House Decoration

IN my last lecture I gave you something of the history of Art in
England. I sought to trace the influence of the French Revolution
upon its development. I said something of the song of Keats and
the school of the pre-Raphaelites. But I do not want to shelter
the movement, which I have called the English Renaissance, under
any palladium however noble, or any name however revered. The
roots of it have, indeed, to be sought for in things that have long
passed away, and not, as some suppose, in the fancy of a few young
men - although I am not altogether sure that there is anything much
better than the fancy of a few young men.

When I appeared before you on a previous occasion, I had seen
nothing of American art save the Doric columns and Corinthian
chimney-pots visible on your Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Since
then, I have been through your country to some fifty or sixty
different cities, I think. I find that what your people need is
not so much high imaginative art but that which hallows the vessels
of everyday use. I suppose that the poet will sing and the artist
will paint regardless whether the world praises or blames. He has
his own world and is independent of his fellow-men. But the
handicraftsman is dependent on your pleasure and opinion. He needs
your encouragement and he must have beautiful surroundings. Your
people love art but do not sufficiently honour the handicraftsman.
Of course, those millionaires who can pillage Europe for their
pleasure need have no care to encourage such; but I speak for those
whose desire for beautiful things is larger than their means. I
find that one great trouble all over is that your workmen are not
given to noble designs. You cannot be indifferent to this, because
Art is not something which you can take or leave. It is a
necessity of human life.

And what is the meaning of this beautiful decoration which we call
art? In the first place, it means value to the workman and it
means the pleasure which he must necessarily take in making a
beautiful thing. The mark of all good art is not that the thing
done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but
that it is worked out with the head and the workman's heart. I
cannot impress the point too frequently that beautiful and rational
designs are necessary in all work. I did not imagine, until I went
into some of your simpler cities, that there was so much bad work
done. I found, where I went, bad wall-papers horribly designed,
and coloured carpets, and that old offender the horse-hair sofa,
whose stolid look of indifference is always so depressing. I found
meaningless chandeliers and machine-made furniture, generally of
rosewood, which creaked dismally under the weight of the ubiquitous