely +possible to think of the form without it--the two interpenetrate. + +Such things as these, which, as far as I know, are only found in +Persian art at its best, do carry the art of mere pattern-designing +to its utmost perfection, and it seems somewhat hard to call such an +art uncivilised. But, you see, its whole soul was given up to +producing matters of subsidiary art, as people call it; its carpets +were of more importance than its pictures; nay, properly speaking, +they were its pictures. And it may be that such an art never has a +future of change before it, save the change of death, which has now +certainly come over that Eastern art; while the more impatient, more +aspiring, less sensuous art which belongs to Western civilisation +may bear many a change and not die utterly; nay, may feed on its +intellect alone for a season, and enduring the martyrdom of a grim +time of ugliness, may live on, rebuking at once the narrow-minded +pedant of science, and the luxurious tyrant of plutocracy, till +change bring back the spring again, and it blossoms once more into +pleasure. May it be so. + +Meanwhile, we may say for certain that colour for colour's sake only +will never take real hold on the art of our civilisation, not even +in its subsidiary art. Imitation and affectation may deceive people +into thinking that such an instinct is quickening amongst us, but +the deception will not last. To have a meaning and to make others +feel and understand it, must ever be the aim and end of our Western +art. + +Before I leave this subject of the colouring of patterns, I must +warn you against the abuse of the dotting, hatching. and lining of +backgrounds, and other mechanical contrivances for breaking them; +such practices are too often the resource to which want of invention +is driven, and unless used with great caution they vulgarise a +pattern completely. Compare, for instance, those Sicilian and other +silk cloths I have mentioned with the brocades (common everywhere) +turned out from the looms of Lyons, Venice, and Genoa, at the end of +the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. The +first perfectly simple in manufacture, trusting wholly to beauty of +design, and the play of light on the naturally woven surface, while +the latter eke out their gaudy feebleness with spots and ribs and +long floats, and all kinds of meaningless tormenting of the web, +till there is nothing to be learned from them save a warning. + +So much for the colour of pattern-designing. Now, for a space, let +us consider some other things that are necessary to it, and which I +am driven to call its moral qualities, and which are finally +reducible to two--order and meaning. + +Without order your work cannot even exist; without meaning, it were +better not to exist. + +Now order imposes on us certain limitations, which partly spring +from the nature of the art itself, and partly from the materials in +which we have to work; and it is a sign of mere incompetence in +either a school or an individual to refuse to accept such +limitations, or even not to accept them joyfully and turn them to +special account, much as if a poet should complain of having to +write in measure and rhyme. + +Now, in our craft the chief of the limitations that spring from the +essence of the art is that the decorator's art cannot be imitative +even to the limited extent that the picture-painter's art is. + +This you have been told hundreds of times, and in theory it is +accepted everywhere, so I need not say much about it--chiefly this, +that it does not excuse want of observation of nature, or laziness +of drawing, as some people seem to think. On the contrary, unless +you know plenty about the natural form that you are +conventionalising, you will not only find it impossible to give +people a satisfactory impression of what is in your own mind about +it, but you will also be so hampered by your ignorance, that you +will not be able to make your conventionalised form ornamental. It +will not fill a space properly, or look crisp and sharp, or fulfil +any purpose you may strive to put it to. + +It follows from this that your convention must be your own, and not +borrowed from other times and peoples; or, at the least, that you +must make it your own by thoroughly understanding both the nature +and the art you are dealing with. If you do not heed this, I do not +know but what you may not as well turn to and draw laborious +portraits of natural forms of flower and bird and beast, and stick +them on your walls anyhow. It is true you will not get ornament so, +but you may learn something for your trouble; whereas, using an +obviously true principle as a stalking-horse for laziness of purpose +and lack of invention, will but injure art all round, and blind +people to the truth of that very principle. + +Limitations also, both as to imitation and exuberance, are imposed +on us by the office our pattern has to fulfil. A small and often- +recurring pattern of a subordinate kind will bear much less +naturalism than one in a freer space and more important position, +and the more obvious the geometrical structure of a pattern is, the +less its parts should tend toward naturalism. This has been well +understood from the earliest days of art to the very latest times +during which pattern-designing has clung to any wholesome tradition, +but is pretty generally unheeded at present. + +As to the limitations that arise from the material we may be working +in, we must remember that all material offers certain difficulties +to be overcome, and certain facilities to be made the most of. Up +to a certain point you must be the master of your material, but you +must never be so much the master as to turn it surly, so to say. +You must not make it your slave, or presently you will be a slave +also. You must master it so far as to make it express a meaning, +and to serve your aim at beauty. You may go beyond that necessary +point for your own pleasure and amusement, and still be in the right +way; but if you go on after that merely to make people stare at your +dexterity in dealing with a difficult thing, you have forgotten art +along with the rights of your material, and you will make not a work +of art, but a mere toy; you are no longer an artist, but a juggler. +The history of the arts gives us abundant examples and warnings in +this matter. First clear steady principle, then playing with the +danger, and lastly falling into the snare, mark with the utmost +distinctness the times of the health, the decline, and the last +sickness of art. + +Allow me to give you one example in the noble art of mosaic. The +difficulty in it necessary to be overcome was the making of a pure +and true flexible line, not over thick, with little bits of glass or +marble nearly rectangular. Its glory lay in its durability, the +lovely colour to be got in it, the play of light on its faceted and +gleaming surface, and the clearness mingled with softness, with +which forms were relieved on the lustrous gold which was so freely +used in its best days. Moreover, however bright were the colours +used, they were toned delightfully by the greyness which the +innumerable joints between the tesserae spread over the whole +surface. + +Now the difficulty of the art was overcome in its earliest and best +days, and no care or pains were spared in making the most of its +special qualities, while for long and long no force was put upon the +material to make it imitate the qualities of brush-painting, either +in power of colour, in delicacy of gradation, or intricacy of +treating a subject; and, moreover, easy as it would have been to +minimise the jointing of the tesserae, no attempt was made at it. + +But as time went on, men began to tire of the solemn simplicity of +the art, and began to aim at making it keep pace with the growing +complexity of picture painting, and, though still beautiful, it lost +colour without gaining form. From that point (say about 1460), it +went on from bad to worse, till at last men were set to work in it +merely because it was an intractable material in which to imitate +oil-painting, and by this time it was fallen from being a master +art, the crowning beauty of the most solemn buildings, to being a +mere tax on the craftsmen's patience, and a toy for people who no +longer cared for art. And just such a history may be told of every +art that deals with special material. + +Under this head of order should be included something about the +structure of patterns, but time for dealing with such an intricate +question obviously fails me; so I will but note that, whereas it has +been said that a recurring pattern should be constructed on a +geometrical basis, it is clear that it cannot be constructed +otherwise; only the structure may be more or less masked, and some +designers take a great deal of pains to do so. + +I cannot say that I think this always necessary. It may be so when +the pattern is on a very small scale, and meant to attract but +little attention. But it is sometimes the reverse of desirable in +large and important patterns, and, to my mind, all noble patterns +should at least LOOK large. Some of the finest and pleasantest of +these show their geometrical structure clearly enough; and if the +lines of them grow strongly and flow gracefully, I think they are +decidedly helped by their structure not being elaborately concealed. + +At the same time in all patterns which are meant to fill the eye and +satisfy the mind, there should be a certain mystery. We should not +be able to read the whole thing at once, nor desire to do so, nor be +impelled by that desire to go on tracing line after line to find out +how the pattern is made, and I think that the obvious presence of a +geometrical order, if it be, as it should be, beautiful, tends +towards this end, and prevents our feeling restless over a pattern. + +That every line in a pattern should have its due growth, and be +traceable to its beginning, this, which you have doubtless heard +before, is undoubtedly essential to the finest pattern work; equally +so is it that no stem should be so far from its parent stock as to +look weak or wavering. Mutual support and unceasing progress +distinguish real and natural order from its mockery, pedantic +tyranny. + +Every one who has practised the designing of patterns knows the +necessity for covering the ground equably and richly. This is +really to a great extent the secret of obtaining the look of +satisfying mystery aforesaid, and it is the very test of capacity in +a designer. + +Finally, no amount of delicacy is too great in drawing the curves of +a pattern, no amount of care in getting the leading lines right from +the first, can be thrown away, for beauty of detail cannot +afterwards cure any shortcoming in this. Remember that a pattern is +either right or wrong. It cannot be forgiven for blundering, as a +picture may be which has otherwise great qualities in it. It is +with a pattern as with a fortress, it is no stronger than its +weakest point. A failure for ever recurring torments the eye too +much to allow the mind to take any pleasure in suggestion and +intention. + +As to the second moral quality of design, meaning, I include in that +the invention and imagination which forms the soul of this art, as +of all others, and which, when submitted to the bonds of order, has +a body and a visible existence. + +Now you may well think that there is less to be said of this than +the other quality; for form may be taught, but the spirit that +breathes through it cannot be. So I will content myself with saying +this on these qualities, that though a designer may put all manner +of strangeness and surprise into his patterns, he must not do so at +the expense of beauty. You will never find a case in this kind of +work where ugliness and violence are not the result of barrenness, +and not of fertility of invention. The fertile man, he of resource, +has not to worry himself about invention. He need but think of +beauty and simplicity of expression; his work will grow on and on, +one thing leading to another, as it fares with a beautiful tree. +Whereas the laborious paste-and-scissors man goes hunting up and +down for oddities, sticks one in here and another there, and tries +to connect them with commonplace; and when it is all done, the +oddities are not more inventive than the commonplace, nor the +commonplace more graceful than the oddities. + +No pattern should be without some sort of meaning. True it is that +that meaning may have come down to us traditionally, and not be our +own invention, yet we must at heart understand it, or we can neither +receive it, nor hand it down to our successors. It is no longer +tradition if it is servilely copied, without change, the token of +life. You may be sure that the softest and loveliest of patterns +will weary the steadiest admirers of their school as soon as they +see that there is no hope of growth in them. For you know all art +is compact of effort, of failure and of hope, and we cannot but +think that somewhere perfection lies ahead, as we look anxiously for +the better thing that is to come from the good. + +Furthermore, you must not only mean something in your patterns, but +must also be able to make others understand that meaning. They say +that the difference between a genius and a madman is that the genius +can get one or two people to believe in him, whereas the madman, +poor fellow, has himself only for his audience. Now the only way in +our craft of design for compelling people to understand you is to +follow hard on Nature; for what else can you refer people to, or +what else is there which everybody can understand?--everybody that +it is worth addressing yourself to, which includes all people who +can feel and think. + +Now let us end the talk about those qualities of invention and +imagination with a word of memory and of thanks to the designers of +time past. Surely he who runs may read them abundantly set forth in +those lesser arts they practised. Surely it had been pity indeed, +if so much of this had been lost as would have been if it had been +crushed out by the pride of intellect, that will not stoop to look +at beauty, unless its own kings and great men have had a hand in it. +Belike the thoughts of the men who wrought this kind of art could +not have been expressed in grander ways or more definitely, or, at +least, would not have been; therefore I believe I am not thinking +only of my own pleasure, but of the pleasure of many people, when I +praise the usefulness of the lives of these men, whose names are +long forgotten, but whose works we still wonder at. In their own +way they meant to tell us how the flowers grew in the gardens of +Damascus, or how the hunt was up on the plains of Kirman, or how the +tulips shone among the grass in the Mid-Persian valley, and how +their souls delighted in it all, and what joy they had in life; nor +did they fail to make their meaning clear to some of us. + +But, indeed, they and other matters have led us afar from our +makeshift house, and the room we have to decorate therein. And +there is still left the fireplace to consider. + +Now I think there is nothing about a house in which a contrast is +greater between old and new than this piece of architecture. The +old, either delightful in its comfortable simplicity, or decorated +with the noblest and most meaning art in the place; the modern, +mean, miserable, uncomfortable, and showy, plastered about with +wretched sham ornament, trumpery of cast-iron, and brass and +polished steel, and what not--offensive to look at, and a nuisance +to clean--and the whole thing huddled up with rubbish of ash-pan, +and fender, and rug, till surely the hearths which we have been +bidden so often to defend (whether there was a chance of their being +attacked or not) have now become a mere figure of speech the meaning +of which in a short time it will be impossible for learned +philologists to find out. + +I do most seriously advise you to get rid of all this, or as much of +it as you can without absolute ruin to your prospects in life; and +even if you do not know how to decorate it, at least have a hole in +the wall of a convenient shape, faced with such bricks or tiles as +will at once bear fire and clean; then some sort of iron basket in +it, and out from that a real hearth of cleanable brick or tile, +which will not make you blush when you look at it, and as little in +the way of guard and fender as you think will be safe; that will do +to begin with. For the rest, if you have wooden work about the +fireplace, which is often good to have, don't mix up the wood and +the tiles together; let the wood-work look like part of the wall- +covering, and the tiles like part of the chimney. + +As for movable furniture, even if time did not fail us, 'tis a large +subject--or a very small one--so I will but say, don't have too much +of it; have none for mere finery's sake, or to satisfy the claims of +custom--these are flat truisms, are they not? But really it seems +as if some people had never thought of them, for 'tis almost the +universal custom to stuff up some rooms so that you can scarcely +move in them, and to leave others deadly bare; whereas all rooms +ought to look as if they were lived in, and to have, so to say, a +friendly welcome ready for the incomer. + +A dining-room ought not to look as if one went into it as one goes +into a dentist's parlour--for an operation, and came out of it when +the operation was over--the tooth out, or the dinner in. A drawing- +room ought to look as if some kind of work could be done in it less +toilsome than being bored. A library certainly ought to have books +in it, not boots only, as in Thackeray's country snob's house, but +so ought each and every room in the house more or less; also, though +all rooms should look tidy, and even very tidy, they ought not to +look too tidy. + +Furthermore, no room of the richest man should look grand enough to +make a simple man shrink in it, or luxurious enough to make a +thoughtful man feel ashamed in it; it will not do so if Art be at +home there, for she has no foes so deadly as insolence and waste. +Indeed, I fear that at present the decoration of rich men's houses +is mostly wrought out at the bidding of grandeur and luxury, and +that art has been mostly cowed or shamed out of them; nor when I +come to think of it will I lament it overmuch. Art was not born in +the palace; rather she fell sick there, and it will take more +bracing air than that of rich men's houses to heal her again. If +she is ever to be strong enough to help mankind once more, she must +gather strength in simple places; the refuge from wind and weather +to which the goodman comes home from field or hill-side; the well- +tidied space into which the craftsman draws from the litter of loom, +and smithy, and bench; the scholar's island in the sea of books; the +artist's clearing in the canvas-grove; it is from these places that +Art must come if she is ever again to be enthroned in that other +kind of building, which I think, under some name or other, whether +you call it church or hall of reason, or what not, will always be +needed; the building in which people meet to forget their own +transient personal and family troubles in aspirations for their +fellows and the days to come, and which to a certain extent make up +to town-dwellers for their loss of field, and river, and mountain. + +Well, it seems to me that these two kinds of buildings are all we +have really to think of, together with whatsoever outhouses, +workshops, and the like may be necessary. Surely the rest may +quietly drop to pieces for aught we care--unless it should be +thought good in the interest of history to keep one standing in each +big town to show posterity what strange, ugly, uncomfortable houses +rich men dwelt in once upon a time. + +Meantime now, when rich men won't have art, and poor men can't, +there is, nevertheless, some unthinking craving for it, some +restless feeling in men's minds of something lacking somewhere, +which has made many benevolent people seek for the possibility of +cheap art. + +What do they mean by that? One art for the rich and another for the +poor? No, it won't do. Art is not so accommodating as the justice +or religion of society, and she won't have it. + +What then? there has been cheap art at some times certainly, at the +expense of the starvation of the craftsmen. But people can't mean +that; and if they did, would, happily, no longer have the same +chance of getting it that they once had. Still they think art can +be got round some way or other--jockeyed, so to say. I rather think +in this fashion: that a highly gifted and carefully educated man +shall, like Mr. Pecksniff, squint at a sheet of paper, and that the +results of that squint shall set a vast number of well-fed, +contented operatives (they are ashamed to call them workmen) turning +crank handles for ten hours a-day, bidding them keep what gifts and +education they may have been born with for their--I was going to say +leisure hours, but I don't know how to, for if I were to work ten +hours a-day at work I despised and hated, I should spend my leisure +I hope in political agitation, but I fear--in drinking. So let us +say that the aforesaid operatives will have to keep their inborn +gifts and education for their dreams. Well, from this system are to +come threefold blessings--food and clothing, poorish lodgings and a +little leisure to the operatives, enormous riches to the capitalists +that rent them, together with moderate riches to the squinter on the +paper; and lastly, very decidedly lastly, abundance of cheap art for +the operatives or crank turners to buy--in their dreams. + +Well, there have been many other benevolent and economical schemes +for keeping your cake after you have eaten it, for skinning a flint, +and boiling a flea down for its tallow and glue, and this one of +cheap art may just go its way with the others. + +Yet to my mind real art is cheap, even at the price that must be +paid for it. That price is, in short, the providing of a +handicraftsman who shall put his own individual intelligence and +enthusiasm into the goods he fashions. So far from his labour being +'divided,' which is the technical phrase for his always doing one +minute piece of work, and never being allowed to think of any other; +so far from that, he must know all about the ware he is making and +its relation to similar wares; he must have a natural aptitude for +his work so strong, that no education can force him away from his +special bent. He must be allowed to think of what he is doing, and +to vary his work as the circumstances of it vary, and his own moods. +He must be for ever striving to make the piece he is at work at +better than the last. He must refuse at anybody's bidding to turn +out, I won't say a bad, but even an indifferent piece of work, +whatever the public want, or think they want. He must have a voice, +and a voice worth listening to in the whole affair. + +Such a man I should call, not an operative, but a workman. You may +call him an artist if you will, for I have been describing the +qualities of artists as I know them; but a capitalist will be apt to +call him a 'troublesome fellow,' a radical of radicals, and, in +fact, he will be troublesome--mere grit and friction in the wheels +of the money-grinding machine. + +Yes, such a man will stop the machine perhaps; but it is only +through him that you can have art, i.e. civilisation unmaimed, if +you really want it; so consider, if you do want it, and will pay the +price and give the workman his due. + +What is his due? that is, what can he take from you, and be the man +that you want? Money enough to keep him from fear of want or +degradation for him and his; leisure enough from bread-earning work +(even though it be pleasant to him) to give him time to read and +think, and connect his own life with the life of the great world; +work enough of the kind aforesaid, and praise of it, and +encouragement enough to make him feel good friends with his fellows; +and lastly (not least, for 'tis verily part of the bargain), his own +due share of art, the chief part of which will be a dwelling that +does not lack the beauty which Nature would freely allow it, if our +own perversity did not turn Nature out of doors. + +That is the bargain to be struck, such work and such wages; and I +believe that if the world wants the work and is willing to pay the +wages, the workmen will not long be wanting. + +On the other hand, if it be certain that the world--that is, modern +civilised society--will nevermore ask for such workmen, then I am as +sure as that I stand here breathing, that art is dying: that the +spark still smouldering is not to be quickened into life, but damped +into death. And indeed, often, in my fear of that, I think, 'Would +that I could see what is to take the place of art!' For, whether +modern civilised society CAN make that bargain aforesaid, who shall +say? I know well--who could fail to know it?--that the difficulties +are great. + +Too apt has the world ever been, 'for the sake of life to cast away +the reasons for living,' and perhaps is more and more apt to it as +the conditions of life get more intricate, as the race to avoid +ruin, which seems always imminent and overwhelming, gets swifter and +more terrible. Yet how would it be if we were to lay aside fear and +turn in the face of all that, and stand by our claim to have, one +and all of us, reasons for living. Mayhap the heavens would not +fall on us if we did. + +Anyhow, let us make up our minds which we want, art, or the absence +of art, and be prepared if we want art, to give up many things, and +in many ways to change the conditions of life. Perhaps there are +those who will understand me when I say that that necessary change +may make life poorer for the rich, rougher for the refined, and, it +may be, duller for the gifted--for a while; that it may even take +such forms that not the best or wisest of us shall always be able to +know it for a friend, but may at whiles fight against it as a foe. +Yet, when the day comes that gives us visible token of art rising +like the sun from below--when it is no longer a justly despised whim +of the rich, or a lazy habit of the so-called educated, but a thing +that labour begins to crave as a necessity, even as labour is a +necessity for all men--in that day how shall all trouble be +forgotten, all folly forgiven--even our own! + +Little by little it must come, I know. Patience and prudence must +not be lacking to us, but courage still less. Let us be a Gideon's +band. 'Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return, and depart +early from Mount Gilead.' And among that band let there be no +delusions; let the last encouraging lie have been told, the last +after-dinner humbug spoken, for surely, though the days seem dark, +we may remember that men longed for freedom while yet they were +slaves; that it was in times when swords were reddened every day +that men began to think of peace and order, and to strive to win +them. + +We who think, and can enjoy the feast that Nature has spread for us, +is it not both our right and our duty to rebel against that slavery +of the waste of life's joys, which people thoughtless and joyless, +by no fault of their own, have wrapped the world in? From our own +selves we can tell that there is hope of victory in our rebellion, +since we have art enough in our lives, not to content us, but to +make us long for more, and that longing drives us into trying to +spread art and the longing for art; and as it is with us so it will +be with those that we win over: little by little, we may well hope, +will do its work, till at last a great many men will have enough of +art to see how little they have, and how much they might better +their lives, if every man had his due share of art--that is, just so +much as he could use if a fair chance were given him. + +Is that, indeed, too extravagant a hope? Have you not heard how it +has gone with many a cause before now? First few men heed it; next +most men contemn it; lastly, all men accept it--and the cause is +won. + + + +THE PROSPECTS OF ARCHITECTURE IN CIVILISATION {11} + + + +'--the horrible doctrine that this universe is a Cockney Nightmare-- +which no creature ought for a moment to believe or listen to.'-- +THOMAS CARLYLE. + +The word Architecture has, I suppose, to most of you the meaning of +the art of building nobly and ornamentally. Now I believe the +practice of this art to be one of the most important things which +man can turn his hand to, and the consideration of it to be worth +the attention of serious people, not for an hour only, but for a +good part of their lives, even though they may not have to do with +it professionally. + +But, noble as that art is by itself, and though it is specially the +art of civilisation, it neither ever has existed nor never can exist +alive and progressive by itself, but must cherish and be cherished +by all the crafts whereby men make the things which they intend +shall be beautiful, and shall last somewhat beyond the passing day. + +It is this union of the arts, mutually helpful and harmoniously +subordinated one to another, which I have learned to think of as +Architecture, and when I use the word to-night, that is what I shall +mean by it and nothing narrower. + +A great subject truly, for it embraces the consideration of the +whole external surroundings of the life of man; we cannot escape +from it if we would so long as we are part of civilisation, for it +means the moulding and altering to human needs of the very face of +the earth itself, except in the outermost desert. + +Neither can we hand over our interests in it to a little band of +learned men, and bid them seek and discover, and fashion, that we +may at last stand by and wonder at the work, and learn a little of +how 'twas all done: 'tis we ourselves, each one of us, who must +keep watch and ward over the fairness of the earth, and each with +his own soul and hand do his due share therein, lest we deliver to +our sons a lesser treasure than our fathers left to us. Nor, again, +is there time enough and to spare that we may leave this matter +alone till our latter days or let our sons deal with it: for so +busy and eager is mankind, that the desire of to-day makes us +utterly forget the desire of yesterday and the gain it brought; and +whensoever in any object of pursuit we cease to long for perfection, +corruption sure and speedy leads from life to death and all is soon +over and forgotten: time enough there may be for many things: for +peopling the desert; for breaking down the walls between nation and +nation; for learning the innermost secrets of the fashion of our +souls and bodies, the air we breathe, and the earth we tread on: +time enough for subduing all the forces of nature to our material +wants: but no time to spare before we turn our eyes and our longing +to the fairness of the earth; lest the wave of human need sweep over +it and make it not a hopeful desert as it once was, but a hopeless +prison; lest man should find at last that he has toiled and striven, +and conquered, and set all things on the earth under his feet, that +he might live thereon himself unhappy. + +Most true it is that when any spot of earth's surface has been +marred by the haste or carelessness of civilisation, it is heavy +work to seek a remedy, nay a work scarce conceivable; for the desire +to live on any terms which nature has implanted in us, and the +terrible swift multiplication of the race which is the result of it, +thrusts out of men's minds all thought of other hopes, and bars the +way before us as with a wall of iron: no force but a force equal to +that which marred can ever mend, or give back those ruined places to +hope and civilisation. + +Therefore I entreat you to turn your minds to thinking of what is to +come of Architecture, that is to say, the fairness of the earth +amidst the habitations of men: for the hope and the fear of it will +follow us though we try to escape it; it concerns us all, and needs +the help of all; and what we do herein must be done at once, since +every day of our neglect adds to the heap of troubles a blind force +is making for us; till it may come to this if we do not look to it, +that we shall one day have to call, not on peace and prosperity, but +on violence and ruin to rid us of them. + +In making this appeal to you, I will not suppose that I am speaking +to any who refuse to admit that we who are part of civilisation are +responsible to posterity for what may befall the fairness of the +earth in our own days, for what we have done, in other words, +towards the progress of Architecture;--if any such exists among +cultivated people, I need not trouble myself about them; for they +would not listen to me, nor should I know what to say to them. + +On the other hand, there may be some here who have a knowledge of +their responsibility in this matter, but to whom the duty that it +involves seems an easy one, since they are fairly satisfied with the +state of Architecture as it now is: I do not suppose that they fail +to note the strange contrast which exists between the beauty that +still clings to some habitations of men and the ugliness which is +the rule in others, but it seems to them natural and inevitable, and +therefore does not trouble them: and they fulfil their duties to +civilisation and the arts by sometimes going to see the beautiful +places, and gathering together a few matters to remind them of these +for the adornment of the ugly dwellings in which their homes are +enshrined: for the rest they have no doubt that it is natural and +not wrong that while all ancient towns, I mean towns whose houses +are largely ancient, should be beautiful and romantic, all modern +ones should be ugly and commonplace: it does not seem to them that +this contrast is of any import to civilisation, or that it expresses +anything save that one town IS ancient as to its buildings and the +other modern. If their thoughts carry them into looking any farther +into the contrasts between ancient art and modern, they are not +dissatisfied with the result: they may see things to reform here +and there, but they suppose, or, let me say, take for granted, that +art is alive and healthy, is on the right road, and that following +that road, it will go on living for ever, much as it is now. + +It is not unfair to say that this languid complacency is the general +attitude of cultivated people towards the arts: of course if they +were ever to think seriously of them, they would be startled into +discomfort by the thought that civilisation as it now is brings +inevitable ugliness with it: surely if they thought this, they +would begin to think that this was not natural and right; they would +see that this was not what civilisation aimed at in its struggling +days: but they do not think seriously of the arts because they have +been hitherto defended by a law of nature which forbids men to see +evils which they are not ready to redress. + +Hitherto: but there are not wanting signs that that defence may +fail them one day, and it has become the duty of all true artists, +and all men who love life though it be troublous better than death +though it be peaceful, to strive to pierce that defence and sting +the world, cultivated and uncultivated, into discontent and +struggle. + +Therefore I will say that the contrast between past art and present, +the universal beauty of men's habitations as they WERE fashioned, +and the universal ugliness of them as they ARE fashioned, is of the +utmost import to civilisation, and that it expresses much; it +expresses no less than a blind brutality which will destroy art at +least, whatever else it may leave alive: art is not healthy, it +even scarcely lives; it is on the wrong road, and if it follow that +road will speedily meet its death on it. + +Now perhaps you will say that by asserting that the general attitude +of cultivated people towards the arts is a languid complacency with +this unhealthy state of things, I am admitting that cultivated +people generally do not care about the arts, and that therefore this +threatened death of them will not frighten people much, even if the +threat be founded on truth: so that those are but beating the air +who strive to rouse people into discontent and struggle. + +Well, I will run the risk of offending you by speaking plainly, and +saying, that to me it seems over true that cultivated people in +general do NOT care about the arts: nevertheless I will answer any +possible challenge as to the usefulness of trying to rouse them to +thought about the matter, by saying that they do not care about the +arts because they do not know what they mean, or what they lose in +lacking them: cultivated, that is rich, as they are, they are also +under that harrow of hard necessity which is driven onward so +remorselessly by the competitive commerce of the latter days; a +system which is drawing near now I hope to its perfection, and +therefore to its death and change: the many millions of +civilisation, as labour is now organised, can scarce think seriously +of anything but the means of earning their daily bread; they do not +know of art, it does not touch their lives at all: the few +thousands of cultivated people whom Fate, not always as kind to them +as she looks, has placed above the material necessity for this hard +struggle, are nevertheless bound by it in spirit: the reflex of the +grinding trouble of those who toil to live that they may live to +toil weighs upon them also, and forbids them to look upon art as a +matter of importance: they know it but as a toy, not as a serious +help to life: as they know it, it can no more lift the burden from +the conscience of the rich, than it can from the weariness of the +poor. They do not know what art means: as I have said, they think +that as labour is now organised art can go indefinitely as it is now +organised, practised by a few for a few, adding a little interest, a +little refinement to the lives of those who have come to look upon +intellectual interest and spiritual refinement as their birthright. + +No, no, it can never be: believe me, if it were otherwise possible +that it should be an enduring condition of humanity that there must +be one class utterly refined and another utterly brutal, art would +bar the way and forbid the monstrosity to exist:- such refinement +would have to do as well as it might without the aid of Art: it may +be she will die, but it cannot be that she will live the slave of +the rich, and the token of the enduring slavery of the poor. If the +life of the world is to be brutalised by her death, the rich must +share that brutalisation with the poor. + +I know that there are people of good-will now, as there have been in +all ages, who have conceived of art as going hand in hand with +luxury, nay, as being much the same thing; but it is an idea false +from the root up, and most hurtful to art, as I could demonstrate to +you by many examples if I had time, lacking which I will only meet +it with one, which I hope will be enough. + +We are here in the richest city of the richest country of the +richest age of the world: no luxury of time past can compare with +our luxury; and yet if you could clear your eyes from habitual +blindness you would have to confess that there is no crime against +art, no ugliness, no vulgarity which is not shared with perfect +fairness and equality between the modern hovels of Bethnal Green and +the modern palaces of the West End: and then if you looked at the +matter deeply and seriously you would not regret it, but rejoice at +it, and as you went past some notable example of the aforesaid +palaces you would exult indeed as you said, 'So that is all that +luxury and money can do for refinement.' + +For the rest, if of late there has been any change for the better in +the prospects of the arts; if there has been a struggle both to +throw off the chains of dead and powerless tradition, and to +understand the thoughts and aspirations of those among whom those +traditions were once alive powerful and beneficent; if there has +been abroad any spirit of resistance to the flood of sordid ugliness +that modern civilisation has created to make modern civilisation +miserable: in a word, if any of us have had the courage to be +discontented that art seems dying, and to hope for her new birth, it +is because others have been discontented and hopeful in other +matters than the arts; I believe most sincerely that the steady +progress of those whom the stupidity of language forces me to call +the lower classes in material, political, and social condition, has +been our real help in all that we have been able to do or to hope, +although both the helpers and the helped have been mostly +unconscious of it. + +It is indeed in this belief, the belief in the beneficent progress +of civilisation, that I venture to face you and to entreat you to +strive to enter into the real meaning of the arts, which are surely +the expression of reverence for nature, and the crown of nature, the +life of man upon the earth. + +With this intent in view I may, I think, hope to move you, I do not +say to agree to all I urge upon you, yet at least to think the +matter worth thinking about; and if you once do that, I believe I +shall have won you. Maybe indeed that many things which I think +beautiful you will deem of small account; nay, that even some things +I think base and ugly will not vex your eyes or your minds: but one +thing I know you will none of you like to plead guilty to; blindness +to the natural beauty of the earth; and of that beauty art is the +only possible guardian. + +No one of you can fail to know what neglect of art has done to this +great treasure of mankind: the earth which was beautiful before man +lived on it, which for many ages grew in beauty as men grew in +numbers and power, is now growing uglier day by day, and there the +swiftest where civilisation is the mightiest: this is quite +certain; no one can deny it: are you contented that it should be +so? + +Surely there must be few of us to whom this degrading change has not +been brought home personally. I think you will most of you +understand me but too well when I ask you to remember the pang of +dismay that comes on us when we revisit some spot of country which +has been specially sympathetic to us in times past; which has +refreshed us after toil, or soothed us after trouble; but where now +as we turn the corner of the road or crown the hill's brow we can +see first the inevitable blue slate roof, and then the blotched mud- +coloured stucco, or ill-built wall of ill-made bricks of the new +buildings; then as we come nearer and see the arid and pretentious +little gardens, and cast-iron horrors of railings, and miseries of +squalid out-houses breaking through the sweet meadows and abundant +hedge-rows of our old quiet hamlet, do not our hearts sink within +us, and are we not troubled with a perplexity not altogether +selfish, when we think what a little bit of carelessness it takes to +destroy a world of pleasure and delight, which now whatever happens +can never be recovered? + +Well may we feel the perplexity and sickness of heart, which some +day the whole world shall feel to find its hopes disappointed, if we +do not look to it; for this is not what civilisation looked for: a +new house added to the old village, where is the harm of that? +Should it not have been a gain and not a loss; a sign of growth and +prosperity which should have rejoiced the eye of an old friend? a +new family come in health and hope to share the modest pleasures and +labours of the place we loved; that should have been no grief, but a +fresh pleasure to us. + +Yes, and time was that it would have been so; the new house indeed +would have taken away a little piece of the flowery green sward, a +few yards of the teeming hedge-row; but a new order, a new beauty +would have taken the place of the old: the very flowers of the +field would have but given place to flowers fashioned by man's hand +and mind: the hedge-row oak would have blossomed into fresh beauty +in roof-tree and lintel and door-post: and though the new house +would have looked young and trim beside the older houses and the +ancient church; ancient even in those days; yet it would have a +piece of history for the time to come, and its dear and dainty +cream-white walls would have been a genuine link among the +numberless links of that long chain, whose beginnings we know not +of, but on whose mighty length even the many-pillared garth of +Pallas, and the stately dome of the Eternal Wisdom, are but single +links, wondrous and resplendent though they be. + +Such I say can a new house be, such it has been: for 'tis no ideal +house I am thinking of: no rare marvel of art, of which but few can +ever be vouchsafed to the best times and countries; no palace +either, not even a manor-house, but a yeoman's steading at grandest, +or even his shepherd's cottage: there they stand at this day, +dozens of them yet, in some parts of England: such an one, and of +the smallest, is before my eyes as I speak to you, standing by the +roadside on one of the western slopes of the Cotswolds: the tops of +the great trees near it can see a long way off the mountains of the +Welsh border, and between a great county of hill, and waving +woodland, and meadow and plain where lies hidden many a famous +battlefield of our stout forefathers: there to the right a wavering +patch of blue is the smoke of Worcester town, but Evesham smoke, +though near, is unseen, so small it is: then a long line of haze +just traceable shows where the Avon wends its way thence towards +Severn, till Bredon Hill hides the sight both of it and Tewkesbury +smoke: just below on either side the Broadway lie the grey houses +of the village street ending with a lovely house of the fourteenth +century; above the road winds serpentine up the steep hill-side, +whose crest looking westward sees the glorious map I have been +telling of spread before it, but eastward strains to look on +Oxfordshire, and thence all waters run towards Thames: all about +lie the sunny slopes, lovely of outline, flowery and sweetly +grassed, dotted with the best-grown and most graceful of trees: +'tis a beautiful countryside indeed, not undignified, not +unromantic, but most familiar. + +And there stands the little house that was new once, a labourer's +cottage built of the Cotswold limestone, and grown now, walls and +roof, a lovely warm grey, though it was creamy white in its earliest +day; no line of it could ever have marred the Cotswold beauty; +everything about it is solid and well wrought: it is skilfully +planned and well proportioned: there is a little sharp and delicate +carving about its arched doorway, and every part of it is well cared +for: 'tis in fact beautiful, a work of art and a piece of nature-- +no less: there is no man who could have done it better considering +its use and its place. + +Who built it then? No strange race of men, but just the mason of +Broadway village: even such a man as is now running up down yonder +three or four cottages of the wretched type we know too well: nor +did he get an architect from London, or even Worcester, to design +it: I believe 'tis but two hundred years old, and at that time, +though beauty still lingered among the peasants' houses, your +learned architects were building houses for the high gentry that +were ugly enough, though solid and well built; nor are its materials +far-fetched; from the neighbouring field came its walling stones; +and at the top of the hill they are quarrying now as good freestone +as ever. + +No, there was no effort or wonder about it when it was built, though +its beauty makes it strange now. + +And are you contented that we should lose all this; this simple, +harmless beauty that was no hindrance or trouble to any man, and +that added to the natural beauty of the earth instead of marring it? + +You cannot be contented with it; all you can do is to try to forget +it, and to say that such things are the necessary and inevitable +consequences of civilisation. Is it so indeed? The loss of +suchlike beauty is an undoubted evil: but civilisation cannot mean +at heart to produce evils for mankind: such losses therefore must +be accidents of civilisation, produced by its carelessness, not its +malice; and we, if we be men and not machines, must try to amend +them: or civilisation itself will be undone. + +But, now let us leave the sunny slopes of the Cotswolds, and their +little grey houses, lest we fall a-dreaming over past time, and let +us think about the suburbs of London, neither dull nor unpleasant +once, where surely we ought to have some power to do something: let +me remind you how it fares with the beauty of the earth when some +big house near our dwelling-place, which has passed through many +vicissitudes of rich merchant's dwelling, school, hospital, or what +not, is at last to be turned into ready money, and is sold to A, who +lets it to B, who is going to build houses on it which he will sell +to C, who will let them to D, and the other letters of the alphabet: +well, the old house comes down; that was to be looked for, and +perhaps you don't much mind it; it was never a work of art, was +stupid and unimaginative enough, though creditably built, and +without pretence; but even while it is being pulled down, you hear +the axe falling on the trees of its generous garden, which it was +such a pleasure even to pass by, and where man and nature together +have worked so long and patiently for the blessing of the +neighbours: so you see the boys dragging about the streets great +boughs of the flowering may-trees covered with blossom, and you know +what is going to happen. Next morning when you get up you look +towards that great plane-tree which has been such a friend to you so +long through sun and rain and wind, which was a world in itself of +incident and beauty: but now there is a gap and no plane-tree; next +morning 'tis the turn of the great sweeping layers of darkness that +the ancient cedars thrust out from them, very treasures of +loveliness and romance; they are gone too: you may have a faint +hope left that the thick bank of lilac next your house may be +spared, since the newcomers may like lilac; but 'tis gone in the +afternoon, and the next day when you look in with a sore heart, you +see that once fair great garden turned into a petty miserable clay- +trampled yard, and everything is ready for the latest development of +Victorian architecture--which in due time (two months) arises from +the wreck. + +Do you like it? You I mean, who have not studied art and do not +think you care about it? + +Look at the houses (there are plenty to choose from)! I will not +say, are they beautiful, for you say you don't care whether they are +or not: but just look at the wretched pennyworths of material, of +accommodation, of ornament doled out to you! if there were one touch +of generosity, of honest pride, of wish to please about them, I +would forgive them in the lump. But there is none--not one. + +It is for this that you have sacrificed your cedars and planes and +may-trees, which I do believe you really liked--are you satisfied? + +Indeed you cannot be: all you can do is to go to your business, +converse with your family, eat, drink, and sleep, and try to forget +it, but whenever you think of it, you will admit that a loss without +compensation has befallen you and your neighbours. + +Once more neglect of art has done it; for though it is conceivable +that the loss of your neighbouring open space might in any case have +been a loss to you, still the building of a new quarter of a town +ought not to be an unmixed calamity to the neighbours: nor would it +have been once: for first, the builder doesn't now murder the trees +(at any rate not all of them) for the trifling sum of money their +corpses will bring him, but because it will take him too much +trouble to fit them into the planning of his houses: so to begin +with you would have saved the more part of your trees; and I say +your trees, advisedly, for they were at least as much your trees, +who loved them and would have saved them, as they were the trees of +the man who neglected and murdered them. And next, for any space +you would have lost, and for any unavoidable destruction of natural +growth, you would in the times of art have been compensated by +orderly beauty, by visible signs of the ingenuity of man and his +delight both in the works of nature and the works of his own hands. + +Yes indeed, if we had lived in Venice in early days, as islet after +islet was built upon, we should have grudged it but little, I think, +though we had been merchants and rich men, that the Greek shafted +work, and the carving of the Lombards was drawn nearer and nearer to +us and blocked us out a little from the sight of the blue Euganean +hills or the Northern mountains. Nay, to come nearer home, much as +I know I should have loved the willowy meadows between the network +of the streams of Thames and Cherwell; yet I should not have been +ill content as Oxford crept northward from its early home of Oseney, +and Rewley, and the Castle, as townsman's house, and scholar's hall, +and the great College and the noble church hid year by year more and +more of the grass and flowers of Oxfordshire. {12} + +That was the natural course of things then; men could do no +otherwise when they built than give some gift of beauty to the +world: but all is turned inside out now, and when men build they +cannot but take away some gift of beauty, which nature or their own +forefathers have given to the world. + +Wonderful it is indeed, and perplexing, that the course of +civilisation towards perfection should have brought this about: so +perplexing, that to some it seems as if civilisation were eating her +own children, and the arts first of all. + +I will not say that; time is big with so many a change; surely there +must be some remedy, and whether there be or no, at least it is +better to die seeking one, than to leave it alone and do nothing. + +I have said, are you satisfied? and assumed that you are not, though +to many you may seem to be at least helpless: yet indeed it is +something or even a great deal that I can reasonably assume that you +are discontented: fifty years ago, thirty years ago, nay perhaps +twenty years ago, it would have been useless to have asked such a +question, it could only have been answered in one way: We are +perfectly satisfied: whereas now we may at least hope that +discontent will grow till some remedy will be sought for. + +And if sought for, should it not, in England at least, be as good as +found already, and acted upon? At first sight it seems so truly; +for I may say without fear of contradiction that we of the English +middle classes are the most powerful body of men that the world has +yet seen, and that anything we have set our heart upon we will have: +and yet when we come to look the matter in the face, we cannot fail +to see that even for us with all our strength it will be a hard +matter to bring about that birth of the new art: for between us and +that which is to be, if art is not to perish utterly, there is +something alive and devouring; something as it were a river of fire +that will put all that tries to swim across to a hard proof indeed, +and scare from the plunge every soul that is not made fearless by +desire of truth and insight of the happy days to come beyond. + +That fire is the hurry of life bred by the gradual perfection of +competitive commerce which we, the English middle classes, when we +had won our political liberty, set ourselves to further with an +energy, an eagerness, a single-heartedness that has no parallel in +history; we would suffer none to bar the way to us, we called on +none to help us, we thought of that one thing and forgot all else, +and so attained to our desire, and fashioned a terrible thing indeed +from the very hearts of the strongest of mankind. + +Indeed I don't suppose that the feeble discontent with our own +creation that I have noted before can deal with such a force as +this--not yet--not till it swells to very strong discontent: +nevertheless as we were blind to its destructive power, and have not +even yet learned all about that, so we may well be blind to what it +has of constructive force in it, and that one day may give us a +chance to deal with it again and turn it toward accomplishing our +new and worthier desire: in that day at least when we have at last +learned what we want, let us work no less strenuously and +fearlessly, I will not say to quench it, but to force it to burn +itself out, as we once did to quicken and sustain it. + +Meantime if we could but get ourselves ready by casting off certain +old prejudices and delusions in this matter of the arts, we should +the sooner reach the pitch of discontent which would drive us into +action: such a one I mean as the aforesaid idea that luxury fosters +art, and especially the Architectural arts; or its companion one, +that the arts flourish best in a rich country, i.e. a country where +the contrast between rich and poor is greatest; or this, the worst +because the most plausible, the assertion of the hierarchy of +intellect in the arts: an old foe with a new face indeed: born out +of the times that gave the death-blow to the political and social +hierarchies, and waxing as they waned, it proclaimed from a new side +the divinity of the few and the subjugation of the many, and cries +out, like they did, that it is expedient, not that one man should +die for the people, but that the people should die for one man. + +Now perhaps these three things, though they have different forms, +are in fact but one thing; tyranny to wit: but however that may be, +they are to be met by one answer, and there is no other: if art +which is now sick is to live and not die, it must in the future be +of the people for the people, and by the people; it must understand +all and be understood by all: equality must be the answer to +tyranny: if that be not attained, art will die. + +The past art of what has grown to be civilised Europe from the time +of the decline of the ancient classical peoples, was the outcome of +instinct working on an unbroken chain of tradition: it was fed not +by knowledge but by hope, and though many a strange and wild +illusion mingled with that hope, yet was it human and fruitful ever: +many a man it solaced, many a slave in body it freed in soul; +boundless pleasure it gave to those who wrought it and those who +used it: long and long it lived, passing that torch of hope from +hand to hand, while it kept but little record of its best and +noblest; for least of all things could it abide to make for itself +kings and tyrants: every man's hand and soul it used, the lowest as +the highest, and in its bosom at least were all men free: it did +its work, not creating an art more perfect than itself, but rather +other things than art, freedom of thought and speech, and the +longing for light and knowledge and the coming days that should slay +it: and so at last it died in the hour of its highest hope, almost +before the greatest men that came of it had passed away from the +world. It is dead now; no longing will bring it back to us; no echo +of it is left among the peoples whom it once made happy. + +Of the art that is to come who may prophesy? But this at least +seems to follow from comparing that past with the confusion in which +we are now struggling and the light which glimmers through it; that +that art will no longer be an art of instinct, of ignorance which is +hopeful to learn and strives to see; since ignorance is now no +longer hopeful. In this and in many other ways it may differ from +the past art, but in one thing it must needs be like it; it will not +be an esoteric mystery shared by a little band of superior beings; +it will be no more hierarchical than the art of past time was, but +like it will be a gift of the people to the people, a thing which +everybody can understand, and every one surround with love; it will +be a part of every life, and a hindrance to none. + +For this is the essence of art, and the thing that is eternal to it, +whatever else may be passing and accidental. + +Here it is, you see, wherein the art of to-day is so far astray, +would that I could say wherein it HAS BEEN astray; it has been sick +because of this packing and peeling with tyranny, and now with what +of life it has it must struggle back towards equality. + +There is the hard business for us! to get all simple people to care +about art, to get them to insist on making it part of their lives, +whatever becomes of systems of commerce and labour held perfect by +some of us. + +This is henceforward for a long time to come the real business of +art: and--yes I will say it since I think it--of civilisation too +for that matter: but how shall we set to work about it? How shall +we give people without traditions of art eyes with which to see the +works we do to move them? How shall we give them leisure from toil, +and truce with anxiety, so that they may have time to brood over the +longing for beauty which men are born with, as 'tis said, even in +London streets? And chiefly, for this will breed the others swiftly +and certainly, how shall we give them hope and pleasure in their +daily work? + +How shall we give them this soul of art without which men are worse +than savages? If they would but drive us to it! But what and where +are the forces that shall drive them to drive us? Where is the +lever and the standpoint? + +Hard questions indeed! but unless we are prepared to seek an answer +for them, our art is a mere toy, which may amuse us for a little, +but which will not sustain us at our need: the cultivated classes, +as they are called, will feel it slipping away from under them: +till some of them will but mock it as a worthless thing; and some +will stand by and look at it as a curious exercise of the intellect, +useless when done, though amusing to watch a-doing. How long will +art live on those terms? Yet such were even now the state of art +were it not for that hope which I am here to set forth to you, the +hope of an art that shall express the soul of the people. + +Therefore, I say, that in these days we men of civilisation have to +choose if we will cast art aside or not; if we choose to do so I +have no more to say, save that we MAY find something to take its +place for the solace and joy of mankind, but I scarce think we +shall: but if we refuse to cast art aside, then must we seek an +answer for those hard questions aforesaid, of which this is the +first. + +How shall we set about giving people without traditions of art eyes +with which to see works of art? It will doubtless take many years +of striving and success, before we can think of answering that +question fully: and if we strive to do our duty herein, long before +it is answered fully there will be some kind of a popular art +abiding among us: but meantime, and setting aside the answer which +every artist must make to his own share of the question, there is +one duty obvious to us all; it is that we should set ourselves, each +one of us, to doing our best to guard the natural beauty of the +earth: we ought to look upon it as a crime, an injury to our +fellows, only excusable because of ignorance, to mar the natural +beauty, which is the property of all men; and scarce less than a +crime to look on and do nothing while others are marring it, if we +can no longer plead this ignorance. + +Now this duty, as it is the most obvious to us, and the first and +readiest way of giving people back their eyes, so happily it is the +easiest to set about; up to a certain point you will have all people +of good will to the public good on your side: nay, small as the +beginning is, something has actually been begun in this direction, +and we may well say, considering how hopeless things looked twenty +years ago, that it is marvellous in our eyes! Yet if we ever get +out of the troubles that we are now wallowing in, it will seem +perhaps more marvellous still to those that come after us that the +dwellers in the richest city in the world were at one time rather +proud that the members of a small, humble, and rather obscure, +though I will say it, a beneficent society, should have felt it +their duty to shut their eyes to the apparent hopelessness of +attacking with their feeble means the stupendous evils they had +become alive to, so that they might be able to make some small +beginnings towards awakening the general public to a due sense of +those evils. + +I say, that though I ask your earnest support for such associations +as the Kyrle and the Commons Preservation Societies, and though I +feel sure that they have begun at the right end, since neither gods +nor governments will help those who don't help themselves; though we +are bound to wait for nobody's help than our own in dealing with the +devouring hideousness and squalor of our great towns, and especially +of London, for which the whole country is responsible; yet it would +be idle not to acknowledge that the difficulties in our way are far +too huge and wide-spreading to be grappled by private or semi- +private efforts only. + +All we can do in this way we must look on not as palliatives of an +unendurable state of things, but as tokens of what we desire; which +is in short the giving back to our country of the natural beauty of +the earth, which we are so ashamed of having taken away from it: +and our chief duty herein will be to quicken this shame and the pain +that comes from it in the hearts of our fellows: this I say is one +of the chief duties of all those who have any right to the title of +cultivated men: and I believe that if we are faithful to it, we may +help to further a great impulse towards beauty among us, which will +be so irresistible that it will fashion for itself a national +machinery which will sweep away all difficulties between us and a +decent life, though they may have increased a thousand-fold +meantime, as is only too like to be the case. + +Surely that light will arise, though neither we nor our children's +children see it, though civilisation may have to go down into dark +places enough meantime: surely one day making will be thought more +honourable, more worthy the majesty of a great nation than +destruction. + +It is strange indeed, it is woeful, it is scarcely comprehensible, +if we come to think of it as men, and not as machines, that, after +all the progress of civilisation, it should be so easy for a little +official talk, a few lines on a sheet of paper, to set a terrible +engine to work, which without any trouble on our part will slay us +ten thousand men, and ruin who can say how many thousand of +families; and it lies light enough on the conscience of ALL of us; +while, if it is a question of striking a blow at grievous and +crushing evils which lie at our own doors, evils which every +thoughtful man feels and laments, and for which we alone are +responsible, not only is there no national machinery for dealing +with them, though they grow ranker and ranker every year, but any +hint that such a thing may be possible is received with laughter or +with terror, or with severe and heavy blame. The rights of +property, the necessities of morality, the interests of religion-- +these are the sacramental words of cowardice that silence us! + +Sirs, I have spoken of thoughtful men who feel these evils: but +think of all the millions of men whom our civilisation has bred, who +are not thoughtful, and have had no chance of being so; how can you +fail then to acknowledge the duty of defending the fairness of the +Earth? and what is the use of our cultivation if it is to cultivate +us into cowards? Let us answer those feeble counsels of despair and +say, We also have a property which your tyranny of squalor cheats us +of; we also have a morality which its baseness crushes; we also have +a religion which its injustice makes a mock of. + +Well, whatever lesser helps there may be to our endeavour of giving +people back the eyes we have robbed them of, we may pass them by at +present, for they are chiefly of use to people who are beginning to +get their eyesight again; to people who, though they have no +traditions of art, can study those mighty impulses that once led +nations and races: it is to such that museums and art education are +of service; but it is clear they cannot get at the great mass of +people, who will at present stare at them in unintelligent wonder. + +Until our streets are decent and orderly, and our town gardens break +the bricks and mortar every here and there, and are open to all +people; until our meadows even near our towns become fair and sweet, +and are unspoiled by patches of hideousness: until we have clear +sky above our heads and green grass beneath our feet; until the +great drama of the seasons can touch our workmen with other feelings +than the misery of winter and the weariness of summer; till all this +happens our museums and art schools will be but amusements of the +rich; and they will soon cease to be of any use to them also, unless +they make up their minds that they will do their best to give us +back the fairness of the Earth. + +In what I have been saying on this last point I have been thinking +of our own special duties as cultivated people; but in our +endeavours towards this end, as in all others, cultivated people +cannot stand alone; nor can we do much to open people's eyes till +they cry out to us to have them opened. Now I cannot doubt that the +longing to attack and overcome the sordidness of the city life of +to-day still dwells in the minds of workmen, as well as in ours, but +it can scarcely be otherwise than vague and lacking guidance with +men who have so little leisure, and are so hemmed in with +hideousness as they are. So this brings us to our second question. +How shall people in general get leisure enough from toil, and truce +enough with anxiety to give scope to their inborn longing for +beauty? + +Now the part of this question that is not involved in the next one, +How shall they get proper work to do? is I think in a fair way to be +answered. + +The mighty change which the success of competitive commerce has +wrought in the world, whatever it may have destroyed, has at least +unwittingly made one thing,--from out of it has been born the +increasing power of the working-class. The determination which this +power has bred in it to raise their class as a class will I doubt +not make way and prosper with our goodwill, or even in spite of it; +but it seems to me that both to the working-class and especially to +ourselves it is important that it should have our abundant goodwill, +and also what help we may be able otherwise to give it, by our +determination to deal fairly with workmen, even when that justice +may seem to involve our own loss. The time of unreasonable and +blind outcry against the Trades Unions is, I am happy to think, gone +by; and has given place to the hope of a time when these great +Associations, well organised, well served, and earnestly supported, +as I KNOW them to be, will find other work before them than the +temporary support of their members and the adjustment of due wages +for their crafts: when that hope begins to be realised, and they +find they can make use of the help of us scattered units of the +cultivated classes, I feel sure that the claims of art, as we and +they will then understand the word, will by no means be disregarded +by them. + +Meantime with us who are called artists, since most unhappily that +word means at present another thing than artisan: with us who +either practise the arts with our own hands, or who love them so +wholly that we can enter into the inmost feelings of those who do,-- +with us it lies to deal with our last question, to stir up others to +think of answering this: How shall we give people in general hope +and pleasure in their daily work in such a way that in those days to +come the word art SHALL be rightly understood? + +Of all that I have to say to you this seems to me the most +important, that our daily and necessary work, which we could not +escape if we would, which we would not forego if we could, should be +human, serious, and pleasurable, not machine-like, trivial, or +grievous. I call this not only the very foundation of Architecture +in all senses of the word, but of happiness also in all conditions +of life. + +Let me say before I go further, that though I am nowise ashamed of +repeating the words of men who have been before me in both senses, +of time and insight, I mean, I should be ashamed of letting you +think that I forget their labours on which mine are founded. I know +that the pith of what I am saying on this subject was set forth +years ago, and for the first time by Mr. Ruskin in that chapter of +the Stones of Venice, which is entitled, 'On the Nature of Gothic,' +in words more clear and eloquent than any man else now living could +use. So important do they seem to me, that to my mind they should +have been posted up in every school of art throughout the country; +nay, in every association of English-speaking people which professes +in any way to further the culture of mankind. But I am sorry to +have to say it, my excuse for doing little more now than repeating +those words is that they have been less heeded than most things +which Mr. Ruskin has said: I suppose because people have been +afraid of them, lest they should find the truth they express +sticking so fast in their minds that it would either compel them to +act on it or confess themselves slothful and cowardly. + +Nor can I pretend to wonder at that: for if people were once to +accept it as true, that it is nothing but just and fair that every +man's work should have some hope and pleasure always present in it, +they must try to bring the change about that would make it so: and +all history tells of no greater change in man's life than that would +be. + +Nevertheless, great as the change may be, Architecture has no +prospects in civilisation unless the change be brought about: and +'tis my business to-day, I will not say to convince you of this, but +to send some of you away uneasy lest perhaps it may be true; if I +can manage that I shall have spoken to some purpose. + +Let us see however in what light cultivated people, men not without +serious thoughts about life, look to this matter, lest perchance we +may seem to be beating the air only: when I have given you an +example of this way of thinking, I will answer it to the best of my +power in the hopes of making some of you uneasy, discontented, and +revolutionary. + +Some few months ago I read in a paper the report of a speech made to +the assembled work-people of a famous firm of manufacturers (as they +are called). The speech was a very humane and thoughtful one, +spoken by one of the leaders of modern thought: the firm to whose +people it was addressed was and is famous not only for successful +commerce, but also for the consideration and goodwill with which it +treats its work-people, men and women. No wonder, therefore, that +the speech was pleasant reading; for the tone of it was that of a +man speaking to his friends who could well understand him and from +whom he need hide nothing; but towards the end of it I came across a +sentence, which set me a-thinking so hard, that I forgot all that +had gone before. It was to this effect, and I think nearly in these +very words, 'Since no man would work if it were not that he hoped by +working to earn leisure:' and the context showed that this was +assumed as a self-evident truth. + +Well, for many years I have had my mind fixed on what I in my turn +regarded as an axiom which may be worded thus: No work which cannot +be done without pleasure in the doing is worth doing; so you may +think I was much disturbed at a grave and learned man taking such a +completely different view of it with such calmness of certainty. +What a little way, I thought, has all Ruskin's fire and eloquence +made in driving into people so great a truth, a truth so fertile of +consequences! + +Then I turned the intrusive sentence over again in my mind: 'No man +would work unless he hoped by working to earn leisure:' and I saw +that this was another way of putting it: first, all the work of the +world is done against the grain: second, what a man does in his +'leisure' is not work. + +A poor bribe the hope of such leisure to supplement the other +inducement to toil, which I take to be the fear of death by +starvation: a poor bribe; for the most of men, like those Yorkshire +weavers and spinners (and the more part far worse than they), work +for such a very small share of leisure that, one must needs say that +if all their hope be in that, they are pretty much beguiled of their +hope! + +So I thought, and this next, that if it were indeed true and beyond +remedy, that no man would work unless he hoped by working to earn +leisure, the hell of theologians was but little needed; for a +thickly populated civilised country, where, you know, after all +people must work at something, would serve their turn well enough. +Yet again I knew that this theory of the general and necessary +hatefulness of work was indeed the common one, and that all sorts of +people held it, who without being monsters of insensibility grew fat +and jolly nevertheless. + +So to explain this puzzle, I fell to thinking of the one life of +which I knew something--my own to wit--and out tumbled the bottom of +the theory. + +For I tried to think what would happen to me if I were forbidden my +ordinary daily work; and I knew that I should die of despair and +weariness, unless I could straightway take to something else which I +could make my daily work: and it was clear to me that I worked not +in the least in the world for the sake of earning leisure by it, but +partly driven by the fear of starvation or disgrace, and partly, and +even a very great deal, because I love the work itself: and as for +my leisure: well I had to confess that part of it I do indeed spend +as a dog does--in contemplation, let us say; and like it well +enough: but part of it also I spend in work: which work gives me +just as much pleasure as my bread-earning work--neither more nor +less; and therefore could be no bribe or hope for my work-a-day +hours. + +Then next I turned my thought to my friends: mere artists, and +therefore, you know, lazy people by prescriptive right: I found +that the one thing they enjoyed was their work, and that their only +idea of happy leisure was other work, just as valuable to the world +as their work-a-day work: they only differed from me in liking the +dog-like leisure less and the man-like labour more than I do. + +I got no further when I turned from mere artists, to important men-- +public men: I could see no signs of their working merely to earn +leisure: they all worked for the work and the deeds' sake. Do rich +gentlemen sit up all night in the House of Commons for the sake of +earning leisure? if so, 'tis a sad waste of labour. Or Mr. +Gladstone? he doesn't seem to have succeeded in winning much leisure +by tolerably strenuous work; what he does get he might have got on +much easier terms, I am sure. + +Does it then come to this, that there are men, say a class of men, +whose daily work, though maybe they cannot escape from doing it, is +chiefly pleasure to them; and other classes of men whose daily work +is wholly irksome to them, and only endurable because they hope +while they are about it to earn thereby a little leisure at the +day's end? + +If that were wholly true the contrast between the two kinds of lives +would be greater than the contrast between the utmost delicacy of +life and the utmost hardship could show, or between the utmost calm +and utmost trouble. The difference would be literally immeasurable. + +But I dare not, if I would, in so serious a matter overstate the +evils I call on you to attack: it is not wholly true that such +immeasurable difference exists between the lives of divers classes +of men, or the world would scarce have got through to past the +middle of this century: misery, grudging, and tyranny would have +destroyed us all. + +The inequality even at the worst is not really so great as that: +any employment in which a thing can be done better or worse has some +pleasure in it, for all men more or less like doing what they can do +well: even mechanical labour is pleasant to some people (to me +amongst others) if it be not too mechanical. + +Nevertheless though it be not wholly true that the daily work of +some men is merely pleasant and of others merely grievous; yet it is +over true both that things are not very far short of this, and also +that if people do not open their eyes in time they will speedily +worsen. Some work, nay, almost all the work done by artisans IS too +mechanical; and those that work at it must either abstract their +thoughts from it altogether, in which case they are but machines +while they are at work; or else they must suffer such dreadful +weariness in getting through it, as one can scarcely bear to think +of. Nature desires that we shall at least live, but seldom, I +suppose, allows this latter misery to happen; and the workmen who do +purely mechanical work do as a rule become mere machines as far as +their work is concerned. Now as I am quite sure that no art, not +even the feeblest, rudest, or least intelligent, can come of such +work, so also I am sure that such work makes the workman less than a +man and degrades him grievously and unjustly, and that nothing can +compensate him or us for such degradation: and I want you specially +to note that this was instinctively felt in the very earliest days +of what are called the industrial arts. + +When a man turned the wheel, or threw the shuttle, or hammered the +iron, he was expected to make something more than a water-pot, a +cloth, or a knife: he was expected to make a work of art also: he +could scarcely altogether fail in this, he might attain to making a +work of the greatest beauty: this was felt to be positively +necessary to the peace of mind both of the maker and the user; and +this is it which I have called Architecture: the turning of +necessary articles of daily use into works of art. + +Certainly, when we come to think of it thus, there does seem to be +little less than that immeasurable contrast above mentioned between +such work and mechanical work: and most assuredly do I believe that +the crafts which fashion our familiar wares need this enlightenment +of happiness no less now than they did in the days of the early +Pharaohs: but we have forgotten this necessity, and in consequence +have reduced handicraft to such degradation, that a learned, +thoughtful, and humane man can set forth as an axiom that no man +will work except to earn leisure thereby. + +But now let us forget any conventional ways of looking at the labour +which produces the matters of our daily life, which ways come partly +from the wretched state of the arts in modern times, and partly I +suppose from that repulsion to handicraft which seems to have beset +some minds in all ages: let us forget this, and try to think how it +really fares with the divers ways of work in handicrafts. + +I think one may divide the work with which Architecture is +conversant into three classes: first there is the purely +mechanical: those who do this are machines only, and the less they +think of what they are doing the better for the purpose, supposing +they are properly drilled: the purpose of this work, to speak +plainly, is not the making of wares of any kind, but what on the one +hand is called employment, on the other what is called money-making: +that is to say, in other words, the multiplication of the species of +the mechanical workman, and the increase of the riches of the man +who sets him to work, called in our modern jargon by a strange +perversion of language, a manufacturer: {13} Let us call this kind +of work Mechanical Toil. + +The second kind is more or less mechanical as the case may be; but +it can always be done better or worse: if it is to be well done, it +claims attention from the workman, and he must leave on it signs of +his individuality: there will be more or less of art in it, over +which the workman has at least some control; and he will work on it +partly to earn his bread in not too toilsome or disgusting a way, +but in a way which makes even his work-hours pass pleasantly to him, +and partly to make wares, which when made will be a distinct gain to +the world; things that will be praised and delighted in. This work +I would call Intelligent Work. + +The third kind of work has but little if anything mechanical about +it; it is altogether individual; that is to say, that what any man +does by means of it could never have been done by any other man. +Properly speaking, this work is all pleasure: true, there are pains +and perplexities and weariness in it, but they are like the troubles +of a beautiful life; the dark places that make the bright ones +brighter: they are the romance of the work and do but elevate the +workman, not depress him: I would call this Imaginative Work. + +Now I can fancy that at first sight it may seem to you as if there +were more difference between this last and Intelligent Work, than +between Intelligent Work and Mechanical Toil: but 'tis not so. The +difference between these two is the difference between light and +darkness, between Ormuzd and Ahriman: whereas the difference +between Intelligent work and what for want of a better word I am +calling Imaginative work, is a matter of degree only; and in times +when art is abundant and noble there is no break in the chain from +the humblest of the lower to the greatest of the higher class; from +the poor weaver's who chuckles as the bright colour comes round +again, to the great painter anxious and doubtful if he can give to +the world the whole of his thought or only nine-tenths of it, they +are all artists--that is men; while the mechanical workman, who does +not note the difference between bright and dull in his colours, but +only knows them by numbers, is, while he is at his work, no man, but +a machine. Indeed when Intelligent work coexists with Imaginative, +there is no hard and fast line between them; in the very best and +happiest times of art, there is scarce any Intelligent work which is +not Imaginative also; and there is but little of effort or doubt, or +sign of unexpressed desires even in the highest of the Imaginative +work: the blessing of Equality elevates the lesser, and calms the +greater, art. + +Now further, Mechanical Toil is bred of that hurry and +thoughtfulness of civilisation of which, as aforesaid, the middle +classes of this country have been such powerful furtherers: on the +face of it it is hostile to civilisation, a curse that civilisation +has made for itself and can no longer think of abolishing or +controlling: such it seems, I say; but since it bears with it +change and tremendous change, it may well be that there is something +more than mere loss in it: it will full surely destroy art as we +know art, unless art newborn destroy it: yet belike at the worst it +will destroy other things beside which are the poison of art, and in +the long run itself also, and thus make way for the new art, of +whose form we know nothing. + +Intelligent work is the child of struggling, hopeful, progressive +civilisation: and its office is to add fresh interest to simple and +uneventful lives, to soothe discontent with innocent pleasure +fertile of deeds gainful to mankind; to bless the many toiling +millions with hope daily recurring, and which it will by no means +disappoint. + +Imaginative work is the very blossom of civilisation triumphant and +hopeful; it would fain lead men to aspire towards perfection: each +hope that it fulfils gives birth to yet another hope: it bears in +its bosom the worth and the meaning of life and the counsel to +strive to understand everything; to fear nothing and to hate +nothing: in a word, 'tis the symbol and sacrament of the Courage of +the World. + +Now thus it stands to-day with these three kinds of work; Mechanical +Toil has swallowed Intelligent Work and all the lower part of +Imaginative Work, and the enormous mass of the very worst now +confronts the slender but still bright array of the very best: what +is left of art is rallied to its citadel of the highest intellectual +art, and stands at bay there. + +At first sight its hope of victory is slender indeed: yet to us now +living it seems as if man had not yet lost all that part of his soul +which longs for beauty: nay we cannot but hope that it is not yet +dying. If we are not deceived in that hope, if the art of to-day +has really come alive out of the slough of despond which we call the +eighteenth century, it will surely grow and gather strength and draw +to it other forms of intellect and hope that now scarcely know it; +and then, whatever changes it may go through, it will at the last be +victorious, and bring abundant content to mankind. On the other +hand, if, as some think, it be but the reflection and feeble ghost +of that glorious autumn which ended the good days of the mighty art +of the Middle Ages, it will take but little killing: Mechanical +Toil will sweep over all the handiwork of man, and art will be gone. + +I myself am too busy a man to trouble myself much as to what may +happen after that: I can only say that if you do not like the +thought of that dull blank, even if you know or care little for art, +do not cast the thought of it aside, but think of it again and +again, and cherish the trouble it breeds till such a future seems +unendurable to you; and then make up your minds that you will not +bear it; and even if you distrust the artists that now are, set +yourself to clear the way for the artists that are to come. We +shall not count you among our enemies then, however hardly you deal +with us. + +I have spoken of one most important part of that task; I have prayed +you to set yourselves earnestly to protecting what is left, and +recovering what is lost of the Natural Fairness of the Earth: no +less I pray you to do what you may to raise up some firm ground amid +the great flood of mechanical toil, to make an effort to win human +and hopeful work for yourselves and your fellows. + +But if our first task of guarding the beauty of the Earth was hard, +this is far harder, nor can I pretend to think that we can attack +our enemy directly; yet indirectly surely something may be done, or +at least the foundations laid for something. + +For Art breeds Art, and every worthy work done and delighted in by +maker and user begets a longing for more: and since art cannot be +fashioned by mechanical toil, the demand for real art will mean a +demand for intelligent work, which if persisted in will in time +create its due supply--at least I hope so. + +I believe that what I am now saying will be well understood by those +who really care about art, but to speak plainly I know that these +are rarely to be found even among the cultivated classes: it must +be confessed that the middle classes of our civilisation have +embraced luxury instead of art, and that we are even so blindly base +as to hug ourselves on it, and to insult the memory of valiant +people of past times and to mock at them because they were not +encumbered with the nuisances that foolish habit has made us look on +as necessaries. Be sure that we are not beginning to prepare for +the art that is to be, till we have swept all that out of our minds, +and are setting to work to rid ourselves of all the useless luxuries +(by some called comforts) that make our stuffy art-stifling houses +more truly savage than a Zulu's kraal or an East Greenlander's snow +hut. + +I feel sure that many a man is longing to set his hand to this if he +only durst; I believe that there are simple people who think that +they are dull to art, and who are really only perplexed and wearied +by finery and rubbish: if not from these, 'tis at least from the +children of these that we may look for the beginnings of the +building up of the art that is to be. + +Meanwhile, I say, till the beginning of new construction is obvious, +let us be at least destructive of the sham art: it is full surely +one of the curses of modern life, that if people have not time and +eyes to discern or money to buy the real object of their desire, +they must needs have its mechanical substitute. On this lazy and +cowardly habit feeds and grows and flourishes mechanical toil and +all the slavery of mind and body it brings with it: from this +stupidity are born the itch of the public to over-reach the +tradesmen they deal with, the determination (usually successful) of +the tradesmen to over-reach them, and all the mockery and flouting +that has been cast of late (not without reason) on the British +tradesman and the British workman,--men just as honest as ourselves, +if we would not compel them to cheat us, and reward them for doing +it. + +Now if the public knew anything of art, that is excellence in things +made by man, they would not abide the shams of it; and if the real +thing were not to be had, they would learn to do without, nor think +their gentility injured by the forbearance. + +Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very +foundation of refinement: a sanded floor and whitewashed walls, and +the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a +grimy palace amid the smoke with a regiment of housemaids always +working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; +which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman +of those two dwellings? + +So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art, at least learn to +hate sham art and reject it. It is not so much because the wretched +thing is so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it +from you; it is much more because these are but the outward symbols +of the poison that lies within them: look through them and see all +that has gone to their fashioning, and you will see how vain labour, +and sorrow, and disgrace have been their companions from the first,- +-and all this for trifles that no man really needs! + +Learn to do without; there is virtue in those words; a force that +rightly used would choke both demand and supply of Mechanical Toil: +would make it stick to its last: the making of machines. + +And then from simplicity of life would rise up the longing for +beauty, which cannot yet be dead in men's souls, and we know that +nothing can satisfy that demand but Intelligent work rising +gradually into Imaginative work; which will turn all 'operatives' +into workmen, into artists, into men. + +Now, I have been trying to show you how the hurry of modern +Civilisation, accompanied by the tyrannous Organisation of labour +which was a necessity to the full development of Competitive +Commerce, has taken from the people at large, gentle and simple, the +eyes to discern and the hands to fashion that popular art which was +once the chief solace and joy of the world: I have asked you to +think of that as no light matter, but a grievous mishap: I have +prayed you to strive to remedy this evil: first by guarding +jealously what is left, and by trying earnestly to win back what is +lost of the Fairness of the Earth; and next by rejecting luxury, +that you may embrace art, if you can, or if indeed you in your short +lives cannot learn what art means, that you may at least live a +simple life fit for men. + +And in all I have been saying, what I have been really urging on you +is this--Reverence for the life of Man upon the Earth: let the past +be past, every whit of it that is not still living in us: let the +dead bury their dead, but let us turn to the living, and with +boundless courage and what hope we may, refuse to let the Earth be +joyless in the days to come. + +What lies before us of hope or fear for this? Well, let us remember +that those past days whose art was so worthy, did nevertheless +forget much of what was due to the Life of Man upon the Earth; and +so belike it was to revenge this neglect that art was delivered to +our hands for maiming: to us, who were blinded by our eager chase +of those things which our forefathers had neglected, and by the +chase of other things which seemed revealed to us on our hurried +way, not seldom, it may be for our beguiling. + +And of that to which we were blinded, not all was unworthy: nay the +most of it was deep-rooted in men's souls, and was a necessary part +of their Life upon the Earth, and claims our reverence still: let +us add this knowledge to our other knowledge: and there will still +be a future for the arts. Let us remember this, and amid simplicity +of life turn our eyes to real beauty that can be shared by all: and +then though the days worsen, and no rag of the elder art be left for +our teaching, yet the new art may yet arise among us, and even if it +have the hands of a child together with the heart of a troubled man, +still it may bear on for us to better times the tokens of our +reverence for the Life of Man upon the Earth. For we indeed freed +from the bondage of foolish habit and dulling luxury might at last +have eyes wherewith to see: and should have to babble to one +another many things of our joy in the life around us: the faces of +people in the streets bearing the tokens of mirth and sorrow and +hope, and all the tale of their lives: the scraps of nature the +busiest of us would come across; birds and beasts and the little +worlds they live in; and even in the very town the sky above us and +the drift of the clouds across it; the wind's hand on the slim +trees, and its voice amid their branches, and all the ever-recurring +deeds of nature; nor would the road or the river winding past our +homes fail to tell us stories of the country-side, and men's doings +in field and fell. And whiles we should fall to muse on the times +when all the ways of nature were mere wonders to men, yet so well +beloved of them that they called them by men's names and gave them +deeds of men to do; and many a time there would come before us +memories of the deed of past times, and of the aspirations of those +mighty peoples whose deaths have made our lives, and their sorrows +our joys. + +How could we keep silence of all this? and what voice could tell it +but the voice of art: and what audience for such a tale would +content us but all men living on the Earth? + +This is what Architecture hopes to be: it will have this life, or +else death; and it is for us now living between the past and the +future to say whether it shall live or die. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} Delivered before the Trades' Guild of Learning, December 4, +1877. + +{2} Delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of +Design, February 19, 1879. + +{3} Now incorporated in the Handbook of Indian Art, by Dr. (now Sir +George) Birdwood, published by the Science and Art Department. + +{4} These were originally published in Fun. + +{5} Delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of +Design, February 19, 1880. + +{6} 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. + +{7} 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. + +{8} Not QUITE always: in the little colony at Bedford Park, +Chiswick, as many trees have been left as possible, to the boundless +advantage of its quaint and pretty architecture. + +{9} A Paper read before tile Trades' Guild of Learning and the +Birmingham Society of Artists. + +{10} 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. + +{11} Delivered at the London Institution, March 10, 1880. + +{12} Indeed it is a new world now, when the new Cowley dog-holes +must needs slay Magdalen Bridge!--Nov. 1881. + +{13} Or, to put it plainer still, the unlimited breeding of +mechanical workmen as MECHANICAL WORKMEN, not as MEN. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Hopes and Fears for Art, by William Morris + diff --git a/old/haffa10.zip b/old/haffa10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..781b9b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/haffa10.zip |