ART AND ITS PRODUCERS, and THE 
 ARTS & CRAFTS OF TODAY: TWO 
 ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE 
 THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR 
 THE ADVANCEMENT OF ART BY 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
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ART AND ITS PRODUCERS, and THE 
 ARTS & CRAFTS OF TODAY: TWO 
 ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE 
 THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR 
 THE ADVANCEMENT OF ART BY 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
ART AND ITS PRODUCERS. A LEO 
 TURE DELIVERED IN LIVERPOOL 
 IN 1888. BY WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 I fear what I have to tell you will be looked upon 
 by you as an often^told tale; but it seems to me 
 that at the inception of an enterprise for the popu^ 
 larisingand furtherance of the arts of life, the sub^ 
 ject^matter of my paper is very necessary to be 
 considered* I will begin by putting before you a 
 kind of text, from which I will speak, so that you 
 may understand from the first the drift of my 
 paper; a plan which, I hope, will save both your 
 time and mine* 
 
 Whereas the incentive to labour is usually as^ 
 sumed to be thenecessityof earning a livelihood, 
 and whereas in our modern society this is really 
 the only incentive amongst those of the workings 
 class who produce wares of which some form of 
 art is supposed to form a part, it is impossible that 
 men working in this manner should produce 
 genuine works of art. Therefore it is desirable 
 eitherthatall pretenceto artshould beabandoned 
 in the wares so made, and that art should be re^ 
 stricted to matters which have no other function 
 to perform except their existence as works of art, 
 such as pictures, sculpture, and the like; or else, 
 that to the incentive of necessity to labour should 
 be added the incentives of pleasure and interest in 
 the work itself* 
 
 That is my text, and I am quite sure that you will 
 b 1 
 
Lecture V* find it necessary to consider its subject-matter 
 Art and its very carefully if you are to dp anything save talk 
 Producers* aboutart: for which latter purpose worksof artare 
 not needed, since so many fine phrases have been 
 invented in modern times which answer all the 
 purpose of realities* 
 
 To put it in another way, the question I ask you 
 is threefold* First* shall we pretend to produce 
 architecture and the architectural arts without 
 having the reality of them ? Second* shall we give 
 them up in despair or carelessness of having the 
 reality? Or, third, shall we set ourselves to have 
 the reality ? 
 
 To adopt the first plan would show that we were 
 too careless and hurried about life to trouble our^ 
 selves whether we were fools (and very tragical 
 fools) or not* The adoption of the second would 
 ticket us as very honest people, determined to be 
 free from asmanyresponsibilitiesaspossible,even 
 at the expense of living a dull and vacant life* If 
 we adopt the third sincerely, we shall add very 
 much to the trouble and responsibility of our lives, 
 for a time at least, but also very much to their hap^ 
 piness* Therefore I am in favour of our adopting 
 this third course* 
 
 In point of fact, though I have put the second one 
 before you for the sake, I fear, of an appearance of 
 logical fairness, I do not think we are free to adopt 
 it consciously at pre sent* though we may be driven 
 to adopt it in the end* To-day I think only the two 
 2 
 
courses are open to us, of quietly acceptin g the pre^ Lecture V* 
 
 tence of an all^pervading art, which indeed per^ Art and its 
 
 vades the advertising sheets and nothing else; or Producers* 
 
 else of strugglingfor an art which shall really perx 
 
 vade our lives and make them happier* But since 
 
 this, if we are in earnest about it, will involve are^ 
 
 construction of society, let us first see what these 
 
 architectural arts really are, and whether they are 
 
 worth all this trouble; because, if they are not, we 
 
 had better go on as we are, and shut our eyes to the 
 
 fact that we are compelled to be such fools as to 
 
 pretend that we want them when we do not* 
 
 The architectural arts, therefore, if they are any 
 
 thing real, mean the addition to all necessary 
 
 articles of use of a certain portion of beauty and 
 
 interest, which the user desires to have and the 
 
 maker to make*Till within a comparatively recent 
 
 period there has been no question whetner this 
 
 beauty and interest should form a part of wares ; 
 
 it always did do so without any definite order on 
 
 thepartoftheuser,andnotnecessarily consciously 
 
 on the part of the maker; and the sham art which 
 
 I have spoken of is simply the traditional survival 
 
 of this reality; that is one reason why you cannot 
 
 clear yourselves of it in the simple and logical way 
 
 that I put before you just now as the second course 
 
 to be adopted* 
 
 But the integrity and sincerity of this architectural 
 art, which, mind you, the workman works up with 
 his wares, not only because he must (for he is not 
 
 3 
 
Lecture V* conscious of compulsion in the matter), but be/ 
 Art and its cause he likes to, though he is often not conscious 
 Producers* ofhispleasure***thisreal architectural art depends 
 on the wares of which it forms a part being pro/ 
 ducedbycraftsmanship,fortheuseofpersonswho 
 understand craftsmanship* The user, the con/ 
 sumer,must choose his wares to be so and so, and 
 the maker of them must agree with his choice* 
 The fashion of them must not be forced on either 
 the user or the maker; the two must be of one 
 mind, and be capable under easily conceivable 
 circumstances of exchanging their parts of user 
 and maker* The carpenter makes a chest for the 
 goldsmith one day, the goldsmith a cup for the 
 carpenter on another, and there is sympathy in 
 their work*** that is, the carpenter makes for his 
 goldsmith friend just such a chest as he himself 
 would have if he needed a chest; the goldsmith's 
 cup is exactly what he would make for himself 
 if he needed one* Each is ^conscious during his 
 work of making a thing to be used by a man of 
 like needs to himself* I ask you to note these state/ 
 ments carefully, for I shall have to put a contrast 
 to these conditions of work presently* Meantime 
 observe that this question of ornamental orarchi/ 
 tectural art does not mean, as perhaps most people 
 think it does, whether or not a certain amount of 
 ornament or elegance shall be plastered on to a 
 helpless, lifeless article of daily use***a house, a 
 cup, a spoon, or what not* The chest and the cup, 
 4 
 
the house, or what not, may be as simple or as rude Lecture V* 
 
 as you please, or as devoid of what is usually called Art and its 
 
 ornament; but done in the spirit I have told you Producers, 
 
 of, they will inevitably be works of art* In work so 
 
 done there is and must be the interchange of in^ 
 
 terest in the occupations of life; the knowledge of 
 
 human necessities & the consciousness of human 
 
 good' will is a part of all such work, and the world 
 
 is linked together by it* The peace of the arts 
 
 springs from its roots, and flourishes even in the 
 
 midst of war and trouble and confusion* 
 
 Nowthis is the architectural art which I urge you 
 
 to think it worth your while to struggle for in all 
 
 its reality* I firmly believe it is worth the struggle, 
 
 however burdensomethatmaybe*Thereare some 
 
 things which are worth any cost; but above them 
 
 all I value consciousness of manly life ; and the arts 
 
 form a part of this at least* 
 
 This, I say, is the theory of the conditions under 
 which genuine architectural art can be produced; 
 but that theory is founded on a view of the his^ 
 torical development of the industrial arts, and is 
 not merely built up in the air* I must, therefore, 
 now give a brief account of my historical position, 
 although it has been so often done before, that it 
 mustbefamiliartomany,ifnotmostofyou*From 
 the beginning of history down to the end of the 
 Middle Ages there has been, as I have said, no 
 question as to whether due form of art should 
 accompany all wares intended to last for any time : 
 
 5 
 
Lecture V* this character of theirs did not in itself enhance 
 Art and its their price or increase the conscious labour upon 
 Producers* them, it was part of their nature to be so, they grew 
 so like a plant grows; during all these ages wares 
 had been made wholly by craftsmanship* It is true 
 that in the ancient world the greater part of the 
 production of wares was the work of chattel slaves, 
 and though the condition of theartizan slaves was 
 very different from that of the field'hands, yet 
 their slavery has fixed its mark clearly enough on 
 the minor arts of the period, in their severe, or 
 literally servile subordination to the higher work 
 done by artists* When chattel slavery passed away 
 from Europe with the classical world and the 
 Middle Ages were fairly born out of the Medean 
 caldron of the confusion that followed; as soon as 
 the formation of the Guilds gavearallying^point 
 to the workmen, free and serf, of the day, those 
 workmen, the makers of wares, became free in 
 their work, whatever their political position was ; 
 and the architectural arts flourished to a degree 
 unknown before, and at least a foretaste was given 
 to the world of what the pleasure of life might be 
 in a society of equals* At this time craftsmanship 
 reached its highestpoint:theavowedobjectof the 
 Craft'Guilds, as may be gathered from the irre^ 
 fragable evidence of their rules, was to distribute 
 whatever work was to hand equitably amongst a 
 society of pure handicraftsmen (we have trans^ 
 lated the word now in order to give it a meaning 
 
exactly opposite to its original one) to check the Lecture V* 
 
 very beginnings of capitalism and competition nv Art and its 
 
 side the Guild, and at the same time to produce Producers* 
 
 wares whose test should be the actual use, the real 
 
 needs of the public of neighbours that was engaged 
 
 in work carried on in a similar spirit* This manner 
 
 of work, of producing for use & not for profit, bore 
 
 its due fruit: as a matter of course, the wares made 
 
 by the guildsmen of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 
 centuries have mostly perished ; even the most en^ 
 
 during of them, the buildings of their raising, have 
 
 been either destroyed or degraded by the ignorance 
 
 and intolerance, the frivolity and the pedantry of 
 
 succeedingages;butwhatisleftus,mostly by sheer 
 
 accident, is enough to teach us the lesson that no 
 
 cultivation, no share in the science which has in 
 
 these days subdued nature, as long as it is exterior 
 
 to the workinglife of the workman, can supply the 
 
 place of freedom of hand and thought during his 
 
 working hours, and interest in the welfare of his 
 
 work itself; & further, that the collective geniusof 
 
 apeopleworkinginfreebutharmoniousco/opera^ 
 
 tion is far more powerful for the production of 
 
 architectural art than the spasmodic efforts of the 
 
 greatest individual genius; because with the form/' 
 
 er the expression of life and pleasure is unforced 
 
 and habitual, and directly connected with the 
 
 traditions of the past, and consequently is as un/ 
 
 failing as the work of Nature herself* 
 
 But this society of workmen, this crown of labour 
 
 7 
 
Lecture V* of the Middle Ages, was doomed to a short life. 
 Art and its Its tendency to equality was so completely extin/ 
 Producers, guished by the development of the political ele/ 
 ment in which it lived, that the existence of it has 
 been scarcely suspectedbeforetherise ofthe school 
 of historical criticism of our own day s/Those who, 
 perhaps unwittingly, are wont to trouble them*' 
 selves about what might have been, may consider 
 the lesser causes that seem to have led to this 
 change, and speculate on what would have hap/ 
 penedifthe Black Death had not half depopulated 
 north-western Europe; if Philip van Artavelde 
 and his bold Ghentmen had defeated the French 
 chivalry at Rosebeque, as their fathers did at 
 Courtray; if the stout yeomen of Kent and Essex, 
 gathered on 4 the Fair/field at Mile^end/had had 
 wits not quite so simple as to trust the young 
 scoundrel of a king, who had just had their leader 
 murdered under tryst, but had carried out the 
 peasants' war to its due conclusion* 
 All this is pleasant fooling, but it is little else*The 
 Guild/governed industry must in any case have 
 come to an end as soon as the general longing for 
 new knowledge, greater command over nature, 
 and greater hurry of life,had grown strong enough 
 to force on the next development of productive 
 labour* The Guilds were incapable of the neces/ 
 sary expansion then calledfor,and they had to dis/ 
 appear, after having contributed largely to the 
 death of the feudal hierarchy, and given birth to 
 8 
 
the middle/classes, which took its place as the Lecture V* 
 dominant force in Europe* Capitalism began to Art and its 
 grow up within the Guilds, the journeyman, the Producers* 
 so-called free4abourer, began to appear in them ; 
 and outside them, notably in this country, the land 
 of the country began to be cultivated for the profit 
 of the capitalistic farmer instead of the livelihood 
 of the peasant, and the system of production was 
 created which was needed for carrying on modern 
 society***the society of contract, instead of the 
 society of status* It was essential to this system 
 that the free^labourer should be no longer free in 
 his work ; he must be furnished with a master hav^ 
 ingcompletecontrolofthatwork,asaconsequence 
 of his owning the raw material andtools of labour; 
 and with an universal market for the sale of the 
 wares with which he had nothing to do directly, 
 & the very existence ofwhich he was unconscious 
 of* He thus gradually ceased to be a craftsman, a 
 man who in order to accomplish his work must 
 necessarily take an interest in it, since he is re^ 
 sponsiblefor making ormarringthe wares he has 
 to do with, and whose market was made up chiefly 
 of neighbours, men whose needs he could under^ 
 stand* Instead of a craftsman he must now become 
 a 'hand/ responsible for nothing but carrying out 
 the orders of his foreman* In his leisure hours an 
 intelligent citizen (perhaps), with a capacity for 
 understanding politics, or a turn for scientific 
 knowledge, or what not, but in his working hours 
 c 9 
 
Lecture V* not even a machine, but an average portion of that 
 Art and its great & almost miraculous machine ♦♦♦the factory; 
 Producers* a man, the interest of whose life is divorced from 
 the subject-matter of his labour, whose work has 
 become 4 employment/ that is, merely the oppor/ 
 tunity of earning a livelihood at the will of some 
 one else* Whatever interest still clings to the pro/ 
 duction of wares under this system has wholly left 
 the ordinary workman, and attaches only to the 
 organisers of his labour; and that interest com/ 
 monly has little to do with the production of wares 
 as things to behandled, looked at ♦♦♦ used, in short, 
 but simply as counters in the great game of the 
 world/market* I fancy that there are not a few of 
 the 'manufacturers' in this great 'manufacturing' 
 district who would be horrified at the idea of using 
 the wares which they 'manufacture,' and if they 
 could be witnesses of the enthusiasm of the cus/ 
 tomers of the customers of their customers when 
 those wares reached their final destination of use 
 they would perhaps smile at it somewhat cynic/ 
 ally* 
 
 In this brief account I have purposely left out the 
 gradations by which we have reached the contrast 
 between the craftsman of the Middle Ages & the 
 free workman of to/day ; between the productions 
 of wares for direct use and their production as ex/ 
 change wares for the world^market* I want to lay 
 before you the contrast as clearly as possible; but 
 that I may meet objections, I ought to say that I 
 to 
 
am well aware that the process of transformation Lecture V* 
 
 was gradual ; that the new free labourer did not at Art and its 
 
 first have to change his manner of work much; Producers, 
 
 that the system of division of labour was brought 
 
 to bear on him in the seventeenth century and was 
 
 perfected in the eighteenth, & that, as that system 
 
 drew near to perfection, the invention of automat 
 
 tic machinery changed theworkman's relation to 
 
 his work once more, and turned him, in the great 
 
 staple industries, into the tender of a machine in' 
 
 stead of a machine (which I think was to him an 
 
 advantage); but, on the other hand, brought al' 
 
 mostallthesurvivinghandicraftsthathad hither^ 
 
 to escaped, under the sway of the system of divi^ 
 
 sion of labour, & thus for the time being abolished 
 
 craftsmanship among the wage^earning classes* 
 
 Craftsmanship is now all but extinct, except a^ 
 
 mong theprofessional classes, who claim the posi^ 
 
 tion of gentlemen* 
 
 If we are in earnest in wishing to make the archie 
 tectural or decorative arts a reality, we must face 
 these facts as they regard the workman in the first 
 place* But in order to be clear as to what the posi/ 
 tion of the workman, the producer of such wares, 
 really is, we must also consider that of the consume 
 er of them* For it will perhaps be said, if you desire 
 the production of these wares, there is nothing 
 necessary but to create a demand for them, and 
 then they will come naturally, & once more trans^ 
 form the workman into a craftsman* Now, granted 
 
 U 
 
Lecture V* that such demand is genuine, & also wide enough, 
 Art and its that is quite true; but then comes the question 
 Producers* whether this genuine and wide demand can be 
 created; and if it can be, how it is to be done? 
 Now, as the present system of production has 
 transformed the handicraftsman into a machine 
 without will, so it has turned the neighbour pur^ 
 chaser with good marketing faculties into a slave 
 of the worfcUmarket***a purse* The motto of the 
 modern commercialist being, not the market for 
 man, but man for the market: the market is the 
 master, the man the slave, which to my mind, is 
 reversing the reasonable order of things* Letus see 
 if that is not so* In the present day the great prob^ 
 lem which we have to face is the due employment 
 ofhumanlabour;ifwefailinemployingitinsome 
 fashion, it will eat us up to begin with, whatever 
 it does afterwards; if we fail to employ it duly we 
 must at least expect to have nothing but a corrupt 
 and degraded society; and for my part I wish we 
 could turn our thoughts to employinglabourduly, 
 instead of employing it anyhow* But at any rate 
 we are all practically driven to recognise the fact 
 that, except for a few hundred thousands, who for 
 any thing we can do must starve or goto the work' 
 house, we must look to the employment of labour 
 power, that is, men* Now, I have said just now, 
 and repeat it again with all the emphasis that I can, 
 that the proper employers (or say customers) of 
 the working men are the working men: and if they 
 
 12 
 
had no other customers, I should have perfect Lecture V* 
 
 confidence that in the long run they would be Art and its 
 
 employed in making nothing but useful things; Producers* 
 
 among which, of course, I include works of art of 
 
 various kinds : but as they have other customers, 
 
 I have not that confidence, for I see, no one can fail 
 
 to see,thatthey are employed in producing a great 
 
 deal that is not useful, although it is marketable* 
 
 They themselves are not as good customers to 
 
 themselves as they should be, because they are not 
 
 wealthy enough; all the wares which they con/ 
 
 sume must be of inferior quality for one thing, let 
 
 alone their quantity; therefore their custom must 
 
 be supplemented by that of the well/to/do and the 
 
 rich classes, and these we will suppose are all of 
 
 them wealthy enough to satisfy their needs for 
 
 really desirablethings,and they do so: other things 
 
 the reasonableamongthem would notdemand, if 
 
 they could help themselves ; but from what I can 
 
 see round about me, I judge that they cannot help 
 
 themselves* It seems that the market for gambling 
 
 in profits is too exacting, or the need for the em/ 
 
 ployment of labour is too pressing to allow them 
 
 to purchase and consume only what they need; 
 
 they must, in additi on,purchase & consume many 
 
 things which they do not need ; habits of pomp and 
 
 luxury must be formed amongst them, so that the 
 
 market which would be starved by the misery of 
 
 thepoor,maybekeptbusywithministeringtothe 
 
 luxury of the rich* And you must understand that 
 
 13 
 
Lecture V* I mean here to assert that though all wares made 
 Art and its must be consumed, nevertheless that consump/ 
 Producers* tion does not prove their use: theymaybeused,or 
 they may be wasted, and if they are not needed, 
 they cannot be used and must be wasted* 
 Here, then, in considering the possibility of the 
 widespread and genuine demand for architectural 
 art, we are met at the outset by this difficulty, that 
 the workmen, who must be the producers of the 
 art,are largely, I will say mostly,employed in wast' 
 ing their labour in two ways i on the one hand, in 
 making inferior wares, which their inferior posi^ 
 tion forces them to demand, and for which there 
 ought to be no demand; and on the other, in mak^ 
 ing wares, not for the use, but for the waste of the 
 rich classes, for which, again, there ought to be no 
 demand* And these two haplessly false demands 
 are forced on to both these classes, because they are 
 forced into the position which so forces them* The 
 world'market, which should be our servant, is our 
 master, and ordains that so it must be*;The wide 
 and genuine demand, therefore, for the architects 
 ural arts which we have seen can only be produced 
 by the handicraftsman, cannot be created under 
 the present system of production, which, indeed, 
 could not go on if the greater part of its wares were 
 the work of handicraft* 
 
 We are driven at last, then, to this conclusion ; that 
 pleasure and interest in the work itself are necesx 
 sary to the production of a work of art however 
 14 
 
humble; that this pleasure and interest can only Lecture V* 
 
 be present when the workman is free in his work, Art and its 
 
 i.e., is conscious of producing a piece of goods Producers* 
 
 suitable to his own needs as a healthy man ; that 
 
 the present system of industrial production does 
 
 not allow of the existence of such free workmen 
 
 consciously producing wares for themselves and 
 
 their neighbours, and forbids the general public to 
 
 ask for wares made by such men; that, therefore, 
 
 since neither the producers nor the users of wares 
 
 are free to make or ask for wares according to their 
 
 wills, we cannot under our present system of pro/ 
 
 duction have the reality of the architectural arts 
 
 which I have been urging you to strive for, but 
 
 must put up with pretending to have them ; which 
 
 seems to me a rather sorry proceeding* 
 
 Wliat can we do, then, in order to shake off this 
 
 disgrace ; in order that we maybe free to say either 
 
 that we want the ornaments of life, and no make/ 
 
 shifts of them shall content us ; or that we do not 
 
 want them, and will not have them ? 
 
 If my premises are accepted thepractical position 
 
 is clear; we must try to change the system of the 
 
 production of wares* To meet possible objections 
 
 once more, I do not mean by this that we should 
 
 aim at abolishing all machinery: I would do some 
 
 things by machinery which are now done by hand, 
 
 and other things by hand which are now done by 
 
 machinery: in short, we should be the masters of 
 
 our machines and not their slaves, as we are now* 
 
 *5 
 
Lecture V* Itis not this or that tangible steel&brass machine 
 Artand its whichwewanttogetridfaf,butthegreatintangible 
 Producers* machine of commercial tyranny, which oppresses 
 the lives of all of us* Now, this enterprise of re/ 
 belling against commercialism I hold to be a 
 thoroughly worthy one : remember what my text 
 was, and how I said that our aim should be to add 
 to the incentive of necessity for working, the in/ 
 centive of pleasure and interest in the work itself* 
 I am not pleading for the production of a little more 
 beauty in the world, much as I love it, and much 
 as I would sacrifice for its sake; it is the lives of 
 human beings that I am pleading for; or if you will, 
 with the Roman poet, the reasons for living* In 
 this assembly there areperhaps only afew who can 
 realise the meaning of the daily drudgery, hope/ 
 less of any result except the continuance of a life 
 of drudgery, which is the lot of all but a few in our 
 civilisation ; for indeed it is only possible to be 
 realised by experience or strong imagination; but 
 do your best to realise it, & then further to realise 
 the result of turning those daily hours of hopeless 
 toil into days of pleasant work, the happy exercise 
 of manly energies, illuminated by the certainty of 
 usefulness & the hope of applause from the friends 
 and neighbours for whom it is exercised* Surely 
 when you have thought of this seriously you will 
 once more have to admit that the attainment of 
 such a change is worth almost any sacrifice* I say 
 again, as I have often said, that if the world cannot 
 16 
 
hope to be happy in its work it must relinquish Lecture V* 
 
 the hope of happiness altogether* Art and its 
 
 Again, the aim of those who look on the popular Producers* 
 
 arts seriously is, that we should be masters of our 
 
 work, and be able to say what we will have and 
 
 what we will do; and the price which we must pay 
 
 for the attainment of that aim is, to speak quite 
 
 plainly, the recasting of society* For that mechan/ 
 
 ical and tyrannous system of production which I 
 
 have condemned is so intimately interwoven with 
 
 the society of which we all form a part, that it some/ 
 
 times shows as its cause, & sometimes as its effect, 
 
 and is in any case a necessity to it; you cannot 
 
 abolish the slums of our great cities ; you cannot 
 
 havehappyvillagerslivinginprettyhousesamong 
 
 the trees, doing pretty/looking work in their own 
 
 housesorinthepleasantvillage workshop between 
 
 seed-time & harvest, unless you remove the causes 
 
 that have made the brutal slum/dweller and the 
 
 starvelingfield labourer* All essential conditions of 
 
 society, the growth of ages as they are, must bring 
 
 about certain consequences which cannot be dealt 
 
 with by mere palliation* The essentials of ancient 
 
 society involved the chattel slave, those of mediae/ 
 
 val society the serf, those of modern society the 
 
 irresponsible wage/worker under a master; and 
 
 the latter cannot by efforts from without be set to 
 
 do work which does not belong to his condition 
 
 of dependency on a master; the craftsman is re/ 
 
 sponsible for his work, and a dependent cannot be 
 
 4 *7 
 
Lecture V* responsible for anything save the fulfilment of the 
 Art and its task set him by his master* 
 
 Producers* But lest you may think I show no course for you 
 to take except striving, as I do, towards the con/ 
 scious reconstruction of society on a basis of equals 
 ity* I will say a word or two on work which may lie 
 ready to our hands as artists rather than as citizens* 
 There is a small body of men who are independent 
 in their work* who are called by the name I have 
 just used ♦♦* artists: as a separate group they are the 
 result of the commercial system which could not 
 use independent workmen* and their divorce from 
 the ordinary production of wares is the obvious 
 external cause of the sickness of the architectural 
 arts* Anyhow* they exist as independent work/ 
 men* the loose screw in their position being that 
 they do not work for the whole public* but for a 
 very small portion of it* which rewards them for 
 that exclusiveness by giving them the position of 
 gentlemen*Nowit seems to methatthe only thing 
 we can do* if we will not help in the reconstruction 
 of society* is to deal with this group of gentlemen 
 workmen* The non/gentlemen workmen are be/ 
 yond our reach unless we look on the matter from 
 the wider point of view* but we can try to get the 
 artists to take an interest inthoseartsof life whose 
 production at present is wholly in the hands of the 
 irresponsible machines of the commercial sy stem, 
 and to understand that they* the artists* however 
 great they may be* ought to be taking part in this 
 18 
 
production ; while the workmen who are now ma/ Lecture V* 
 
 chinesoughttobeartists,howeverhumble*Onthe Art and its 
 
 other hand we may try to dig up whatever of re/ Producers* 
 
 sponsibility & independence lies half smothered 
 
 under the compact clay of the factory system, to 
 
 find out if there are not some persons in the em/ 
 
 ploy of the commercial organisers who are artists, 
 
 to give them opportunities if possible of working 
 
 more directly for the public, and to win for them 
 
 that applause & sympathy of their brother artists 
 
 which every good workman naturally desires*The 
 
 idea that this may and can bedone is by no means 
 
 mine alone; in putting it forward I represent not 
 
 merely a vague hope that it may be attempted, but 
 
 an actual enterprise in good working order* I have 
 
 the honour to belong toa smalland unpretentious 
 
 society, of which Mr* Crane is President, which, 
 
 under the name of the Arts and Crafts Society, 
 
 has just carried out a successful exhibition of what 
 
 are called 'the applied arts' in London, with the 
 
 definite intention of furthering the purpose I have 
 
 just stated*To some of us such work may seem very 
 
 petty and unheroic, especially if they have been 
 
 lately brought face to face with the reckless hide/ 
 
 ousness and squalor of a great manufacturing dis/ 
 
 trict; or have been so long living in the shabby hell 
 
 of the great commercial centre of the world that it 
 
 has entered into their life & they are now 'used to 
 
 it/ that is, degraded to its miserable standard : but 
 
 it is something to do at least, for it means keeping 
 
 *9 
 
Lecture V* alive the spark of life in these architectural arts 
 Art and its for a better day; which arts might otherwise be 
 Producers* wholly extinguished by commercial production, 
 a disaster which not many years ago seemed most 
 likely to happen* But I think this lesser work will 
 be so far from hinderingus, that it will rather draw 
 us on to engaging in the wider and deeper matter, 
 and doing our best towards the realisation of that 
 Society of Equals, which, as I have already said, 
 will form the only conditions under which true 
 craftsmanship can be the rule of production; that 
 form of work which involves the pleasurable exer^ 
 cise of our own energies, and the sympathy with 
 the capacities and aspirations of our neighbours, 
 that is, of humanity generally* 
 
 20 
 
THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF TODAY. 
 BEINGANADDRESS DELIVERED IN 
 EDINBURGH IN OCTOBER, 1889. BY 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 'Applied Art' is the title which the Society has 
 chosen for that portion of the arts which I have to 
 speak to you about* What are we to understand by 
 that title? I should answer that what the Society 
 means by applied art is the ornamental quality 
 which men choose to add to articles of utility Theo^ 
 retically this ornament can be done without, and 
 art would then cease to be 'applied '♦♦♦would exist 
 as a kind of abstraction, I suppose* Butthoughthis 
 ornamenttoarticlesofutilitymaybedonewithout, 
 man up to the present time has never done without 
 it, and perhaps never will; at any rate he does not 
 propose to do so at present, although, as we shall 
 see presently, he has gothimself into somewhat of 
 a mess in regard to his application of art* I s it worth 
 while for a moment or two considering why man 
 has never thought of giving up work which adds to 
 the labour necessary to provide him with foodand 
 shelter, and to satisfy his craving for some exercise 
 of his intellect? I think it is, and that suchconsid' 
 eration will help us in dealing with the important 
 question which once more I must attempt to an^ 
 swer, 'What is our position towards the applied 
 arts in the present, and what have we to hope for 
 them and from them in the future ? 9 
 Now I say without hesitation thatthe purpose of 
 
 21 
 
Lecture VL applying art toarticlesof utility is twofold: first, to 
 The Arts add beauty to the results of the work of man, which 
 and Crafts would otherwise be ugly; and secondly, to add 
 of Today* pleasure to the work itself, which would otherwise 
 be painful and disgustful* If that be the case, we 
 must cease to wonder that man should always have 
 striven to ornament the work of his own hands, 
 which he must needs see all round about him daily 
 and hourly; or that he should have always striven 
 to turn the pain of his labour into a pleasure where/' 
 ever it seemed possible to him* 
 Now as to the first purpose: I have said that the 
 produce of man's labour must be ugly if artbenot 
 applied to it, and I use the word ugly as the strong/ 
 est plain word in the English language* For the 
 works of man cannot show a mere negation of 
 beauty; when they are not beautiful they are active^ 
 ly ugly, and are thereby degrading to our manlike 
 qualities; and at last so degrading that we are not 
 sensible of our degradation, and are therefore pre/ 
 paring ourselves for the next step downward*This 
 active injury of non/artistic human work I want 
 especially to fix in your minds; so I repeat again, 
 if you dispense with applying art to articles of utiV 
 ity, you will not have unnoticeable utilities, but 
 utilities which will bear with them the same sort 
 of harm as blankets infected with the small/pox or 
 the scarlet/ fever, and every step in your material 
 life and its 'progress' will tend towards the intel/ 
 lectual death of the human race* 
 
 22 
 
Of course you will understand that in speaking of Lecture VI ♦ 
 
 the works of man, I do not forget that there are The Arts 
 
 someofhismostnecessarylabourstowhichhecan/ and Crafts 
 
 not apply art in the sense wherein we are using it; of Today* 
 
 but that only means that Nature has taken the 
 
 beautifying of them out of his hands; and inmost 
 
 of these cases the processes are beautiful in them/' 
 
 selves if our stupidity did not add grief and anxiety 
 
 to them* I mean that the course of the fishing/boat 
 
 over the waves, the ploughshare driving the fur/ 
 
 row for next year's harvest, the June swathe, the 
 
 shaving falling from the carpenter's plane, all such 
 
 things are in themselves beautiful, and the practice 
 
 of them would be delightful if man, even in these 
 
 last days of civilisation, had not been so stupid as to 
 
 declare practically that such work (without which 
 
 we should die in a few days) is the work of thralls 
 
 and starvelings, whereas the work of destruction, 
 
 strife, and confusion, is the work of the pick of the 
 
 human race ♦♦♦ gentlemen to wit* 
 
 But if these applied arts are necessary, as I believe 
 
 they are, to prevent mankind from being a mere 
 
 ugly & degraded blotch on the surface of the earth, 
 
 which without him would certainly be beautiful, 
 
 their other function of giving pleasure to labour is 
 
 at least as necessary, and, if the two functions can 
 
 be separated, even more beneficent and indispens/ 
 
 able* For if it be true, as I know it is, that the func/ 
 
 tion of art is to make labour pleasurable, what is 
 
 the position in which we must find ourselves with/ 
 
 23 
 
Lecture VI ♦ out ft? One of two miseries must happen to us: 
 The Arts either the necessary work of our lives must becar^ 
 and Crafts ried on by a miserable set of helots for the benefit 
 of Today* of a few lofty intellects ; or i f, as we ought to do, we 
 determine to spread fairly the burden of the curse 
 of labour over the whole community, yetthere the 
 burden will be, spoiling for each one of us a large 
 part of that sacred gift of life, every fragment of 
 which, if we were wise, we should treasure up and 
 make the most of (and allow others to do so) by 
 using it for the pleasurable exercise of our energies, 
 which is the only true source of happiness* 
 Let me call your attention to an analogy between 
 the function of the applied arts and a gift of nature 
 without which the world would certainly be much 
 unhappier, but which is so familiar to us that we 
 have no proper single word for it, and must use a 
 phrase; to wit, the pleasure of satisfying hunger* 
 Appetite is the single word used forit,butis clears 
 ly vague andunspecificlet us use it, however, now 
 we have agreed as to what we mean by it* 
 By the way, need I apologise for introducing so 
 gross a sub j ect as eating and drinking? Some of you 
 perhaps will think I ought to, and are lookingfor/ 
 ward to the day when this function also will be civil' 
 ised into the taking of some intensely concentrated 
 pill once a year,or indeed once in alife/time,leaving 
 us free for the restof ourtimetotheexerciseof our 
 intellect ♦*♦ if we chance to have any in those days* 
 24 
 
From this height of cultivated aspiration I respect/ Lecture VI ♦ 
 fully beg to differ, and in all seriousness, and not The Arts 
 intheleastintheworldasajoke,Isaythatthedaily and Crafts 
 meeting of the house/mates in rest and kindness of Today* 
 for this function of eating, this restoration of the 
 waste of life,oughtto belooked on as akind of sacra^ 
 ment, and should be adorned by art to the best of 
 our powers: and pray pardon me if I say that the 
 consciousness that there are so many people whose 
 lives are so sordid, miserable, and anxious, that 
 they cannot duly celebrate this sacrament, should 
 be felt by those that can, as a burden to be shaken 
 offby remedying the evil, and not by ignoring it* 
 Well now, I say,thatas eating would be dull work 
 without appetite, or the pleasure of eating, so is the 
 production of utilities dull work without art, or the 
 pleasure of production; and that it is Nature herself 
 wholeadsustodesirethispleasure,this sweetening 
 of our daily toil* I am inclined to think that in the 
 long-run mankind will find it indispensable; but 
 if that turn out to be a false prophecy, all I can say 
 is that mankind will have to find out some new 
 pleasure to take its place, or life will become unen/ 
 durable, and society impossible* Meantime it is 
 reasonable & right that men should strive to make 
 theuseful wares which they produce beautiful just 
 as Nature does;andthattheyshouldstriveto make 
 the makingof them pleasant, just as Nature makes 
 pleasant the exercise of the necessary functions of 
 e 25 
 
Lecture VL sentient beings* To apply art to useful wares, in 
 The Arts short, is not frivolity, but a part of the serious busi^ 
 and Crafts ness of life* 
 
 of Today* Now let us see in somewhat more detail what ap/ 
 plied art deals with* I take it that it is only as annate 
 ter of convenience that we separate painting and 
 sculpture from applied art: for in effect the syno^ 
 nym for applied art is architecture, and I should say 
 that painting is of little use, and sculpture of less, 
 except where their works form a part of architect 
 ture* A person with any architectural sense really 
 always looks at any picture or any piece of sculps 
 ture from this point of view; even with the most 
 abstract picture he is sure to think, How shall I 
 frame it, and where shall I put it ? As for sculpture, 
 it becomes a mere toy, a tour de force, when it is 
 not definitely a part of a building, executed for a 
 certain height from the eye, and to be seeninacer^ 
 tain light* And if this be the case with works of art 
 which can to a certain extent be abstracted from 
 their surroundings,it is, of course, the case a fortiori 
 with more subsidiary matters* In short, the com/ 
 plete work of applied art, the true unit of the art, is a 
 building with all its due ornament and furniture; 
 and I must say from experience that it is impossi^ 
 ble to ornament duly an ugly or basebuilding* And 
 on the other hand I am forced to say that the gloria 
 ous art of good building is in itself so satisfying, 
 that I have seen many abuildingthat needed little 
 ornament, wherein all that seemed needed for its 
 26 
 
complete enjoyment was some signs of sympa/ Lecture VI ♦ 
 
 thetic and happy use by human beings: a stout ta/ The Arts 
 
 ble, a few old-fashioned chairs, a pot of flowers will and Crafts 
 
 ornament the parlour of an old English yeoman's of Today* 
 
 house far better than a wagon load of Rubens will 
 
 ornament a gallery in Blenheim Park* 
 
 Only remember that this forbearance, this re^ 
 
 straint in beauty, is not by any means necessarily 
 
 artless: where you come upon an old house that 
 
 looks thus satisfactory, while no conscious modern 
 
 artist has been at work there, the result is caused 
 
 by unconscious unbroken tradition : in default of 
 
 that, in will march that pestilential ugliness I told 
 
 you of before, and with its loathsome pretence and 
 
 hideous vulgarity will spoil the beauty of a Gothic 
 
 house in Somersetshire, or the romance of a peel 
 
 tower on the edge of a Scotch loch ; and to get back 
 
 any of the beauty and romance (you will never get 
 
 it all back) you will need a conscious artist of to* 
 
 day, whose chief work, however, will be putting 
 
 out the intrusive rubbish and using the whiter 
 
 washing brush freely* 
 
 Well, I repeat that the unit of the art I have to deal 
 with is the dwelling of some group of people, wcW 
 built, beautiful, suitable to its purpose, & duly or^ 
 namented and furnished, so as to express the kind 
 of life which the inmates live* Or it may be some 
 nobleand splendid publicbuilding.built tolastfor 
 ages, and it also duly ornamented so as to express 
 the life & aspirations of the citizens; in itself a great 
 
 27 
 
Lecture VL piece of history of theefFortsof the citizens to raise 
 The Arts a house worthy of their noble lives, and its mere de/ 
 and Crafts coration an epic wrought for the pleasure and edu/ 
 of Today* cation, not of the present generation only, but of 
 many generations to come* This is the true work 
 of art ♦♦♦ I was going to say of genuine civilisation, 
 but the word has been so misused that I will not 
 use it ♦♦♦the true work of art, the true masterpiece 
 ofreasonableandmanlymenconsciousofthebond 
 of true society that makes everything each man 
 does of importance to every one else* 
 This is, I say, the unit of the art, this house, this 
 church, this town/hall, built and ornamented by 
 the harmonious efforts of a free people: bynopos/ 
 sibility could one man do it, however gifted he 
 might be: even supposing the director or architect 
 of it were a great painter and a great sculptor, an 
 unfailing designer of metal work, of mosaic, of 
 woven stuffs and therest***though hemay design 
 allthesethings,hecannotexecutethem,andsome/ 
 thing of his genius must be in the other members 
 of the great body that raises the complete work: 
 millions on millions of strokes of hammer and 
 chisel, of the gouge, of the brush, of the shuttle, are 
 embodied in that work of art, and in every one of 
 them is either intelligence to help the master, or 
 stupidity to foil him hopelessly* The very masons 
 laying day by day their due taleof rubble and ash/ 
 lar may help him to fill the souls of all beholders 
 with satisfaction, or may make his paper design a 
 28 
 
folly or a nullity* They and all the workmen en/ Lecture VL 
 
 gaged in the work will bring that disaster about in The Arts 
 
 spite of the master's mighty genius,unless they are and Crafts 
 
 instinctwithintelligenttradition;unlesstheyhave of Today* 
 
 that tradition, whatever pretence of art there is in 
 
 it will be worthies s* But if they are workin g backed 
 
 byintelligenttradition»theirworkistheexpression 
 
 of their harmonious co-operation and the pleasure 
 
 which they took in it: no intelligence, even of the 
 
 lowestkind, has been crushed in it, but rather sub/ 
 
 ordinated and used, so that no one from the master 
 
 designer downwards could say, This is my work, 
 
 but every one could say truly, This is our work* 
 
 Try to conceive, if you can, the mass of pleasure 
 
 which the production of such a work of art would 
 
 give to all concerned in making it, through years 
 
 and years it maybe (for such work cannot be hur/ 
 
 ried); and when made there it is for a perennial 
 
 pleasure to the citizens, to look at, to use, to care 
 
 for, from day to day and year to year* 
 
 Is this a mere dream of an idealist? No, not at all; 
 
 such works of artwere once produced, when these 
 
 islands had but a scanty population, leading a 
 
 rough and to many (though not to me) a miserable 
 
 life, with a 'plentiful lack' of many, nay most, of 
 
 the so-called comforts of civilisation ; in some such 
 
 way have the famous buildings of the world been 
 
 raised ; but the full expression of this spirit of com/ 
 
 mon and harmonious work is given only during 
 
 the comparatively short period of the developed 
 
 2 9 
 
Lecture VL Middle Ages, the time of the completed combina^ 
 The Arts tion of the workmen in the guilds of craft* 
 and Crafts And now if you will allow me I will ask a question 
 of Today* or two* and answer them myself* 
 
 I* Do we wish to have such works of art? I must 
 answer that we here assembled certainly do, 
 though I will not answer for the general public* 
 2* Why do we wish for them ? Because (if you have 
 followed me so far) their production would give 
 pleasure to those that used them and those that 
 made them: since if such works were done* all work 
 would be beautiful and fitting for its purpose* and 
 as a result most labour would cease to be burdens 
 some* 
 
 3* Can we have them now as things go? Can the 
 present British Empire* with all its power and all 
 its intelligence* produce what the scanty* half^bar^ 
 barous* superstitious*ignorantpopulation of these 
 islands produced with no apparent effort several 
 centuries ago? No; as things go we cannot have 
 them; no conceivable combination of talent and 
 enthusiasm could produce them as things are* 
 Why? Well* you see* in the first place* we have 
 been engaged for at least one century in loading the 
 earth with huge masses of 'utilitarian' buildings* 
 which we cannot get rid of in a hurry; we must be 
 housed* and there are our houses for us; and I have 
 said you cannot ornament ugly houses* This is a 
 bad hearing for us* 
 
 But supposing we pulled these utilitarian houses 
 30 
 
down, should we build them up again much bet> Lecture VI* 
 ter?Ifearnot,inspi'teoftheconsiderableimprove^ The Arts 
 ment in taste which has taken place of late years, and Crafts 
 and ofwhich this Congress is, I hope, an indication of Today* 
 amongst others* 
 
 If the ugly utilitarian buildings abovesaid were 
 pulled down, and we set about building others in 
 their place, the new ones would assuredly be of 
 two kinds: one kind would be still utilitarian in 
 fact, though they might affect various degrees and 
 kinds of ornamental style; and they would be at 
 least as bad as those which they replaced, and in 
 some respects would be worse than a good many 
 of the older ones; would be flimsier in building, 
 more tawdry, and more vulgar than those of the 
 earlier utilitarian style* The other kind would be 
 designed by skilful architects, men endowed with 
 a sense of beauty, & educated in the history of past 
 art, and they would doubtless be far better inform 
 than the utilitarian abortions we have been speaks 
 ing of; but they would lack the spirit of the older 
 buildings of which I have spoken above* Let that 
 pass for the moment* I will recur to it presently* 
 For one thing I am sure would immediately strike 
 us in our city rebuilt at the end of the nineteenth 
 century* The great mass of the building would be 
 of the utilitarian kind, & only here and there would 
 you find an example of the refined and careful work 
 of the educated architects; the Eclectic style, if you 
 will allow me so to call it* That is all our rebuilds 
 
 3* 
 
Lecture VL ing would come to; we should be pretty much 
 The Arts where weare now, except that we should have lost 
 and Crafts some solid straightforwardly ugly buildings, and 
 of Today ♦ gained a few elegantly eccentric ones, 'not under/ 
 standed of the people/ 
 
 H o w is thi s ? Well, the answer to that question will 
 answer the 4 why' of a few sentences back* 
 The mass of our houses would be utilitarian and 
 ugly even if we set about the work of housing our/ 
 selves anew, because tradition has at last brought 
 us into the plight of being builders of base and de/ 
 grading buildings, and when we want to build 
 otherwise wemusttryto imitate work donebymen 
 whose traditions led them to build beautifully; 
 which I must say is not a very hopeful job* 
 I said just now that those few refined buildings 
 whichmightberaisedinarebuildingofourhouses, 
 orwhich,todrop hypothesis, are built pretty often 
 now, would lack, or do lack, the spirit of the me/ 
 diaeval buildings I spoke of* Surely this is obvious: 
 so far from being works of harmonious combina/ 
 tion as effortless as any artistic work can be, they 
 are, even when most successful, the result of aeon/ 
 stant conflict with all the traditions of thetime* As 
 a rule the only person connected with a work of 
 architecture who has any idea of what is wanted in 
 it is the architect himself; and atevery turn he has 
 to correct and oppose the habits of the mason, the 
 joiner, the cabinet/maker, the carver, etc*, and to 
 try to get them to imitate painfully the habits of 
 32 
 
the fourteentlvcentury workmen, and to layaside Lecture VI* 
 
 their own habits, formed not only from their own The Arts 
 
 personal daily practice, but from the inherited turn and Crafts 
 
 of mind and practice of body of more than two of Today* 
 
 centuries at least* Under all these difficulties it 
 
 would be nothing short of a miracle if those refined 
 
 buildings did not proclaim their eclecticism to all 
 
 beholdersJndeed,asitis,the ignorant stare atthem 
 
 wondering; fools of the Podsnap breed laugh at 
 
 them; harsh critics pass unkind judgments on 
 
 them* Don't let us be any of these : when all is said 
 
 they do much credit to those who have designed 
 
 them and carried them out in the teeth of such pro' 
 
 digi ous difficulties; they are often beautiful in their 
 
 own eclectic manner : they are always meant to be 
 
 so: shall we find fault with their designers for try^ 
 
 ing to make them different from the mass of Vic^ 
 
 torian architecture? If therewas to beany attempt 
 
 to make them beautiful,that difference, that eccen^ 
 
 tricity, was necessary* Let us praise their eccenx 
 
 tricity & not deride it, we whose genuine tendency 
 
 is to raise buildings which area bloton the beauti/ 
 
 ful earth, an insult to the common sense of culti^ 
 
 vated nineteenth century humanity* Allow me a 
 
 parenthesis here* When I look on a group of clean 
 
 welWed middle/class men of that queer mixedrace 
 
 that we have been in the habit of callin g the An glo/ 
 
 Saxon (whether they belong to the land on this 
 
 side of the Atlantic or the other) ; when I see these 
 
 noble creatures, tall, wide^shouldered, and well' 
 
 f 33 
 
Lecture VL knit, with their bright eyes and well moulded fea^ 
 The Arts tures, these men full of courage, capacity, and en^ 
 and Crafts ergy, I have been astounded in considering the 
 of Today* houses they have thought good enough for them, 
 and the pettiness of the occupations which they 
 have thought worthy of the exercise of their ener^ 
 gies* To see a man of those inches, for example, 
 bothering himself over theexact width of a stripe 
 in some piece of printed cloth (which has nothing 
 to do with its artistic needs) for fear it might not 
 just hit the requirements of some remote market, 
 tyrannised over by the whims of a languid Creole 
 or a fantastic negro,has given me a feeling of shame 
 for my civilised middle/class fellow/man, who is 
 regardless ofthe quality of the wares which hesells, 
 but intensely anxious about the profits to be de^ 
 rived from them* 
 
 This parenthesis, to the subject of which I shall 
 presently have to recur, leads me to note here that 
 I have been speaking chiefly about architecture, 
 because I look upon it, first as the foundation of 
 all the arts, and next as an all embracing art* All 
 the furniture and ornamentwhich goes to makeup 
 the complete unit of art, a properly ornamented 
 dwelling, is in some degree or other beset with the 
 difficulties which hamper nowadays the satisfac/ 
 tory accomplishment of goodjand beautiful builds 
 ing* The decorative painter, the mosaicist, the 
 window artist, the cabinetmaker, the paperhang/ 
 ing^maker, the potter, the weaver, all these have 
 34 
 
to fight with the traditional tendency of the epoch Lecture VI ♦ 
 in their attempt to produce beauty, rather than The Arts 
 marketable finery, to put artistic finish on their and Crafts 
 work rather than trade finish* I may, I hope, witlv of Today* 
 out being accused of egotism, say that my life for 
 the last thirty years has given me ample oppor^ 
 tunity for knowing the weariness and bitterness 
 of that struggle* 
 
 For, to recur to my parenthesis, if the captain of 
 industry (as it is the fashion to call a business man) 
 thinks not of the wares with which he has to pro^ 
 vide the world^market, but of profit to be made 
 from them, so the instrument which he employs 
 as an adjunct to his machinery, the artisan, does 
 notthink of the wares which he (and the machine) 
 produces as wares, but simply as livelihood for 
 himself* The tradition of the work which he has to 
 deal with has brought him to this, that instead of 
 satisfying his own personal conception of what 
 the wares he is concerned in making should be, he 
 has to satisfy his master's view of the marketable 
 quality of the said wares* And you must under' 
 stand that this is a necessity of the way in which 
 the workman works; to work thus means lively 
 hood for him; to work otherwise means starvation* 
 I beg you to note that this means that the realities 
 of the wares are sacrificed to commercial shams 
 of them, if that be not too strong a word* The 
 manufacturer (as we call him) cannot turn out 
 quite nothing and offer it for sale, at least in the 
 
 35 
 
Lecture VL case of articlesof utility; what hedoesdo istoturn 
 The Arts out a makeshift of the article demanded by the 
 and Crafts public, and by means of the ' sword of cheapness/ 
 of Today ♦ as it has been called, he not only can force the said 
 makeshift on the public, but can (and does) pre/ 
 vent them from getting the real thing; the real 
 thing presently ceases to be made after the make/ 
 shift has been once foisted on to the market* 
 Now we won't concern ourselves about other 
 makeshifts, however noxious to the pleasure of 
 life they may be: let those excuse them that profit 
 by them* But if you like to drink glucose beer in/ 
 steadofmaltbeer,andtoeatoleo^margarineinstead 
 of butter; if these things content you, at least ask 
 yourselves what in the name of patience you want 
 with a makeshift of art! 
 
 Indeed I began by saying that it was natural and 
 reasonable for man to ornament his mere useful 
 wares & not to be content with mere utilitarianism; 
 but of course I assumed that the ornament was 
 real, that it did not miss its mark, and become no 
 ornament* For that is what makeshift art means, 
 and that is indeed a waste of labour* 
 Try to understand what I mean: you want a ewer 
 and basin, say: you go into a shop and buy one; 
 you probably will not buy a merely white one ; you 
 will scarcely see a merely white set* Well, you look 
 at several, and one interests you about as much as 
 another: that is, not at all; and at last in mere 
 weariness you say, 'Well, that will do'; and you 
 
have your crockery with a scrawl of fernleavesand Lecture VL 
 
 convolvulus over it which is its 1 ornament/ The The Arts 
 
 said ornament gives you no pleasure, still less any and Crafts 
 
 idea; it only gives you an impression (a mighty of Today* 
 
 dull one) of bedroom* The ewer also has some 
 
 perverse stupidity about its handle which also says 
 
 bedroom, and adds respectable : and in short you 
 
 endure the said ornament* except perhaps when 
 
 you are bilious and uncomfortable in health* You 
 
 think* if you think at all* that the said ornament 
 
 has wholly missed its mark* And yet that isn't so; 
 
 that ornament* that special form which the inepti/ 
 
 tude of the fern scrawl and the idiocy of the handle 
 
 has taken* has sold so many dozen or gross more 
 
 of that toilet set than of others* and that is what it 
 
 is put there for; not to amuse you* you know it is 
 
 not art* but you don't know that it is trade finish* 
 
 exceedingly useful ♦♦♦ to everybody except its user 
 
 and its actual maker* 
 
 But does it serve no purpose except to the manu/ 
 facturer* shipper* agent* shopkeeper* etc*? Ugly, 
 inept, stupid, as it is, I cannot quite say that* For if, 
 as the saying goes,hypocrisyisthehomagewhich 
 vice pays to virtue, so this degraded piece of trade 
 finish is the homage which commerce pays to art* 
 It is a token that art was once applied to ornaments 
 ing utilities, for the pleasure of their makers and 
 their users* 
 
 Now we have seen that this applied art is worth 
 cultivating, and indeed that we are here to cultivate 
 
 37 
 
Lecture VL it; but it is clear that, under the conditions above 
 The Arts spoken of, its cultivation will be at least difficult* 
 and Crafts For the present conditions of life in which the ap/ 
 of Today* plication of art to utilities is made imply that a very 
 serious change has taken place since those works of 
 cooperative art were produced in the Middle Ages, 
 which few people I think sufficiently estimate* 
 Briefly speaking, this change amounts to this, that 
 Tradition has transferred itself from art to com/ 
 merce***that commerce which has now embraced 
 the old occupation of war, as well as the production 
 of wares* But the end proposed by commerce is the 
 creation of a market/demand, and the satisfaction 
 of it when created for the sake of the production of 
 individual profits : whereas the end proposed by 
 art applied to utilities, that is, the production of 
 the days before commerce, was the satisfaction of 
 the genuine spontaneous needs of the public, and 
 the earning of individual livelihood by the pro/ 
 ducers* I begyou to consider these two ideas of pro/ 
 duction,and you will then see how wideapartthey 
 are from one another* To the commercial producer 
 the actual wares are nothing; their adventures in 
 the market are everything* To the artistthe wares 
 are everything; his market he need not trouble him/ 
 self about; for he is asked by other artists to do what 
 he does do, what his capacity urges him to do* 
 The ethics of the commercial person (squaring 
 themselves of course to his necessities) bid him 
 give as little as he can to the publi c,and take as much 
 
ashepossibly can fr om them: the ethics of the artist Lecture VL 
 
 bid him put as much of himself as he can in every The Arts 
 
 piece of goods he makes* The commercial person, and Crafts 
 
 therefore,is in this position, thathe is dealing with of Today* 
 
 a public of enemies ; the artist, on the contrary, 
 
 with a public of friends and neighbours* 
 
 Again, it is clear that the commercial person must 
 
 chiefly confine his energies to the war which he is 
 
 waging; the wares that he deals in must be made 
 
 by instruments ; as far as possible by means of hv 
 
 struments without desires or passions, by auto^ 
 
 matic machines, as we call them* Where that is not 
 
 possible, and he has to use highly^drilled human 
 
 beings instead of machines, it is essential to his sue 
 
 cess that they should imitate the passionless qual^ 
 
 ity of machines as long as they are at work; what' 
 
 ever of human feeling may be irrepressible will 
 
 be looked upon by the commercial person as he 
 
 looks upon grit or friction in his non/human ma/ 
 
 chines, as a nuisance to be abated* Need I say that 
 
 from these human machines it is futile to look for 
 
 art? Whatever feelings they may have for art they 
 
 must keep for their leisure* ♦♦ that i s,for the very few 
 
 hours in the week when they are tryingto rest after 
 
 labour and are not asleep ; or for the hapless days 
 
 when they are out of employment and are in des^ 
 
 perate anxiety about their livelihood* 
 
 Ofthesemen, I say, you cannot hope that they can 
 
 live by applying art to utilities: they can only apply 
 
 the sham of it for commercial purposes; and I may 
 
 39 
 
Lecture VI* say inparenthesis,that from experience I can guess 
 The Arts what a prodigious amount of talent is thus wasted* 
 and Crafts For therestyou may consider, and workmen may 
 of Today* consider, this statement of mine to be somewhat 
 brutal: I can only reply both to you and to them, 
 that it is a truth which it is necessary to face* It is 
 one side of the disabilities of the working class, and 
 I invite them to consider it seriously* 
 Therefore (as I said last year at Liverpool), I must 
 turn from the great body of men who are producing 
 utilities, and who are debarred from applying art 
 to them, to a much smaller group, indeed a very 
 small one* I must turn to a group of men who are 
 not working under masters who employ them to 
 produce for the world^market,but who are free to 
 do as they please with their work, and are working 
 for a market which they can see and understand, 
 whateverthelimitationsmaybeunderwhichthey 
 work: that is the artists* 
 
 They are a small and a weak body, on the surface 
 of things obviously in opposition to the general 
 tendency of the age; debarred, therefore, as I have 
 said, from true cooperative art: &as a consequence 
 of this isolation heavily weighted in the race of 
 success* For cooperative tradition places an artist 
 at the very beginning of his career in a position 
 wherein he has escaped the toil of learning a huge 
 multitude of little matters di fficult,nay impossible 
 to learn otherwise : the field which he has to dig is 
 not a part of a primeval prairie, but ground made 
 40 
 
fertile and put in good heart by the past labour of Lecture VI ♦ 
 
 countless generations* It is the apprenticeship of The Arts 
 
 the ages, in short, whereby an artist is born into the and Crafts 
 
 workshop of the world* of Today* 
 
 We artists of to/day are not so happy as to share 
 
 fully in this apprenticeship : we have to spend the 
 
 best part of our lives in trying to get hold of some 
 
 4 style f which shall be natural to us, and too often 
 
 fail in doing so; or perhaps oftener still, havingac^ 
 
 quired our 4 style/ that is, our method of express 
 
 sion, become so enamoured of the means, that we 
 
 forgettheend,andfindthatwehavenothingtoex^ 
 
 press except our self-satisfaction in the possession 
 
 of our very imperfect instrument; so that you will 
 
 find clever and gifted men at the present day who 
 
 are prepared to sustain as a theory, that art has no 
 
 function but the display of clever executive quali/- 
 
 ties, and that one subject is as good as another* No 
 
 wonder that this theory should lead them into the 
 
 practiceofproducingpictures which wemightpro* 
 
 nounce to be clever, if we could understand what 
 
 they meant, but whose meaning we can only guess 
 
 at, and suppose that they are intended to convey 
 
 the impression on a very short-sighted person of di> 
 
 vers ugly incidents seen through the medium of a 
 
 London fog* 
 
 Well I admit that this is a digression, as my subject 
 is Applied Art, and such art cannot be applied to 
 anything; and I am afraid, indeed, that it must be 
 considered a mere market article* 
 
 g 41 
 
Lecture VL Thus we artists of today are cut off from cooper^ 
 The Arts ative tradition, but I must not say that we are cut 
 and Crafts off from all tradition* And though it is undeniable 
 of Today* that we are out of sympathy with the main current 
 of the age, its commercialism, yet we are (even 
 sometimes unconsciously) in sympathy with that 
 appreciation of history which is a genuine growth 
 of the times, and a compensation to some of us for 
 the vulgarity and brutality which beset our lives; 
 and it is through this sense of history that we are 
 united to the tradition of past times* 
 Past times ; are we reactionists, then, anchored in 
 the dead past? Indeed I should hope not; nor can 
 I altogether tell you how much of the past is really 
 dead* I see about me now evidence of ideas recunv 
 ing which have long been superseded* The world 
 runs after some object of desire, strives strenuously 
 for it, gains it, and apparently casts it aside ; like a 
 kitten playing with a ball, you say* No, not quite* 
 The gain is gained, and something else has to be 
 pursued, often something which once seemed to 
 be gained and was let alone for a while* Yet the 
 world has not gone back ; for that old object of de^ 
 sire was only gained in the past as far as the circum/ 
 stances of the day would allowit to be gained then* 
 Asaconsequencethe gain was imperfect; thetimes 
 are now changed, and allow us to carry on that old 
 gain a step forward to perfection : the world has not 
 really gone back on its footsteps, though to some 
 it has seemed to do so* Did the world go back, for in/ 
 42 
 
stance, when the remnant of the ancient civilisa/ Lecture VI ♦ 
 tions was overwhelmed by the barbarism which The Arts 
 was the foundation of modern Europe? We can all and Crafts 
 see that it did not* Did it go back when the logical of Today* 
 and orderly system of the Middle Ages had to give 
 place to the confusion of incipient commercialism 
 in the sixteenth century? Again, ugly and disas/ 
 trous as the change seems on the surface, I yet think 
 it wasnota retrogression into prehistoric anarchy, 
 but a step upward along the spiral, which, and not 
 the straight line, is, as my friend Bax puts it, the 
 true line of progress* 
 
 So that if in the future that shall immediately foV 
 low on this present we may have to recur to ideas 
 that to/day seem to belong to the past only, that 
 will not be really a retraci n g of our step s, but rather 
 a carrying on of progress from a point where we 
 abandoned it a while ago* On that side of things, 
 the side of art, we have not progressed; we have 
 disappointed the hopes of the period just before 
 the time of abandonment: have those hopes really 
 perished, or have they merely lain dormant, abid^ 
 ingthetime when we, or our sons, oroursons' sons, 
 should quicken them once more ? 
 I must conclude that the latter is the case, that the 
 hope of leadinga life ennobled by the pleasurable 
 exercise of our energies is not dead, though it has 
 been for a while forgotten* I do not accuse the epoch 
 in which we live of uselessness : doubtless it was 
 necessary that civilised man should turn himself 
 
 43 
 
:ture VI* to mastering nature and winning material advan/ 
 e Arts tages undreamed of in former times ; but there are 
 Crafts signs in the air which show that men are not so 
 Today* wholly given to this side of the battle of life as they 
 used to be* People are beginning to murmur & say : 
 4 So we have won the battle with nature; where 
 then is the reward of victory? We have striven and 
 striven* but shall we never enjoy? Man that was 
 once weak is now most mighty* But his increase 
 of happiness* where is that ? who shall show it to 
 us* who shall measure it? H ave we done more than 
 change one form of unhappiness for another* one 
 form of unrest for another? We see the instruments 
 which civilisation has fashioned ; what is she go/ 
 ingto do with them ? Make more and more and yet 
 more ? To what avail ? If she would but use them* 
 thenindeedweresomethingdone*Meantimewhat 
 is civilisation doing? Day by day the world grows 
 uglier* and where in the passing day is the com/ 
 pensating gain? Half/conquered nature forced us 
 to toil* and yet for more reward than the sustenance 
 of a life of toil; now nature is conquered, but still 
 we force ourselves to toil for that bare unlovely 
 wage: riches we have won without sti nt.but wealth 
 is as far from us as ever, or it maybe farther* Come 
 then* since we are so mighty, let us try if we can not 
 do the one thing worth doing; make the world, of 
 which we are a part, somewhat happier/ 
 This is the spirit of much that I hear said about 
 me, not by poor or oppressed men only, but by 
 
 44 
 
those who have a good measure of the gains of civil' Lecture VL 
 
 isation* I do not know if the same kind of feeling The Arts 
 
 was about in the earlier times of the world; but I and Crafts 
 
 know that it means real discontent, a hope, partly of Today ♦ 
 
 unconscious, of better days : and I will be bold to 
 
 say that the spirit of this latter part of our century 
 
 is that of fruitful discontent, or rebellion; that is to 
 
 say, of hope* And of that rebellion we artists are 
 
 a part; and though we are but few, and few as we 
 
 are, mereamateurs compared with the steady com/ 
 
 petency of the artists of bygone times, yet we are 
 
 of some use in the movement towards the attain/ 
 
 ment of wealth, that is toward the making of our 
 
 instruments useful* 
 
 For we, at least, have remembered what most peo/ 
 pie have forgotten amongst the ugly unfruitful toil 
 of the age of makeshifts, that it is possible to be 
 happy, that labour may be a pleasure; nay, that the 
 essence of pleasure abides in labour if it be duly 
 directed; that is if it be directed towards the per/ 
 formance of those functions which wise & healthy 
 people desire to see performed ; in other words, if 
 mutual help be its moving principle* 
 Well, since it is our business, as artists, to showthe 
 world that the pleasurable exercise of our energies 
 is the end of life and the cause of happiness, and 
 thustoshowitwhichroadthediscontentofmodern 
 life must take in order to reach a fruitful home, it 
 seems tome that we ought to feel our responsibili/ 
 ties keenly* It is true that we cannot but share in 
 
 45 
 
Lecture VL thepoverty of thisageof makeshifts, and for long I 
 The Arts fearwe canbelittlebutamateurs* Yet,atleast each 
 and Crafts in his own person, we may struggle against make/ 
 of Today* shifts in art* For instance, to press a little home on 
 ourselves,if drawingis ourweakpoint,letustryto 
 improve ourselves on that side, and not proclaim 
 that drawingis nothingand toneis everything* Or 
 if we arebad colouri sts, let us set to work & learn,at 
 least,to.colourinoffensively(whichlassureyoucan 
 be learned) , instead of jeering at those who give us 
 beautiful colour habitually and easily* Or if we are 
 ignorant of history, and without any sense of rox 
 mance, don't let us try to exalt those deficiencies 
 into excellencies by maintaini n g the divinity of the 
 ugly andthe stupid* Let us leave all such unworthy 
 shabbinesses to the Philistines & pessimists, who 
 naturally want to drag everybody down to their 
 level* 
 
 In short, we artists are in this position, that we are 
 the representatives of craftsmanship which hasbe/ 
 come extinct in the production of market wares* 
 Let us therefore do our very best to become as good 
 craftsmen as possible; and if we cannot be good 
 craftsmen in one line, let us go down to the next, 
 and find our level in the arts, and be good in that; 
 if we are artists at all, we shall be sure to find out 
 what we can do well, even if we cannot do it easily* 
 Let us educate ourselves to be good workmen at 
 all events, which will give us real sympathy with 
 all that is worth doing: in art, make us free of that 
 
great corporation of creative power, the work of all Lecture VI ♦ 
 ages, and prepare us for that which is surely com/ The Arts 
 ing,the new cooperative art of life, in which there and Crafts 
 will be no slaves, no vessels to dishonour, though of Today* 
 there will necessarily be subordination of capaci/ 
 ties, in which the consciousness of each one that he 
 belongs to a corporate body, working harmonic 
 ously, each for all, and all for each, will bring about 
 real and happy equality* 
 
 Printed at the Chiswick Press with the Golden 
 type designed by William Morris for the Kelms/ 
 cott Press, and finished on the twenty /sixth day of 
 April, 1901* Published by Longmans & Co* 39, 
 Paternoster Row, London* 
 
 47 
 
GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 
 
 3 3125 00951 3280