A lecture delivered in America during Wilde’s tour in 1882. It was
announced as a lecture on ‘The Practical Application of the Principles of
Æsthetic Theory to Exterior and Interior House Decoration, With
Observations upon Dress and Personal Ornaments.’ The earliest date on
which it is known to have been given is May 11, 1882.
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
interviewer. I came across the small iron stove which they always
persist in decorating with machine-made ornaments, and which is as great
a bore as a wet day or any other particularly dreadful institution. When
unusual extravagance was indulged in, it was garnished with two funeral
urns.
It must always be remembered that what is well and carefully made by an
honest workman, after a rational design, increases in beauty and value as
the years go on. The old furniture brought over by the Pilgrims, two
hundred years ago, which I saw in New England, is just as good and as
beautiful to-day as it was when it first came here. Now, what you must
do is to bring artists and handicraftsmen together. Handicraftsmen
cannot live, certainly cannot thrive, without such companionship.
Separate these two and you rob art of all spiritual motive.
Having done this, you must place your workman in the midst of beautiful
surroundings. The artist is not dependent on the visible and the
tangible. He has his visions and his dreams to feed on. But the workman
must see lovely forms as he goes to his work in the morning and returns
at eventide. And, in connection with this, I want to assure you that
noble and beautiful designs are never the result of idle fancy or
purposeless day-dreaming. They come only as the accumulation of habits
of long and delightful observation. And yet such things may not be
taught. Right ideas concerning them can certainly be obtained only by
those who have been accustomed to rooms that are beautiful and colours
that are satisfying.
Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to do is to choose a
notable and joyous dress for men. There would be more joy in life if we
were to accustom ourselves to use all the beautiful colours we can in
fashioning our own clothes. The dress of the future, I think, will use
drapery to a great extent and will abound with joyous colour. At present
we have lost all nobility of dress and, in doing so, have almost
annihilated the modern sculptor. And, in looking around at the figures
which adorn our parks, one could almost wish that we had completely
killed the noble art. To see the frock-coat of the drawing-room done in
bronze, or the double waistcoat perpetuated in marble, adds a new horror
to death. But indeed, in looking through the history of costume, seeking
an answer to the questions we have propounded, there is little that is
either beautiful or appropriate. One of the earliest forms is the Greek
drapery which is exquisite for young girls. And then, I think we may be
pardoned a little enthusiasm over the dress of the time of Charles I., so
beautiful indeed, that in spite of its invention being with the Cavaliers
it was copied by the Puritans. And the dress for the children of that
time must not be passed over. It was a very golden age of the little
ones. I do not think that they have ever looked so lovely as they do in
the pictures of that time. The dress of the last century in England is
also peculiarly gracious and graceful. There is nothing bizarre or
strange about it, but it is full of harmony and beauty. In these days,
when we have suffered dreadfully from the incursions of the modern
milliner, we hear ladies boast that they do not wear a dress more than
once. In the old days, when the dresses were decorated with beautiful
designs and worked with exquisite embroidery, ladies rather took a pride
in bringing out the garment and wearing it many times and handing it down
to their daughters—a process that would, I think, be quite appreciated by
a modern husband when called upon to settle his wife’s bills.
And how shall men dress? Men say that they do not particularly care how
they dress, and that it is little matter. I am bound to reply that I do
not think that you do. In all my journeys through the country, the only
well-dressed men that I saw—and in saying this I earnestly deprecate the
polished indignation of your Fifth Avenue dandies—were the Western
miners. Their wide-brimmed hats, which shaded their faces from the sun
and protected them from the rain, and the cloak, which is by far the most
beautiful piece of drapery ever invented, may well be dwelt on with
admiration. Their high boots, too, were sensible and practical. They
wore only what was comfortable, and therefore beautiful. As I looked at
them I could not help thinking with regret of the time when these
picturesque miners would have made their fortunes and would go East to
assume again all the abominations of modern fashionable attire. Indeed,
so concerned was I that I made some of them promise that when they again
appeared in the more crowded scenes of Eastern civilisation they would
still continue to wear their lovely costume. But I do not believe they
will.
Now, what America wants to-day is a school of rational art. Bad art is a
great deal worse than no art at all. You must show your workmen
specimens of good work so that they come to know what is simple and true
and beautiful. To that end I would have you have a museum attached to
these schools—not one of those dreadful modern institutions where there
is a stuffed and very dusty giraffe, and a case or two of fossils, but a
place where there are gathered examples of art decoration from various
periods and countries. Such a place is the South Kensington Museum in
London, whereon we build greater hopes for the future than on any other
one thing. There I go every Saturday night, when the museum is open
later than usual, to see the handicraftsman, the wood-worker, the
glass-blower and the worker in metals. And it is here that the man of
refinement and culture comes face to face with the workman who ministers
to his joy. He comes to know more of the nobility of the workman, and
the workman, feeling the appreciation, comes to know more of the nobility
of his work.
You have too many white walls. More colour is wanted. You should have
such men as Whistler among you to teach you the beauty and joy of colour.
Take Mr. Whistler’s ‘Symphony in White,’ which you no doubt have imagined
to be something quite bizarre. It is nothing of the sort. Think of a
cool grey sky flecked here and there with white clouds, a grey ocean and
three wonderfully beautiful figures robed in white, leaning over the
water and dropping white flowers from their fingers. Here is no
extensive intellectual scheme to trouble you, and no metaphysics of which
we have had quite enough in art. But if the simple and unaided colour
strike the right key-note, the whole conception is made clear. I regard
Mr. Whistler’s famous Peacock Room as the finest thing in colour and art
decoration which the world has known since Correggio painted that
wonderful room in Italy where the little children are dancing on the
walls. Mr. Whistler finished another room just before I came away—a
breakfast room in blue and yellow. The ceiling was a light blue, the
cabinet-work and the furniture were of a yellow wood, the curtains at the
windows were white and worked in yellow, and when the table was set for
breakfast with dainty blue china nothing can be conceived at once so
simple and so joyous.
The fault which I have observed in most of your rooms is that there is
apparent no definite scheme of colour. Everything is not attuned to a
key-note as it should be. The apartments are crowded with pretty things
which have no relation to one another. Again, your artists must decorate
what is more simply useful. In your art schools I found no attempt to
decorate such things as the vessels for water. I know of nothing uglier
than the ordinary jug or pitcher. A museum could be filled with the
different kinds of water vessels which are used in hot countries. Yet we
continue to submit to the depressing jug with the handle all on one side.
I do not see the wisdom of decorating dinner-plates with sunsets and
soup-plates with moonlight scenes. I do not think it adds anything to
the pleasure of the canvas-back duck to take it out of such glories.
Besides, we do not want a soup-plate whose bottom seems to vanish in the
distance. One feels neither safe nor comfortable under such conditions.
In fact, I did not find in the art schools of the country that the
difference was explained between decorative and imaginative art.
The conditions of art should be simple. A great deal more depends upon
the heart than upon the head. Appreciation of art is not secured by any
elaborate scheme of learning. Art requires a good healthy atmosphere.
The motives for art are still around about us as they were round about
the ancients. And the subjects are also easily found by the earnest
sculptor and the painter. Nothing is more picturesque and graceful than
a man at work. The artist who goes to the children’s playground, watches
them at their sport and sees the boy stoop to tie his shoe, will find the
same themes that engaged the attention of the ancient Greeks, and such
observation and the illustrations which follow will do much to correct
that foolish impression that mental and physical beauty are always
divorced.
To you, more than perhaps to any other country, has Nature been generous
in furnishing material for art workers to work in. You have marble
quarries where the stone is more beautiful in colour than any the Greeks
ever had for their beautiful work, and yet day after day I am confronted
with the great building of some stupid man who has used the beautiful
material as if it were not precious almost beyond speech. Marble should
not be used save by noble workmen. There is nothing which gave me a
greater sense of barrenness in travelling through the country than the
entire absence of wood carving on your houses. Wood carving is the
simplest of the decorative arts. In Switzerland the little barefooted
boy beautifies the porch of his father’s house with examples of skill in
this direction. Why should not American boys do a great deal more and
better than Swiss boys?
There is nothing to my mind more coarse in conception and more vulgar in
execution than modern jewellery. This is something that can easily be
corrected. Something better should be made out of the beautiful gold
which is stored up in your mountain hollows and strewn along your river
beds. When I was at Leadville and reflected that all the shining silver
that I saw coming from the mines would be made into ugly dollars, it made
me sad. It should be made into something more permanent. The golden
gates at Florence are as beautiful to-day as when Michael Angelo saw
them.
We should see more of the workman than we do. We should not be content
to have the salesman stand between us—the salesman who knows nothing of
what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.
And watching the workman will teach that most important lesson—the
nobility of all rational workmanship.
I said in my last lecture that art would create a new brotherhood among
men by furnishing a universal language. I said that under its beneficent
influences war might pass away. Thinking this, what place can I ascribe
to art in our education? If children grow up among all fair and lovely
things, they will grow to love beauty and detest ugliness before they
know the reason why. If you go into a house where everything is coarse,
you find things chipped and broken and unsightly. Nobody exercises any
care. If everything is dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of
manner are unconsciously acquired. When I was in San Francisco I used to
visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a great
hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every
day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal
of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands
of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I
have been given my coffee or my chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter
thick. I think I have deserved something nicer.
The art systems of the past have been devised by philosophers who looked
upon human beings as obstructions. They have tried to educate boys’
minds before they had any. How much better it would be in these early
years to teach children to use their hands in the rational service of
mankind. I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour
a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a
golden hour to the children. And you would soon raise up a race of
handicraftsmen who would transform the face of your country. I have seen
only one such school in the United States, and this was in Philadelphia
and was founded by my friend Mr. Leyland. I stopped there yesterday and
have brought some of the work here this afternoon to show you. Here are
two disks of beaten brass: the designs on them are beautiful, the
workmanship is simple, and the entire result is satisfactory. The work
was done by a little boy twelve years old. This is a wooden bowl
decorated by a little girl of thirteen. The design is lovely and the
colouring delicate and pretty. Here you see a piece of beautiful wood
carving accomplished by a little boy of nine. In such work as this,
children learn sincerity in art. They learn to abhor the liar in art—the
man who paints wood to look like iron, or iron to look like stone. It is
a practical school of morals. No better way is there to learn to love
Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field.
And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing
becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the
customary stone. What we want is something spiritual added to life.
Nothing is so ignoble that Art cannot sanctify it.