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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

meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can

take or leave; but a positive necessity of life if we are to live

as nature meant us to; that is to say unless we are content to be

less than men。



Do not think that the commercial spirit which is the basis of your

life and cities here is opposed to art。  Who built the beautiful

cities of the world but commercial men and commercial men only?

Genoa built by its traders; Florence by its bankers; and Venice;

most lovely of all; by its noble and honest merchants。



I do not wish you; remember; 'to build a new Pisa;' nor to bring

'the life or the decorations of the thirteenth century back again。'

'The circumstances with which you must surround your workmen are

those' of modern American life; 'because the designs you have now

to ask for from your workmen are such as will make modern' American

'life beautiful。'  The art we want is the art based on all the

inventions of modern civilisation; and to suit all the needs of

nineteenth…century life。



Do you think; for instance; that we object to machinery?  I tell

you we reverence it; we reverence it when it does its proper work;

when it relieves man from ignoble and soulless labour; not when it

seeks to do that which is valuable only when wrought by the hands

and hearts of men。  Let us have no machine…made ornament at all; it

is all bad and worthless and ugly。  And let us not mistake the

means of civilisation for the end of civilisation; steam…engine;

telephone and the like; are all wonderful; but remember that their

value depends entirely on the noble uses we make of them; on the

noble spirit in which we employ them; not on the things themselves。



It is; no doubt; a great advantage to talk to a man at the

Antipodes through a telephone; its advantage depends entirely on

the value of what the two men have to say to one another。  If one

merely shrieks slander through a tube and the other whispers folly

into a wire; do not think that anybody is very much benefited by

the invention。



The train that whirls an ordinary Englishman through Italy at the

rate of forty miles an hour and finally sends him home without any

memory of that lovely country but that he was cheated by a courier

at Rome; or that he got a bad dinner at Verona; does not do him or

civilisation much good。  But that swift legion of fiery…footed

engines that bore to the burning ruins of Chicago the loving help

and generous treasure of the world was as noble and as beautiful as

any golden troop of angels that ever fed the hungry and clothed the

naked in the antique times。  As beautiful; yes; all machinery may

be beautiful when it is undecorated even。  Do not seek to decorate

it。  We cannot but think all good machinery is graceful; also; the

line of strength and the line of beauty being one。



Give then; as I said; to your workmen of to…day the bright and

noble surroundings that you can yourself create。  Stately and

simple architecture for your cities; bright and simple dress for

your men and women; those are the conditions of a real artistic

movement。  For the artist is not concerned primarily with any

theory of life but with life itself; with the joy and loveliness

that should come daily on eye and ear for a beautiful external

world。



But the simplicity must not be barrenness nor the bright colour

gaudy。  For all beautiful colours are graduated colours; the

colours that seem about to pass into one another's realm … colour

without tone being like music without harmony; mere discord。

Barren architecture; the vulgar and glaring advertisements that

desecrate not merely your cities but every rock and river that I

have seen yet in America … all this is not enough。  A school of

design we must have too in each city。  It should be a stately and

noble building; full of the best examples of the best art of the

world。  Furthermore; do not put your designers in a barren

whitewashed room and bid them work in that depressing and

colourless atmosphere as I have seen many of the American schools

of design; but give them beautiful surroundings。  Because you want

to produce a permanent canon and standard of taste in your workman;

he must have always by him and before him specimens of the best

decorative art of the world; so that you can say to him:  'This is

good work。  Greek or Italian or Japanese wrought it so many years

ago; but it is eternally young because eternally beautiful。'  Work

in this spirit and you will be sure to be right。  Do not copy it;

but work with the same love; the same reverence; the same freedom

of imagination。  You must teach him colour and design; how all

beautiful colours are graduated colours and glaring colours the

essence of vulgarity。  Show him the quality of any beautiful work

of nature like the rose; or any beautiful work of art like an

Eastern carpet … being merely the exquisite gradation of colour;

one tone answering another like the answering chords of a symphony。

Teach him how the true designer is not he who makes the design and

then colours it; but he who designs in colour; creates in colour;

thinks in colour too。  Show him how the most gorgeous stained…glass

windows of Europe are filled with white glass; and the most

gorgeous Eastern tapestry with toned colours … the primary colours

in both places being set in the white glass; and the tone colours

like brilliant jewels set in dusky gold。  And then as regards

design; show him how the real designer will take first any given

limited space; little disk of silver; it may be; like a Greek coin;

or wide expanse of fretted ceiling or lordly wall as Tintoret chose

at Venice (it does not matter which); and to this limited space …

the first condition of decoration being the limitation of the size

of the material used … he will give the effect of its being filled

with beautiful decoration; filled with it as a golden cup will be

filled with wine; so complete that you should not be able to take

away anything from it or add anything to it。  For from a good piece

of design you can take away nothing; nor can you add anything to

it; each little bit of design being as absolutely necessary and as

vitally important to the whole effect as a note or chord of music

is for a sonata of Beethoven。



But I said the effect of its being so filled; because this; again;

is of the essence of good design。  With a simple spray of leaves

and a bird in flight a Japanese artist will give you the impression

that he has completely covered with lovely design the reed fan or

lacquer cabinet at which he is working; merely because he knows the

exact spot in which to place them。  All good design depends on the

texture of the utensil used and the use you wish to put it to。  One

of the first things I saw in an American school of design was a

young lady painting a romantic moonlight landscape on a large round

dish; and another young lady covering a set of dinner plates with a

series of sunsets of the most remarkable colours。  Let your ladies

paint moonlight landscapes and sunsets; but do not let them paint

them on dinner plates or dishes。  Let them take canvas or paper for

such work; but not clay or china。  They are merely painting the

wrong subjects on the wrong material; that is all。  They have not

been taught that every material and texture has certain qualities

of its own。  The design suitable for one is quite wrong for the

other; just as the design which you should work on a flat table…

cover ought to be quite different from the design you would work on

a curtain; for the one will always be straight; the other broken

into folds; and the use too one puts the object to should guide one

in the choice of design。  One does not want to eat one's terrapins

off a romantic moonlight nor one's clams off a harrowing sunset。

Glory of sun and moon; let them be wrought for us by our landscape

artist and be on the walls of the rooms we sit in to remind us of

the undying beauty of the sunsets that fade and die; but do not let

us eat our soup off them and send them down to the kitchen twice a

day to be washed and scrubbed by the handmaid。



All these things are simple enough; yet nearly always forgotten。

Your school of design here will teach your girls and your boys;

your handicraftsmen of the future (for all your schools of art

should be local schools; the schools of particular cities)。  We

talk of the Italian school of painting; but there is no Italian

school; there were the schools of each city。  Every town in Italy;

from Venice itself; queen of the sea; to the little hill fortress

of Perugia; each had its own school of art; each different and all

beautiful。



So do n

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