in its own poor measure, active in some verity of representation. We
certainly cannot begin by drawing kings or queens; but we must try, even
in our earliest work, if it is to prosper, to draw something that will
convey true knowledge both to ourselves and others. And I think you will
find greatest advantage in the endeavour to give more life and
educational power to the simpler branches of natural science: for the
great scientific men are all so eager in advance that they have no time
to popularise their discoveries, and if we can glean after them a
little, and make pictures of the things which science describes, we
shall find the service a worthy one. Not only so, but we may even be
helpful to science herself; for she has suffered by her proud severance
from the arts; and having made too little effort to realise her
discoveries to vulgar eyes, has herself lost true measure of what was
chiefly precious in them.
106. Take Botany, for instance. Our scientific botanists are, I think,
chiefly at present occupied in distinguishing species, which perfect
methods of distinction will probably in the future show to be
indistinct;--in inventing descriptive names of which a more advanced
science and more fastidious scholarship will show some to be
unnecessary, and others inadmissible;--and in microscopic investigations
of structure, which through many alternate links of triumphant
discovery that tissue is composed of vessels, and that vessels are
composed of tissue, have not hitherto completely explained to us either
the origin, the energy, or the course of the sap; and which however
subtle or successful, bear to the real natural history of plants only
the relation that anatomy and organic chemistry bear to the history of
men. In the meantime, our artists are so generally convinced of the
truth of the Darwinian theory that they do not always think it necessary
to show any difference between the foliage of an elm and an oak; and the
gift-books of Christmas have every page surrounded with laboriously
engraved garlands of rose, shamrock, thistle, and forget-me-not, without
its being thought proper by the draughtsman, or desirable by the public,
even in the case of those uncommon flowers, to observe the real shape of
the petals of any one of them.
107. Now what we especially need at present for educational purposes is
to know, not the anatomy of plants, but their biography--how and where
they live and die, their tempers, benevolences, malignities, distresses,
and virtues. We want them drawn from their youth to their age, from bud
to fruit. We ought to see the various forms of their diminished but
hardy growth in cold climates, or poor soils; and their rank or wild
luxuriance, when full-fed, and warmly nursed. And all this we ought to
have drawn so accurately, that we might at once compare any given part
of a plant with the same part of any other, drawn on the like
conditions. Now, is not this a work which we may set about here in
Oxford, with good hope and much pleasure? I think it is so important,
that the first exercise in drawing I shall put before you will be an
outline of a laurel leaf. You will find in the opening sentence of
Lionardo's treatise, our present text-book, that you must not at first
draw from nature, but from a good master's work, "per assuefarsi a buone
membra," to accustom yourselves, that is, to entirely good
representative organic forms. So your first exercise shall be the top of
the laurel sceptre of Apollo, drawn by an Italian engraver of Lionardo's
own time; then we will draw a laurel leaf itself; and little by little,
I think we may both learn ourselves, and teach to many besides, somewhat
more than we know yet, of the wild olives of Greece, and the wild roses
of England.
108. Next, in Geology, which I will take leave to consider as an
entirely separate science from the zoology of the past, which has lately
usurped its name and interest. In geology itself we find the strength of
many able men occupied in debating questions of which there are yet no
data even for the clear statement; and in seizing advanced theoretical
positions on the mere contingency of their being afterwards tenable;
while, in the meantime, no simple person, taking a holiday in
Cumberland, can get an intelligible section of Skiddaw, or a clear
account of the origin of the Skiddaw slates; and while, though half the
educated society of London travel every summer over the great plain of
Switzerland, none know, or care to know, why that is a plain, and the
Alps to the south of it are Alps; and whether or not the gravel of the
one has anything to do with the rocks of the other. And though every
palace in Europe owes part of its decoration to variegated marbles, and
nearly every woman in Europe part of her decoration to pieces of jasper
or chalcedony, I do not think any geologist could at this moment with
authority tell us either how a piece of marble is stained, or what
causes the streaks in a Scotch pebble.
109. Now, as soon as you have obtained the power of drawing, I do not
say a mountain, but even a stone, accurately, every question of this
kind will become to you at once attractive and definite; you will find
that in the grain, the lustre, and the cleavage-lines of the smallest
fragment of rock, there are recorded forces of every order and
magnitude, from those which raise a continent by one volcanic effort, to
those which at every instant are polishing the apparently complete
crystal in its nest, and conducting the apparently motionless metal in
its vein; and that only by the art of your own hand, and fidelity of
sight which it develops, you can obtain true perception of these
invincible and inimitable arts of the earth herself; while the
comparatively slight effort necessary to obtain so much skill as may
serviceably draw mountains in distant effect will be instantly rewarded
by what is almost equivalent to a new sense of the conditions of their
structure.
110. And, because it is well at once to know some direction in which our
work may be definite, let me suggest to those of you who may intend
passing their vacation in Switzerland, and who care about mountains,
that if they will first qualify themselves to take angles of position
and elevation with correctness, and to draw outlines with approximate
fidelity, there are a series of problems of the highest interest to be
worked out on the southern edge of the Swiss plain, in the study of the
relations of its molasse beds to the rocks which are characteristically
developed in the chain of the Stockhorn, Beatenberg, Pilate, Mythen
above Schwytz, and High Sentis of Appenzell, the pursuit of which may
lead them into many pleasant, as well as creditably dangerous, walks,
and curious discoveries; and will be good for the discipline of their
fingers in the pencilling of crag form.
111. I wish I could ask you to draw, instead of the Alps, the crests of
Parnassus and Olympus, and the ravines of Delphi and of Tempe. I have
not loved the arts of Greece as others have; yet I love them, and her,
so much, that it is to me simply a standing marvel how scholars can
endure for all these centuries, during which their chief education has
been in the language and policy of Greece, to have only the names of her
hills and rivers upon their lips, and never one line of conception of
them in their mind's sight. Which of us knows what the valley of Sparta
is like, or the great mountain vase of Arcadia? which of us, except in
mere airy syllabling of names, knows aught of "sandy Ladon's lilied
banks, or old Lycæus, or Cyllene hoar"? "You cannot travel in
Greece?"--I know it; nor in Magna Græcia. But, gentlemen of England, you
had better find out why you cannot, and put an end to that horror of
European shame, before you hope to learn Greek art.
112. I scarcely know whether to place among the things useful to art,
or to science, the systematic record, by drawing, of phenomena of the
sky. But I am quite sure that your work cannot in any direction be more
useful to yourselves, than in enabling you to perceive the quite
unparalleled subtilties of colour and inorganic form, which occur on any
ordinarily fine morning or evening horizon; and I will even confess to
you another of my perhaps too sanguine expectations, that in some far
distant time it may come to pass, that young Englishmen and Englishwomen
may think the breath of the morning sky pleasanter than that of
midnight, and its light prettier than that of candles.
113. Lastly, in Zoology. What the Greeks did for the horse, and what, as
far as regards domestic and expressional character, Landseer has done
for the dog and the deer, remains to be done by art for nearly all other
animals of high organisation. There are few birds or beasts that have
not a range of character which, if not equal to that of the horse or
dog, is yet as interesting within narrower limits, and often in
grotesqueness, intensity, or wild and timid pathos, more singular and
mysterious. Whatever love of humour you have,--whatever sympathy with
imperfect, but most subtle, feeling,--whatever perception of sublimity
in conditions of fatal power, may here find fullest occupation: all
these being joined, in the strong animal races, to a variable and
fantastic beauty far beyond anything that merely formative art has yet
conceived. I have placed in your Educational series a wing by Albert
Dürer, which goes as far as art yet has reached in delineation of
plumage; while for the simple action of the pinion it is impossible to
go beyond what has been done already by Titian and Tintoret; but you
cannot so much as once look at the rufflings of the plumes of a pelican
pluming itself after it has been in the water, or carefully draw the
contours of the wing either of a vulture or a common swift, or paint the
rose and vermilion on that of a flamingo, without receiving almost a new
conception of the meaning of form and colour in creation.
114. Lastly. Your work, in all directions I have hitherto indicated,
may be as deliberate as you choose; there is no immediate fear of the
extinction of many species of flowers or animals; and the Alps, and
valley of Sparta, will wait your leisure, I fear too long. But the
feudal and monastic buildings of Europe, and still more the streets of
her ancient cities, are vanishing like dreams: and it is difficult to
imagine the mingled envy and contempt with which future generations will
look back to us, who still possessed such things, yet made no effort to
preserve, and scarcely any to delineate them: for when used as material
of landscape by the modern artist, they are nearly always superficially
or flatteringly represented, without zeal enough to penetrate their
character, or patience enough to render it in modest harmony. As for
places of traditional interest, I do not know an entirely faithful
drawing of any historical site, except one or two studies made by
enthusiastic young painters in Palestine and Egypt: for which, thanks to
them always: but we want work nearer home.
115. Now it is quite probable that some of you, who will not care to go
through the labour necessary to draw flowers or animals, may yet have
pleasure in attaining some moderately accurate skill of sketching
architecture, and greater pleasure still in directing it usefully.
Suppose, for instance, we were to take up the historical scenery in
Carlyle's "Frederick." Too justly the historian accuses the genius of
past art, in that, types of too many such elsewhere, the galleries of
Berlin--"are made up, like other galleries, of goat-footed Pan, Europa's
Bull, Romulus's She-Wolf, and the Correggiosity of Correggio, and
contain, for instance, no portrait of Friedrich the Great,--no likeness
at all, or next to none at all, of the noble series of Human Realities,
or any part of them, who have sprung, not from the idle brains of
dreaming _dilettanti_, but from the head of God Almighty, to make this
poor authentic earth a little memorable for us, and to do a little work
that may be eternal there." So Carlyle tells us--too truly! We cannot
now draw Friedrich for him, but we can draw some of the old castles and
cities that were the cradles of German life--Hohenzollern, Hapsburg,
Marburg, and such others;--we may keep some authentic likeness of these
for the future. Suppose we were to take up that first volume of
"Friedrich," and put outlines to it: shall we begin by looking for Henry
the Fowler's tomb--Carlyle himself asks if he has any--at Quedlinburgh,
and so downwards, rescuing what we can? That would certainly be making
our work of some true use.
116. But I have told you enough, it seems to me, at least to-day, of
this function of art in recording fact; let me now finally, and with all
distinctness possible to me, state to you its main business of all;--its
service in the actual uses of daily life.
You are surprised, perhaps, to hear me call this its main business. That
is indeed so, however. The giving brightness to picture is much, but the
giving brightness to life more. And remember, were it as patterns only,
you cannot, without the realities, have the pictures. _You cannot have a
landscape by Turner, without a country for him to paint; you cannot have
a portrait by Titian, without a man to be portrayed._ I need not prove
that to you, I suppose, in these short terms; but in the outcome I can
get no soul to believe that the beginning of art _is in getting our
country clean, and our people beautiful_. I have been ten years trying
to get this very plain certainty--I do not say believed--but even
thought of, as anything but a monstrous proposition. To get your country
clean, and your people lovely;--I assure you that is a necessary work of
art to begin with! There has indeed been art in countries where people
lived in dirt to serve God, but never in countries where they lived in
dirt to serve the devil. There has indeed been art where the people were
not all lovely--where even their lips were thick--and their skins black,
because the sun had looked upon them; but never in a country where the
people were pale with miserable toil and deadly shade, and where the
lips of youth, instead of being full with blood, were pinched by famine,
or warped with poison. And now, therefore, note this well, the gist of
all these long prefatory talks. I said that the two great moral
instincts were those of Order and Kindness. Now, all the arts are
founded on agriculture by the hand, and on the graces, and kindness of
feeding, and dressing, and lodging your people. Greek art begins in the
gardens of Alcinous--perfect order, leeks in beds, and fountains in
pipes. And Christian art, as it arose out of chivalry, was only possible
so far as chivalry compelled both kings and knights to care for the
right personal training of their people; it perished utterly when those
kings and knights became +dêmoboroi+, devourers of the people.
And it will become possible again only, when, literally, the sword is
beaten into the ploughshare, when your St. George of England shall
justify his name, and Christian art shall be known as its Master was, in
breaking of bread.
117. Now look at the working out of this broad principle in minor
detail; observe how, from highest to lowest, health of art has first
depended on reference to industrial use. There is first the need of cup
and platter, especially of cup; for you can put your meat on the
Harpies',[10] or on any other, tables; but you must have your cup to
drink from. And to hold it conveniently, you must put a handle to it;
and to fill it when it is empty you must have a large pitcher of some
sort; and to carry the pitcher you may most advisably have two handles.
Modify the forms of these needful possessions according to the various
requirements of drinking largely and drinking delicately; of pouring
easily out, or of keeping for years the perfume in; of storing in
cellars, or bearing from fountains; of sacrificial libation, of
Panathenaic treasure of oil, and sepulchral treasure of ashes,--and you
have a resultant series of beautiful form and decoration, from the rude
amphora of red earth up to Cellini's vases of gems and crystal, in which
series, but especially in the more simple conditions of it, are
developed the most beautiful lines and most perfect types of severe
composition which have yet been attained by art.
[Footnote 10: Virg., _Æn._, iii. 209 _seqq._]
118. But again, that you may fill your cup with pure water, you must go
to the well or spring; you need a fence round the well; you need some
tube or trough, or other means of confining the stream at the spring.
For the conveyance of the current to any distance you must build either
enclosed or open aqueduct; and in the hot square of the city where you
set it free, you find it good for health and pleasantness to let it leap
into a fountain. On these several needs you have a school of sculpture
founded; in the decoration of the walls of wells in level countries, and
of the sources of springs in mountainous ones, and chiefly of all, where
the women of household or market meet at the city fountain.
There is, however, a farther reason for the use of art here than in any
other material service, so far as we may, by art, express our reverence
or thankfulness. Whenever a nation is in its right mind, it always has a
deep sense of divinity in the gift of rain from heaven, filling its
heart with food and gladness; and all the more when that gift becomes
gentle and perennial in the flowing of springs. It literally is not
possible that any fruitful power of the Muses should be put forth upon a
people which disdains their Helicon; still less is it possible that any
Christian nation should grow up "tanquam lignum quod plantatum est secus
decursus aquarum," which cannot recognise the lesson meant in their
being told of the places where Rebekah was met;--where Rachel,--where
Zipporah,--and she who was asked for water under Mount Grerizim by a
Stranger, weary, who had nothing to draw with.
119. And truly, when our mountain springs are set apart in vale or
craggy glen, or glade of wood green through the drought of summer, far
from cities, then it is best to let them stay in their own happy peace;
but if near towns, and liable therefore to be defiled by common usage,
we could not use the loveliest art more worthily than by sheltering the
spring and its first pools with precious marbles: nor ought anything to
be esteemed more important, as a means of healthy education, than the
care to keep the streams of it afterwards, to as great a distance as
possible, pure, full of fish, and easily accessible to children. There
used to be, thirty years ago, a little rivulet of the Wandel, about an
inch deep, which ran over the carriage-road and under a foot-bridge just
under the last chalk hill near Croydon. Alas! men came and went; and it
did _not_ go on for ever. It has long since been bricked over by the
parish authorities; but there was more education in that stream with its
minnows than you could get out of a thousand pounds spent yearly in the
parish schools, even though you were to spend every farthing of it in
teaching the nature of oxygen and hydrogen, and the names, and rate per
minute, of all the rivers in Asia and America.
120. Well, the gist of this matter lies here then. Suppose we want a
school of pottery again in England, all we poor artists are ready to do
the best we can, to show you how pretty a line may be that is twisted
first to one side, and then to the other; and how a plain household-blue
will make a pattern on white; and how ideal art may be got out of the
spaniel's colours of black and tan. But I tell you beforehand, all that
we can do will be utterly useless, unless you teach your peasant to say
grace, not only before meat, but before drink; and having provided him
with Greek cups and platters, provide him also with something that is
not poisoned to put into them.
121. There cannot be any need that I should trace for you the conditions
of art that are directly founded on serviceableness of dress, and of
armour; but it is my duty to affirm to you, in the most positive manner,
that after recovering, for the poor, wholesomeness of food, your next
step towards founding schools of art in England must be in recovering,
for the poor, decency and wholesomeness of dress; thoroughly good in
substance, fitted for their daily work, becoming to their rank in life,
and worn with order and dignity. And this order and dignity must be
taught them by the women of the upper and middle classes, whose minds
can be in nothing right, as long as they are so wrong in this matter as
to endure the squalor of the poor, while they themselves dress gaily.
And on the proper pride and comfort of both poor and rich in dress, must
be founded the true arts of dress; carried on by masters of manufacture
no less careful of the perfectness and beauty of their tissues, and of
all that in substance and design can be bestowed upon them, than ever
the armourers of Milan and Damascus were careful of their steel.
122. Then, in the third place, having recovered some wholesome habits of
life as to food and dress, we must recover them as to lodging. I said
just now that the best architecture was but a glorified roof. Think of
it. The dome of the Vatican, the porches of Rheims or Chartres, the
vaults and arches of their aisles, the canopy of the tomb, and the spire
of the belfry, are all forms resulting from the mere requirement that a
certain space shall be strongly covered from heat and rain. More than
that--as I have tried all through "The Stories of Venice" to show,--the
lovely forms of these were every one of them developed in civil and
domestic building, and only after their invention, employed
ecclesiastically on the grandest scale. I think you cannot but have
noticed here in Oxford, as elsewhere, that our modern architects never
seem to know what to do with their roofs. Be assured, until the roofs
are right, nothing else will be; and there are just two ways of keeping
them right. Never build them of iron, but only of wood or stone; and
secondly, take care that in every town the little roofs are built before
the large ones, and that everybody who wants one has got one. And we
must try also to make everybody want one. That is to say, at some not
very advanced period of life, men should desire to have a home, which
they do not wish to quit any more, suited to their habits of life, and
likely to be more and more suitable to them until their death. And men
must desire to have these their dwelling-places built as strongly as
possible, and furnished and decorated daintily, and set in pleasant
places, in bright light, and good air, being able to choose for
themselves that at least as well as swallows. And when the houses are
grouped together in cities, men must have so much civic fellowship as to
subject their architecture to a common law, and so much civic pride as
to desire that the whole gathered group of human dwellings should be a
lovely thing, not a frightful one, on the face of the earth. Not many
weeks ago an English clergyman,[11] a master of this University, a man
not given to sentiment, but of middle age, and great practical sense,
told me, by accident, and wholly without reference to the subject now
before us, that he never could enter London from his country parsonage
but with closed eyes, lest the sight of the blocks of houses which the
railroad intersected in the suburbs should unfit him, by the horror of
it, for his day's work.
[Footnote 11: Osborne Gordon.]
123. Now, it is not possible--and I repeat to you, only in more
deliberate assertion, what I wrote just twenty-two years ago in the last
chapter of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture"--it is not possible to have
any right morality, happiness, or art, in any country where the cities
are thus built, or thus, let me rather say, clotted and coagulated;
spots of a dreadful mildew, spreading by patches and blotches over the
country they consume. You must have lovely cities, crystallised, not
coagulated, into form; limited in size, and not casting out the scum and
scurf of them into an encircling eruption of shame, but girded each with
its sacred pomoerium, and with garlands of gardens full of blossoming
trees and softly guided streams.