ART AND LIFE, AND
THE BUILDING AND
DECORATION OF CITIES

ART AND LIFE, AND THE BUILD-
ING AND DECORATION OF CITIES :
A SERIES OF LECTURES BY MEM-
BERS OF THE [ARTS AND CRAFTS
EXHIBITION SOCIET"^, DELIVERED
AT THE FIFTH EXHIBITION OF
THE SOCIETY IN 1896 )

LONDON
RIVINGTON, PERCIVAL, & CO,
34- 1897

PREFATORY NOTE
The following Lectures by members of
the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society
were delivered at the fifth Exhibition of
that Society, held at the New Gallery
in the autumn of 1896. The purpose
of the Lectures is stated in the intro
duction to Lecture i.- — ' Of Art and
Life.' The Lectures are here printed
precisely as they were delivered.

CONTENTS
PAGE
I. OF ART AND LIFE.
T. J. Cobden-Sanderson . . . i
II. OF BEAUTIFUL CITIES.
W. R. Lethaby . ... 45
III. OF THE DECORATION OF PUBLIC
BUILDINGS. Walter Crane . iii
IV. OF PUBLIC SPACES, PARKS AND
GARDENS. Reginald Blomfield 167
V. OF COLOUR IN THE ARCHITEC
TURE OF CITIES. Halsey Ricardo 2 1 1

I
OF ART AND LIFE
T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON

OF ART AND LIFE
Before I begin my address to you to
night, I have a word to say in memory
of him who was so lately our President,^
William Morris. It is but one word ;
for I who knew him so well and yet
shrank, from consideration of my own
insignificance, from speaking of him
overmuch in public even in his life
time, shrink doubly now that he is dead.
He is too great for me to essay to
compass him with eulogy, too great to
criticise, to judge. But if of him him
self I cannot speak, I may yet be
^ William Morris died on the opening day of
the Exhibition, October 3, 1896. 3

Of Art and permitted to speak of the inspiration
^'^^ he should be to us all, and especially to
the Society of which he was the late chief.
When, then, I think of him I seem to
see a great light shed upon the path in
front of us, which waits only till we
move to move onward too — still onward,
and to keep its post fronting the dark
ness. And the great light shed from
him is this : that in the work of his
hands, aided, guided by the work of the
brain into shapes of everlasting beauty
and utility, man — not certainly this man
or that, for each must contribute in an
infinite diversity of ways, but man as
a whole, man which is human society
organised to unity — shall find delight, a
delight as of summer seas waking to
summer music along the coasts of the
world under summer's sun and moon,
and the still shining stars of heaven.
Work, incessant work, with Beauty for
4

our everlasting aim — this is the William Of Art and
Morris, this the memory of him, this ^^^^
the light shining upon the darkness of
the future, which we all, and especially
we of the Society whose President he
was, ought to cherish and abide by for
ever. Work ! and, for our everlasting
aim. Beauty 1
I now begin the first of a series of
lectures, having for their object gener
ally the extension of the conception of
Art, and, more especially, the application
of the idea of beauty as well as of utility
to the organisation and decoration of
our greater cities. Those who come
after me will deal with this more
specific application. For me, it is my
task to deal with the more general
object, the extension of the idea
of Art. The title of my address is
'Art and Life,' and though I would
rather that it bore a more enigmatic S

Of Art and and less presumptuous one, yet it does
' ^ express or Indicate the subject-matter
which I would bring before you to
night. I desire to extend the concep
tion of Art, and to apply It to life as a
whole ; or. Inversely, to make the whole
of life, in all Its grandeur, as well as in
all its delightful detail, the object of the
action of Art and Craft.
I should add that though the lectures
are conceived of as a whole, they are
not to be taken, nor Is any one of them
to be taken, as the official expression of
the alms or ideals of the Society, or
even of the group of members who
have been commissioned to deliver
them. Each speaker approaches the
subject of his lecture from his own
point of view, and is alone responsible
for that point of view, and for the
perspective of his subject as determined
by it. 6

And now without further introduc- Of Art and
tion, save to ask you to be indulgent if ^^^^
I should seem to you (as Indeed is the
fact) to be undertaking something too
utterly beyond my powers, I will at
once set myself to my task, and do for
it — the best I can !
Art, as a manifestation of the artistic
spirit, has its origin, or, to speak more
correctly perhaps, its opportunity in
Craft, and Craft in the needs of life.
And as the needs of life vary from
generation to generation, and from age
to age, so must vary the objects of
Craft, and with them the modes of
manifestation of the artistic spirit.
I propose to consider and pro
nounce upon the objects of Craft in
a highly developed community, and to
see how far, and in what way, they offer
opportunities to the artistic spirit to
manifest itself. 7

Of Art and But before proceeding to discuss the
•'"'^^ mode In which Art may manifest itself
In such modern community, it will be
well, by way of tonic, to consider briefly
how in one or two ways Art has mani
fested itself In an ancient civilisation,
which, in so many ways. Is still the
prototype, as it Is still the basis, of our
own. To begin with, let us take an Instance
of the beauty of ' Home Life,' and of
the beauty and dignity, and genealogy
even, of such simple things as chairs
and rugs and baskets, and what not,
which the needs of ' Home Life ' have
at all times. In some fashion, stimulated
Art and Craft to produce. It is a
description, in the Odyssey, of the
entrance of Helen Into the hall of her
husband Menelaus to welcome Tele-
machus, who has come to ask for news
of his long-lost father, Odysseus : —

' And Helen came forth from her fragrant Of Art and
vaulted chamber, like Artemis of the golden Life
arrows ; and with her came Adraste, and set
for her the well-wrought chair ; and Alcippe
bare a rug of soft wool ; and Phylo bare
a silver basket which Alcandre gave her,
Alcandre, the wife of Polybus, who dwelt in
Thebes of Egypt, where is the chiefest store
of wealth in the houses. He gave two silver
baths to Menelaus, and tripods twain and ten
talents of gold. And besides all this, his wife
bestowed on Helen lovely gifts : a golden
distafF did she give, and a silver basket with
wheels beneath, and the rims thereof were
finished with fine gold. This it was that the
handmaid Phylo bare, and set beside her,
filled with dressed yarn, and across it was laid
a distafF charged with wool of violet blue.
' So Helen sat her down in the chair, and
beneath was a footstool for the feet.' i
The point I wish to emphasise in this
beautiful scene is the fact that the
fiirniture, which supplements the human
^ Odyssey iv. Butcher and Lang's translation. 9

Of Art and being, has a human and individual
Life origin. It is made by the well-known,
presented to and by the well-known,
and it is handed on from generation to
generation with, so to speak, its own
genealogy of tradition. It is thus
worthy of the skill and of the genius of
the Craftsman and of the Artist. Such
furniture is made to play a dignified
part in life ; and surviving its perishable
units, to tell to future ages how nobly
and how simply the men of Its own day
felt and satisfied their needs.
To go forth from the ' home ' into
the ' field.' The ' plough ' and the
' scythe ' are simple craft products to
satisfy the needs of the harvest, one of
the supreme needs of mankind. The
plough alone Is an interesting and
picturesque Instrument, and Its move
ment along the straight furrow upon the
surface of the earth, which It smoothly

cuts and turns upon Its face, like an ever- Of Art and
breaking wave. Is also beautiful ; and ^^^^
the act of ploughing, the opening of the
furrow, the slow advance, the time
keeping steps of the cattle who draw
the plough and of the man who guides
the team, — is an act, or series of acts, so
beautiful, so simple and pathetic, that
set, as it is set — a unity of effect in
a shadowy framework of unknown
agencies — it touches and stimulates the
still higher creativeness, and, carved or
painted or sung, reappears with kindred
scenes in the imaginative reason, ideal
and immortal ! Let us take such a
scene : —
' Furthermore Hephaistos set in the shield
a soft fresh-ploughed field, rich tilth and
wide, the third time ploughed  '
But before I go on to read to you Homer's
description of a field a-ploughing, and
of other kindred ' outdoor ' scenes, I

Of Art and may perhaps be allowed to give distinc-
^^^^ tion to my theme by recalling to your
memory the making of the shield Itself,
the shield of Achilles, upon which the
scene was depicted, and the smith-god
by whom It was made and devised.
As you win remember, the shield
of Achilles was made for Achilles by
Hephaistos, the renowned lame god.
Achilles, offended by Agamemnon, the
leader of the Achaians, had retired from
the fight before Troy, and had even
forbidden his friend Patroclus to take
part In It. But after no long time,
pressed by the prayers of his friends,
and affected by the losses the Achaians
had sustained in his absence, he reluc
tantly withdrew his ban, and permitted
Patroclus to reappear in the field, and
to turn. If It might be, the tide of war
in favour of the Achaians. The better
to do this, and to inspire the Trojans

with terror, Patroclus dons the armour Of An and
of Achilles, and appears before the walls ^^^^
of Troy in the similitude of his friend.
But Patroclus, like every other sub
stitute for Achilles, fights in vain. He
is slain by the glory of the Trojans,
Hector, and is stripped of his armour,
the armour of Achilles. Whereupon
Achilles is at last persuaded to bestir
himself, and in his own person to stem
and turn the tide, and to avenge himself
upon Hector, the slayer of his friend
Patroclus. And then comes the im
mortal moment when Achilles, naked
and unarmed, stands alone in the
trenches, and by his mere shout, and
the divine terror of his being, repels the
Trojans, and gains for the Achaians
a temporary respite. Meanwhile, his
mother Thetis has gone to Olympus to
entreat Hephaistos, the renowned lame
god, to make new armour for her son
13

Of Art and AchUles. The story of this visit, and
^'^'^ the reception of Thetis of the silver feet
by Charis, the wife of Hephaistos, and
by Hephaistos himself, and the descrip
tion of Hephaistos, the skilful artificer,
are far too pretty and are all too perti
nent to my purpose to be omitted ; and
I shall ask your further permission to
give them, and with all the detail with
which they appear In the original.
And so : — ' Thetis of the silver feet came
unto the house of Hephaistos, imperishable,
star-like, far seen among the dwellings of
immortals, a house of bronze, wrought by
the crook-footed god himself. Him found
she sweating in toil and busy about his
bellows, for he was forging tripods, twenty
in all, to stand around the wall of his stab-
lished hall, and beneath the base of each he
had set golden wheels, that of their own
motion they might enter the assembly of
the gods and again return unto his house, a
marvel to look upon. While hereat he was
14

labouring with wise intent, there drew nigh Of Art and
unto him Thetis, goddess of the silver feet. Life
And Charis went forward and beheld her, fair
Charis of the shining chaplet whom the re
nowned lame god had wedded. And Charis
clasped her hand in hers and spake and called
her by her name : " Wherefore, long-robed
Thetis, comest thou to our house, honoured
as thou art and dear .? No frequent comer
art thou hitherto. But come onward with
me that I may set guest-cheer before thee."
Thus spake the bright goddess and led her
on. Then set she Thetis on a silver-studded
throne, goodly, of cunning work, and a foot
stool was beneath her feet, and she called to
Hephaistos, the femed artificer, and said unto
him : " Hephaistos, come forth hither, Thetis
hath need of thee." ' ^
Then Hephaistos answers from the
heat of his workshop and recounts the
great service which Thetis had one time
done him, and how dread and honoured
' Iliad xviii. Translated by E. Myers. 15

Of Art and a goddess she is in his sight, and how
deserving of anything he can now do
to repay her for the service she had
done him. ' But do thou now set
beside her,' he bids Charis, ' fair enter
tainment, while I put away my bellows
and all my gear.' He said, and from the
anvil rose limping, a huge bulk, but
under him his slender legs moved
nimbly. The bellows he set away from
the fire, and gathered all his gear where
with he worked into a silver chest, and
with a sponge he wiped his face and
hands and sturdy neck and shaggy
breast, and did on his doublet, and
took a stout staff and went forth, limp
ing : but there were handmaidens of
gold that moved to help their lord, the
semblances of living maids. In them Is
understanding at their hearts, in them
are voice and strength, and they have
skill of the immortal gods. These
i6

moved beneath their lord and he gat Of Art and
him haltingly near to where Thetis ^^^^
was, and set him on a bright seat, and
clasped her hand in his and spake and
called her by her name : ' Wherefore,
long-robed Thetis, comest thou to our
house, honoured that thou art and dear.
No frequent comer art thou hitherto.
Speak what thou hast at heart : my soul
is fain to accomplish it, if accomplish it
it can, and if it be appointed for accom
plishment.' And then Thetis tells him
of her mission and of the perilous posi
tion of her unarmoured son, and entreats
the divine artificer to make for him new
armour. The lame god readily undertakes to
make the new armour * such as all men
afterward shall marvel at whosoever
may behold ' ; and, returning to his
smithy, immediately went unto his bel
lows and turned them upon the fire,
B 17

Of Art and and bade them to work, and so was
Life begun the armour, of which the shield
was a principal part.
' First fashioned he a shield great and
strong, adorning it all over, and set thereto
a shining rim, triple, bright glancing, and
therefrom a silver baldrick. Five were the
folds of the shield itself, we are told, and
therein fashioned he much cunning work
from his wise heart. There wrought he the
earth and the heavens, and the sea, and the
unwearying sun, and the moon waxing to
the full, and the signs every one wherewith
the heavens are crowned, Pleiads and Hyads
and Orion's might, and the Bear that men
call also the Wain, her that turneth in her
place and watcheth Orion, and alone hath no
part in the baths of Ocean.'
Therein too he set all the character
istic scenes of human life, and among
them the scene of a field a-ploughing,
and one or two other scenes of a like
i8

kind, of outdoor life, which I will now Of Art and
go back to, to illustrate my theme of the ^^^^
nobility and beauty of labour artistically
conceived : —
'Furthermore he set in the shield a soft
fresh-ploughed field, rich tilth and wide, the
third time ploughed : and many ploughers
therein drave their yokes to and fro as they
wheeled about. Whensoever they came to
the boundary of the field and turned, then
would a man come to each and give into his
hands a goblet of sweet wine ; while others
would be turning back along the furrows,
fain to reach the boundary of the deep tilth.
And the field grew black behind and seemed
as it were a-ploughing, albeit of gold, for this
was the great marvel of the work.
'Furthermore he set therein a demesne
land deep in corn, where hinds were reaping
with sharp sickles in their hands. Some arm-
fuls along the swaths were falling in rows to
the earth, while others the sheaf binders were
binding in twisted bands of straw. Three
19

Of Art and sheaf binders stood over them, while, behind,
Life boys gathering corn and bearing it in their
arms, gave it constantly to the binders : and
among them the lord in silence was standing
at the swath, with his staff, rejoicing in his
heart. And henchmen apart, beneath an
oak, were making ready a feast, and prepar
ing a great ox they had sacrificed : while the
women were stewing much white barley to
be a supper for the hinds.' ^
So much for ploughing and sowing
and reaping and harvests.
Here is another picture of a like
kind too beautiful to be omitted : —
' Also he set therein a vineyard, teeming
plenteously with clusters, wrought fair in
gold ; black were the grapes, but the vine
hung throughout on silver poles. And
around he ran a ditch of cyanus, and round
that a fence of tin : and one single pathway
led to it, whereby the vintagers might go,
when they should gather the vintage. And
¦^ Iliad xviii. Translated by E. Myers.

maidens and striplings, in childish glee, bare Of Art and
the sweet fruit in plaited baskets. And in Life
the midst of them a boy made pleasant music
on a clear-toned viol, and sang thereto a
sweet Linus-song with delicate voice : while
the rest, with feet falling together, kept time
with the music and the song.'
In contrast, now, to this idyllic hus
bandry, place the picture, as it is pre
sented to us in the daily papers, of the
agriculture of England to-day, with the
labourers flying to the towns, or left
cheerless to die on an estranged and
alienated earth. Where is the rich tilth
and wide, where the many ploughers,
and where the man to come to each to
give into his hands a goblet of sweet
wine ? And where is the demesne land,
deep in corn, reaped with sharp sickles ?
And where the lord, in silence standing
at the swath with his staff, rejoicing in his
heart ? And where are the henchmen,

Of Art and standing apart beneath an oak, making
•'"'^^ ready a feast .'' Where the maidens and
striplings in childish glee bearing sweet
fruit in plaited baskets .^ and where,
in the midst of them, a boy making
pleasant music on a clear-toned viol ?
All dissolved like a summer's dream ;
and in their stead I see only an agri
culture lonesome as an unwon land, or,
it may be, the wide, undivided prairies
of a continent — yielding, indeed, a har
vest fit for the consumption of a world,
but for the soul and happiness of man
kind, as yet, — nothing. And to go
back to the picture of the Indoor life,
contrast again the distaff charged with
wool of violet blue, and Helen who to
her work came forth from her fragrant
vaulted chamber, with the factory and the
spinning-jenny of to-day, and the myriad
bands of the pale-faced girls who have
taken the place of the once fair Helen.

But, ladies and gentlemen, I do not Of Art and
direct your attention to these contrasts ^'^'^
with a view to enlisting your sym
pathies at present on behalf of the lives
of the workpeople. That is not my
object ; not now, not in this place and
to-night. My object only is to show
what an industry may be, how beautiful
in itself and in its implements and
in the picture which it yields to the
imagination, when it is dwelt upon for
its own sake as well as for its results ;
when, in short, it is treated in the spirit
of a noble art ; and what, on the other
hand, an industry may be or become
when engaged in solely for its results,
and not in the spirit of an art ; or when
it is so broken up, distributed and magni
fied, that as a whole it passes beyond the
ken, the interest, and intelligence of
those to whom the lot has fallen to pur
sue it in some infinitesimal particular. 23

Of Art and I must guard, too, at this stage
^^^^ against another possible misapprehen
sion. I am not praising the past at the
expense of the present, nor am I about
to declare that to be happy and live
lives seemly and beautiful, we must
revert to earlier conditions and betake
ourselves once again and unconditionally
to the simpler industries, and to the
simpler implements, of the past ; such
is not my conception of the functions of
Art or of its fixture. I am. Indeed,
not comparing one reality with another
reality, but a reality with an ideal ;
and I shall ask you not to apply the
ideals of the past to the present, but to
grasp, by anticipation, the great ideals
of the future, and to apply them —
the Ideals of the future — instantly and
in the spirit of an ideal, to the realities
of the present. To these Ideals of the
future I shall come presently. In the
24

meanwhile, 1 would have you to mark, Of Art and
beyond the substantive beauty of the ^^^^
description, that in executing on the
shield of AchUles his great conception
of all the deeds of mankind, the Artist
took care to set them amid the wide
heavens, and to direct the attention of
the onlooker to the superb onrolling
and unfolding of that silent universe
which is still our own home to-day, to
the sea, to the unwearying sun, and the
moon waxing to the full, and to the
signs every one wherewith the heavens
are crowned — Pleiads and Hyads, and
Orion's might, and the Bear that men
call the Wain, her that turneth in her
place and watcheth Orion, and alone
hath no place in the baths of Ocean.
This I take to be the universal note of
all high Art, this recognition of the
eternal in the heavens, and this setting
of the deeds of mankind into harmony 25

Of Art and with It. And here I take my own stand
^^^^ In my address to you to-night.
Art implies a certain lofty environ
ment, and is itself an adjustment to that
environment, of all that can be done
by mankind within it. Art as a great
function of human imagination Is not
the creation of Isolated objects of
beauty, though isolated objects of beauty
may indeed be created by Art, and in
themselves resume all that is beautiful,
orderly, restful, and stable in the artist's
conception of that environment. Still
less Is it, what some may seem to
imagine, the objects of beauty them
selves. It is something — it is much —
more. Art Is, or should be, alive, alive
and an universal stimulus. It is that
spirit of order and seemliness, of dignity
and sublimity, which, acting in unison
with the great procession of natural
forces in their own orderly evolution,
26

tends to make out of a chaos of Of Art and
egotistic passions a great power of dis- ^
interested social action : which tends to
make out of the seemingly meaning
less satisfaction of our daily and annual
needs a beautiful exercise of our in
numerable gifts of fancy and invention,
an exercise which may be its own
exceeding great reward, and come to
seem to be indeed the end for which
the needs were made.
Such is my conception of Art, and I
imagine all men to be potentially artists,
each in his own degree, and one and
all to be capable of co-operating to the
one great achievement of the human
race, the bringing into unison with the
rhythm of the universe the innumerable
minor rhythms of human activity.
Nor do I stop at deeds to be done in
such unison. I demand in the name
of Art — and here is especially the note
27

Of Art and and distinction of Modern Art, as 1
^"^ conceive it — I demand in the name of
Art, that science Itself, that knowledge
shall enter upon a new phase and itself
become, in the mind of man, the divine
Re-presentment of the universe without,
an analytical knowledge only of which
has hitherto been Its one sole and
supreme aim.
The shield of Achilles depicted the
life of man as a whole, artistically con
ceived. It set it amid the heavens in
unison therewith, and around the utter
most rim of the shield the artist set
the all-embracing River of Ocean. That
river of ocean may stand for the limit
of man's knowledge of the universe at
that time. The Homeric Greek Imaged
the world to himself as flat, flowed
round by the River of Ocean. And
yet even at that time, we may suppose,
the world was round and immersed In
28

illimitable sether. The mind of the Of Art and
Greek, then, was not in fact, however
it might be In spirit. In conscious
unison with the world without him.
Since that day the horizon of man's
knowledge has been pushed indefinitely
beyond the limitation set by the ima
ginary River of Ocean, The content
of man's mind has been immensely
changed. It Is this new content which
awaits the hand of the artist. It is
dead as yet, a dead world. It waits
the touch of art to make it live, to
kindle it into life.
I have defined the function of Art :
it is the setting in order the house of
mankind. I now define the future of
art : it Is the setting in order the
house of mankind in exalted conscious
ness of the environment amid which it is
placed. The earth was when man was not.
29

Of Art and The earth and the heavens went through
^^^^ their changes, but alone, there was no
man's voice to interpret or to chaunt
their praises : man became, and still
the world was silent ; man had not yet
grasp enough of intellect or of imagina
tion or bulk enough of experience to
understand or recreate It. Man In his
childhood dreamt the dreams of child
hood and saw with the eyes of infancy.
The sky so ethereal and Illimitable
was to him concave and solid ; the
earth so strangely poised without hands
to uphold It, a ball in space, was to
him flat and solidly upheld from under
neath. But man's power grew, and
still grows, with his life, and with his
power knowledge, and slowly, and
latterly swiftly, the movements of the
universe are being divined and ima
gined, and by-and-by they shall be over
taken utterly and from their remotest
3°

origin live again in consciousness In Of Art and
the mind of man, and the two move- ^^^^
ments, the movement of the universe
without, the external universe, and the
movement of its counterpart, the uni
verse within, the internal imaginative
universe, shall go on thenceforward In
unison together. To what end 1 Ah,
who shall say ! But in that ignorance
lies man's opportunity of faith, and in
that consciousness the opportunity of
art. For this 1 take to be the future
of Art, in the whole round sense in
which I am bold enough now to con
ceive it, — it is directly and indirectly
the imaginative animation of a universe,
of a universe otherwise inanimate and
unself conscious.
It is possible, indeed, that in the lapse
of ages or of asons, the order of initia
tion may be reversed, and the imaginative
activities of man become supreme, 31

Of Art and adapting and bending to some at present
^'^^ inconceivable ideal, the at present only
dimly perceived and almost wholly un
controlled forces of an unconscionable
world. But in the meanwhile what may be
the immediate function of Art .'' And
in the meanwhile what its immediate
future ?
It is, as far as may be, to do each
thing, however small, however great, it
Is to do each right thing well, in the
spirit of an artist, in the spirit of the
whole. Art is not decoration, it is not
painting, it is not sculpture, it is not
architecture, it is not verse, it is not
music. It is, indeed, all these things in
turn. But it Is primarily, and chiefly,
and always, the doing a right thing well
in the spirit of an artist who loves the
just, the seemly, the beautiful ; and its
immediate future is to apply this idea
32

of itself to the whole of life and not to Of Art and
the objects of the so-called fine and ^^^^
minor Arts only.
As I have already stated, it is the
specific purpose of the lectures which
follow, to apply Ideas of artistic treat
ment to cities, their organisation and
decoration. Avoiding the subjects as
signed to my friends, I will endeavour
to illustrate the working of artistic
energy in some other of the depart
ments of modern life.
I will begin with the possible influ
ence of Art in a supremely important
department — that of education.
The school, the college, the uni
versity — here is scope enough for the
application of the idea. Why do we do
all these things ? the boy, the youth,
the man may ask. To make Life
beautiful ! should be the instant answer.
In so replying, however, I do not ignore
c 33

Of Art and or set aside other and widely separate
^^^^ specific objects of education, enforced,
and rightly enforced, at the present day
in our schools and universities : courage,
manliness, camaraderie, chivalry, dis
cipline, knowledge, skill. But I insist
that in the principle of fitness, seemli
ness, and, on the highest level, beauty,
these other ends will be found to have
their sufficient explanation. In beauty,
finally, is the goal of knowledge ; in it
the goal of practice and of conduct.
And I am glad to think that the idea
has already got some hold upon school
boards and public schools, and that they
tend to set themselves, in their build
ings at least, in visible suitability, and
even beauty, before the world. But It
is not in their buildings only that this
must be accomplished. The business of
teaching should itself be a ceremonial,
and there should be supreme occasions
34

when all the details of what is being Of Art and
taught should be gathered together into ^'^^
one harmonious whole, that the boy,
the youth, and the man, may have a
foretaste of what he is to aim at in the
life beyond the walls of his school, his
college, his university. There should,
moreover, at certain recurring times,
be special flinctions artistically con
ceived, when the boy and the man
should be solemnly initiated into the
inner mysteries of life, and when the
distinctions of sex and the birth of new
life should be lifted sheer and clear of
all individual and personal passion, and
placed, as they should be placed, in
universal relations ; be seen to be, what
in truth they are, but forms of one
identical and impersonal process, do
minant throughout all time, for the
survival of life, and its transmission,
changed and conditioned by the Present, 35

Of Art and from the Past to the Future. And,
^^^^ finally, and supreme over all, should
come in cheerful wise the introduc
tion to death. In cheerful wise, for
in death is the principle of new life,
and In new life the principle of pro
gress, itself the ever shifting matter of
an ever creative and yet constant Art.
I pass from education to what would
seem to distinguish us chiefly, as a
nation, at the present day — Commerce.
It is the custom of artists to deride
commerce. For my own part I see
in it one of the grandest, if not the
grandest, and fullest opportunity for
the development in practice of the prin
ciples I have been endeavouring to
elucidate. For what is commerce In
its widest sense ? In its widest sense
it Is the satisfaction of the needs of life
all the earth over, out of the materials
which the earth Itself affords for the
36

purpose. Here, then, is an opportunity Of Art and
for working in the spirit of the whole -^"^
of which the earth itself is so magnifi
cent a part 1 Think of it 1 The soil,
the preparation of the soil, the inven
tion of the tools wherewith it is to be
wrought ; the use of those tools so as
to yield a pleasure as well as a profit ;
the harvest of its products, animal,
vegetable, and mineral, on sea and land,
on mountain and plain, in river and
lake, in heat and in cold, in summer
and winter, in spring and autumn ;
their manipulation by hand and by
deftly conceived and admirably adjusted
machinery into things of beauty and
of use ; their exchange and distribution,
over land and sea, by road and by rail
and by ship ; the erection of houses, of
cities, of harbours ; the establishment of
public places, of public buildings in which
to meet, to consult, and to celebrate 37

Of Art and the great functions of the world's com-
merce — can you, I ask, conceive a
greater object of Art in itself, or one
which at any moment of its widespread
evolution offers more opportunities for
the creation of the fit, the seemly, and
the beautiful ?
To go with this matter a little fur
ther into detail, to Illustrate how the
least inspired trade of to-day may be
raised, step by step, and widened by
association, till it reaches the great
levels of world-wide phenomena, and
how the humblest of its pursuivants
may be placed in a position, at least
imaginatively, to supplement his own
poor share in it by a knowledge of
the whole, and so to lift his life into
touch with the life universal, let me
explain to you how the impoverished
agriculture of England to-day, or the
almost limitless agriculture of America,
38

which latter I have described as passing Of An and
by its magnitude out of the reach of ^'^'^
the unaided senses, might, upon the
imaginative side, be brought again under
the dominion of the imagination. You
will remember in the description I read
to you from the Iliad of the ' soft,
fresh ploughed field, rich tilth and
wide,' you will remember the figure of
the lord, ' standing in silence at the
swath, rejoicing in his heart.' That
venerable figure I do not expect to see
again. But for him I would ask you
to substitute the idea of ' the state,'
and to impose upon that august repre
sentative of the people the lofty duties
which would now be impossible of ful
filment by a single individual. And the
duties of the state, from the point
of view of the ideal of artistic treat
ment, with which I am at present con
cerned, I would adumbrate somewhat 39

Of Art and as foUows. To begin with, the state
^^^^ should endeavour to make the husband
man understand the kind of fimctlon
which agriculture, his labour, has
to perform as a whole. The state
should set before his mind, visibly, the
fruits of the earth ; should set before
his mind, too, the lands whence the
fruits foreign to his own country origin
ally came ; and that would give the
state, through Its teachers, an oppor
tunity in Its schools of husbandry to
set before the mind even of the day
labourer, the wide earth spread out
geographically around him ; also the
place which It, a wanderer, occupied
amid the stars visible at night over
his head ; this again would give the
overlord, the state, an opportunity to
explain the causes of the procession
and iteration, year after year, of the
seasons, and of that annual bursting
40

forth and dying away, in rhythmic Of An and
recurrent sequence, through the spring ^^^^
and autumn, through summer and
winter, and year after year, of the
harvests of the earth, upon whose mo
tions his own were dependent. Having
set before the mind of the husband
man the pulsations of organic life, in
summer and winter, and day and night,
and his own dependence thereupon, the
state should next enter upon the modes
of cultivation, and the processes to
which the products of agriculture were
severally submitted, and the uses to
which they were severally put, narrow
ing to completeness of detail only in
treating of the fruits and products of
his own cultivation. This would give
the state an opportunity of entering
upon the industrial lives of great cities
and harbours, and the related industries
of manufacture and distribution, by
41

Of Art and land and by sea ; and the state should
¦'"'^'^ then trace back finally to the door
of the husbandman, for his own use,
the transfigured product of his own
toil. And the overlord, the state, should
do all this by means of suitably designed
apparatus, and in village and communal
halls nobly built and typical of the
dignity of labour. And the state
should institute ceremonial institutions
to mark and emphasise the changes of
the seasons, and in beautiful pageantry
the state should bring the labours of the
year to a close, and initiate them afresh,
year after year.
We should, thus and thus, realise, if
not again any of the beautiful ideals
of Homer, yet an ideal suitable to the
knowledge and conditions of our own
time ; and the energies of the people,
roused to consciousness of their own
42

powers and possibilities, would possibly Of An and
transcend the ideal here fixed for them, ^'^^
and pass into a future of imaginative
and actual activity of which we, asleep
in coward recusation, cannot form even
an approximate conception.
I have now only to resume in a few
words the gist of what I would have
you to remember, and I shall have com
pleted my task.
Life, then, is stupendous energy, and
at not one moment of time is that
energy suspended. First, the energy
of the universe without man, then of
man in unison with the universe, and
of the two conjointly. That stupen
dous energy in its main and in its minor
strains, in entirety and in detail, is the
province of Art, and by Art must be
controlled and directed. To what end ?
To what immediate end ?
To the creation of the City Beautiful, 43

Of Art and the beautiful house of Mankind, and
^^^^ therein, and in keeping with the spirit
of the Whole, the creation of the Fit,
the Seemly, and again the Beautiful !

II
OF BEAUTIFUL CITIES
W. R. LETHABY

OF BEAUTIFUL CITIES
My purpose is to suggest, if possible, a
historical background against which we
may see modern London ; a perspective
reaching back to the first primitive city ;
of all of which London is the final
result — so far.
Very little attention has been devoted
to the structural development of cities :
the institutions of the group of citizens
whose dwelling was the city have, how
ever, been carefully studied. The author
of The City in Antiquity ^ begins at the
very beginning by considering the
1 Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite Antique. 47

Of Beautiful patriarchal family, with its ancestor-
^i"es worship associated with the rites of the
hearth-fire, which were performed by
the head of each family.
As groups of families who looked
back to a common famous ancestor
became tribes, the family altars would
be supplemented by, and ultimately
merged into, the common altar. A
cella, or small house, was built in direct
association with this common altar or
hearth as a dwelling-place for the
common deity. This cella, enlarged
and beautified, became a temple ; the
altar still occupied its place In front of
the entrance to the temple, but, from
being principal, it became in a sense
accessory. The city was thus founded on re
ligious association ; the central worship
was the bond which made such associa
tion possible ; the citizens were an
48

enlarged family who worshipped the Of Beautiful
same god at the same altar. Each city ^^"^^
had its own gods who inhabited its
temples, and these were only accessible
to the citizens in the most restricted
sense ; to enter the Parthenon, for
instance, it was necessary to be an
Athenian. The citizen was thus one
born into the religion of the city. To
the citizen the stranger, having left the
protection of his own city's god, was
without religion, an outcast and an
enemy. Thus there grew up a class, attached
to the city, but not of it ; and the
history of any given city is likely to
be the story of its revolutions.
The organisation of the city was
absolutely religious in its sanctions.
The divinity lived in the temple, and
exclusively protected his own children ;
the State was the community of wor-
D 49

Of Beautiful shippers ; the King was a Pontiff ; the
Cnies Magistrate a Priest. Patriotism was one
with piety ; exile was excommunication.
A Greek town was double. There
was a polis proper, the original city,
within the sacred walls of which stood
the ancestral temple. Outside was an
aggregation of houses built without
ceremony. This suburb — at first the
place of the strangers — tended naturally
to become the commercial city, while
the holy city was more and more re
signed to the gods. This view, which
is mainly a brief summary from De
Coulanges, perhaps concerns itself too
narrowly with Greek ideas, whereas the
city was first invented — so to say — In
other lands. It also seems to neglect
the influence of war in shaping com
munities and determining the situation
and development of cities.
If we endeavour to determine what
5°

degree of advancement in organisation Of Beautiful
and architecture shall justify us in Cities
speaking of an aggregation of dwellings
as a city, we shall probably require a
palace of a ruler, a central altar or temple,
and a military wall. Of these the
temple is the most characteristic, and
archaeology might almost guide us to
the, oldest temple and true mother city
of the world, unless it be held that they
were developed independently at various
centres, a view which seems negatived
by the family likeness of temples and
cities. I have never seen any attempt
made to define the natural orders of
temples and seek their centres of dis
tribution. Renan remarks that in the
eleventh century b.c. the world was
being covered with temples, but he
does not inquire where they came from.
When the mists first clear from the
horizon of history, two civilisations are
SI

Of Beautiful discovered — one inhabiting the head of
Cities jjjg Persian Gulf, and the other the Valley
of the Nile. Whether or not Egypt
derived the idea of the shrine-temple
from Western Asia, it became so fully
developed in Egypt that we can hardly
doubt that Egypt gave the temple to the
ancient world.
Jerusalem, as the best known city of
antiquity, may In its origin and develop
ment serve as a type for others. Before
Israel became a predominant power,
Palestine was ruled from a number of
fortified strongholds by petty kings.
In the Book of Chronicles it Is related
how David — the second King of those
who looked to Abraham as their great
ancestor — came from Hebron and took
the stronghold of Zion. 'And so
David dwelt in the fort and called it
the city of David,' and he built a house
there. 52

Directly afterwards, the ark was Of Beautiful
brought to the house of David, and set ^'"^^
up in some sort of movable shelter.
' And it came to pass when the king
sat in his house and had rest, that he
said, See now, I dwell in a house of
cedar, but the ark dwelleth within
curtains.' In this verse we have the
temple in the making — not merely as
a structure, but as an idea. The war
leader, settled in a house, at once sets
about building a fixed house for the
ark. The Temple of Solomon was
erected on the crest of the Eastern Hill,
now within the walls of Jerusalem, which,
from the record and the analogy of other
cities, must be the original fortified camp
of Zion. The actual rock summit of
this acropolis (now sheltered by the
Dome of the Rock) formed the founda
tion for the ark.
The portico of the temple fronted the
53

Of Beautiful dawn, and just before it stood the altar
Cities q£ burnt-offerings. The Court, not the
Shrine, was, as In all ancient temples, the
place of assembly. The great area of
the sanctuary, as It exists to-day, Is
largely the work of Herod's time ; the
walls built round the rocky slopes of
the Holy Hill to terrace up the Court
are of great height and built of Immense
stones, which almost rival those of Baal
bek. These walls sustained colonnades
which surrounded the Courts, and pro
vided shelter for the worshippers. A
few years since Clermont Ganneau found
the inscribed stone which warned off all
strangers from entering the sacred pre
cincts. By Herod's time the temple-
interest had entirely absorbed the old
acropolis. This holy Zion was separated
from the dwellings of the people by Its
walls, and by a deep valley which was
spanned by a noble bridge of one
54

immense arch, forming the approach to Of Beautiful
the 'Mountain of the House.' The Cities
town of dwellings and markets was also
surrounded by walls. The Holy City
occupying the original military strong
hold remained the last defensive position
in war. First a camp, then a palace, then
a sacred temenos, summarises the normal
development of an acropolis.
The valley on the farther side of the
acropolis, away from the town, was the
place of tombs.
This rock-city, set within a girdle of
hills, and bearing a crown of towered
walls on its dawn-lighted crest, became
the object of a passionate love to the
people. When, after the return from
Babylon, the new walls were finished,
we are told that they were dedicated
' with singing, with cymbals, psalteries,
and with harps.' To its poets Zion
became the symbol of a heavenly city,
55

Of Beautiful as naturally as, to Shelley, London sug-
Cities gested the reverse.
The growth of Athens was almost
exactly parallel to that of Jerusalem.
In Tiryns and Mycens we have similar
cities, but arrested in their development.
Any general photograph of Athens
shows at once the isolated table-rock of
the acropolis. This inland Island, which
now bears the great masterpiece of Greek
art — the temple of the city goddess — was
at first, like Zion, just a defended camp.
It was walled with cyclopean masonry,
and a palace was built In the enclosure
to which, doubtless, the first altar of
Athene was attached. A suburb, which
became the lower city, grew up outside
these walls ; and ultimately, as at Jeru
salem, the whole acropolis was absorbed
by the sacred buildings, and became the
high city of the gods round the feet of
whom the mortals dwelt. In this lower
56

city the truly civic buildings and other Of Beautiful
temples sprang up, and it, too, was ^'"^=
ultimately protected by walls.
With the aid of an ancient guide
book, and some knowledge of the exist
ing site and antiquities, we can almost
shut our eyes and wander through the
streets of the old city.
In re-reading the pages on Athens
from a translation of Pausanias, I have
been less surprised by the beauty, than
by the fresh humanness and the univer
sality of it all. Even in the dedications
of the temples and statues, traditional
names seem barely to disguise eternal
ideas. 'As one goes into the lower city,'
says our author, ' there is a building for
the preparation of processions.'
Then, after numerous temples and
statues, a roofed colonnade, containing
paintings of famous battles, was reached, 57

Of Beautiful and a temple to the Mother of the
Cities Gods. Next came the council-chamber
of the annually elected Five Hundred,
where were statues to Zeus, to Apollo
the persuader, and to Demos or Citizen
ship. Here were also paintings of great
legislators. By the council-chamber was seen a
small domed building which protected
the Sacred Fire. Here were statues to
Peace and to the Hearth ; on its walls
were inscribed the laws of Solon ; and
round it stood statues of the Heroes
from whom the tribes of Athens derived
their names, and of many other famous
townsfolk. Here also was a statue of
Peace fondling Wealth. After more
statues and temples, the Odeon — the
public music-room — was reached, where
by stood a statue of Dionysus, god of
revels. Among other things worth seeing
58

was a fountain called 'Nine Springs,' Of Beautiful
with a temple dedicated to the Earth- ^^"^^
Mother, and Persephone, the flower-
maid, and to him who ' first sowed corn
in the fields.' This was evidently quite
a temple of agriculture ; in front of it
was a statue of a golden bull being led
to sacrifice. Further on was a temple,
in honour of the victory at Marathon,
dedicated to Fair Fame. Then our
author mentions the temple of Hephaes-
tos (the present so-called temple of
Theseus). In the market-place stood a
statue of Hermes of the Market, pro
tector of bargains ; and here was a
portico with pictures of Athenian vic
tories, including the war of Troy. In
this portico were hung up shields of the
conquered, with written descriptions.
In front was a statue of Solon, the law
giver. And in the market were altars
to Shame, Rumour, Energy, and to
59

Of Beautiful Mercy, 'whom only the Greeks hon-
oured, for they regard the brotherhood
of men.' A gymnasium also belonged
to the market.
Then the existing temple to Olympian
Jove and Its statue of ivory and gold
are mentioned, and several statues to
colonial cities — a good way of teaching
imperial geography. In this quarter,
which belonged to a late date, was a
library having a ceiling of alabaster,
ivory and gold, and a gymnasium with
a hundred splendid marble columns.
Here also were the Lyceum and the
gardens, with a beautiful statue to
Aphrodite, the work of Alcamenes.
Close by the gardens ran the river
Ilissus, with altars on its banks to the
Muses and to Artemis the huntress, and
here was a great crescent-shaped stadium
of Pentelic marble. One of the most
interesting features in Athens was the
60

Street of Tripods, where memorials of Of Beautiful
the music-festivals were placed ; the Cmes
well-known monument of Lysicrates
being one of these.
Leaving the lower town for the
acropolis, a statue to Earth as Rearer of
Children was passed. ' To the acro
polis,' says our guide, ' there is only one
approach, and it allows of no other,
being everywhere precipitous and walled.'
The splendid gateway of the Holy City
had a gallery of pictures on the left, and
to the right the Temple of Victory.
Inside the entrance portico the whole
area appeared covered with temples,
sacred objects and statues. Here was a
bronze representation of the wooden
horse of Troy. There was a group of
the Earth praying to Zeus for rain ; and,
above all, the great bronze Athene rose
so high that her plumed helmet was seen
from out at sea. 6i

Of Beautiful About half-way on the irregular en-
Cities closure (which levelled up the crest of
the rock) to the right, stands the
Parthenon, which contained the lovely
gold and ivory statue of Athene and a
treasure of beautiful objects. Before
the eastern front stood the altar ; the
temple of Erechtheus, with its sculptured
porch, stands to the left. Looking over
the battlements of the enclosure on the
south side, two vast circular open-air
theatres are seen, the rising marble seats
following spaces hollowed out of the
rocky sides of the hill. Farther away
to the west is Mars Hill, where the law
pleadings were made, and here, appro
priately, was a temple to the Fates.
Outside the walls was the Street of the
Tombs. According to Plutarch, some com
plained that Athens was over-adorned,
like a woman wearing too many jewels ;
62

but Pericles answered that surplus wealth Of Beautiful
was best spent in such works as would ^"'^^
bring eternal glory to the city, and at
the same time employ her artificers. —
Not a bad answer for the days of ignor
ance before Adam Smith.
A similar account might be given
for other Greek cities, especially those
which, like Delos and Olympia, have
been thoroughly explored. Everywhere
we find the dual city inhabited by gods
and men. Everywhere it was conceived
as a larger home for the citizen, a great
open-air museum and picture gallery,
shadowed by groves and surrounded by
gardens. Everywhere the city was the
scene of a dignified common life, where
frequent processions wound along sacred
ways and brought first-fruits to the
temples. Everywhere a beautiful grave-
ground was attached to the city, the
tombs carved and painted with simple 63

Of Beautiful incidents or allegories : a mother taking
Cities leave of her daughters, a young man
borne away by Sleep and Death, a lady
looking at her jewels for the last time
and laying them aside in their casket,'
a warrior leading his horse, an old man
with his dog.
After the conquests of Alexander,
certain cities were built in the East, of
great formal magnificence but lacking
the more pathetic beauty of Jerusalem
and Athens. Such cities were Alex
andria, Antioch, Palmyra, Gerash, and
several others in Syria. Within the
walls of these, as usually planned, two
avenues of columns at right angles ran
each way from the gates through the
city, and met at a central point, where
a four - arched vault uniting them
covered the Golden Milestone. The
chief temples, hippodromes, and other
public buildings, were symmetrically
64

placed to form part of a spectacular Of Beautiful
whole. At Gerash, the street of ^'"^^
columns running east and west led up
to a screen of columns disposed as a
vast hemicycle.
Rome itself, in its time of maxi
mum, was overloaded with this merely
material grandeizr, but it never became
formalised to any great extent in its
plan. Its development up to a point
is according to the ancient type. The
first Rome, the sacred quadrangular
city, was fortified on the Palatine Hill.
Within it stood the (so-called) Palace
of Romulus and the Great Altar. Here
later stood the palaces of the Emperors ;
and the hill ultimately, it Is said, gave
its name to the royal dwellings.
On the slopes of the neighbouring
Capitollne was the town of the non-
Latin peoples. The valley between —
common to the two— was occupied by
E 65

Of Beautiful the great Forum, which in later days
Cities became the centre of civic Rome. It
was then marble-paved, and entered by
triumphal arches ; through It ran the
sacred way to the Palatine. In the
Forum was the great Basilica of Justice,
the Temple of Peace, the meeting-place
of the Senate, and the honorary statues.
At the end of this paved area was the
raised tribunal. Its front decorated with
the bronze beaks of conquered ships — the
Rostra. Close by was the Golden Mile
stone, the central stone of the Roman
world. In the Forum was the sacred fig-
tree, and not far off stood the primitive
temple of Vesta, the little dome raised
over the city hearth of pure fire.
No attempt can here be made to
describe the monuments of Rome : the
temple of Apollo on the Palatine, with
Its Ivory door and statues of all manner
of precious substance ; the great palaces
66

of the Emperors ; the Circus Maximus Of Beautiful
and Coliseum ; the temple of Jupiter Cities
on the Capltoline, with its roof of gilt
bronze and gold - plated doors ; the
Pantheon and splendid public baths.
In the days of the Empire, when
commerce ramped In Rome, rings and
syndicates for buying up property were
formed. An edict characterises this as
' a murderous commerce. Insulting the
public happiness, and covering the
ground with ruins instead of being an
encouragement to new building.'
Rome and Constantinople were the
two cities of antiquity which were chiefly
affected and transformed by Christianity.
All ancient roads led to Rome, all
modern roads lead from It. Still, Rome
is more pagan and Constantinople more
Christian ; the latter stands, as it were,
this side of the watershed of history.
Theodoric the Goth tried to incite the
67

Of Beautiful citizens of Rome to care for it, writing
Cities J.Q tj^ej^ (-}ial- ' even the beasts loved their
dens ' ; but during the earlier Middle
Ages the city remained a ruinous waste,
with here and there a great basilica.
Byzantium had been comparatively
unimportant until refounded as Con
stantinople, and It was not till the sixth
to the tenth century that it reached its
fullest development, and long after that
it maintained its reputation as the great
typical city.
Constantinople is situated on a nar
row spit of land which pushes out
eastward, something like a model to
scale of the county of Kent.
On the north side is the deep-sea
harbour — the Golden Horn. On the
west the city Is cut off from the rest of
Europe by the land wall : to the south
is the Sea of Marmora, which surrounds
the eastern point and there becomes the
68

Bosphorus. Reverting to the plan of Of Beautiful
Kent, the estuary of the Thames repre- Cities
sents the Golden Horn ; the English
Channel and North Sea take the place
of Marmora and Bosphorus ; the North
Foreland Is, as It were, Seraglio Point.
The Bosphorus Is, however, but a nar
row strait, and beyond It Is seen a
range of purple mountains streaked with
snow — the outworks of Asia.
All round the sea margin of the
city is built a battlemented wall, with
towers at Intervals. On the land side
the defence Is a line of triple wall and
moat which joins the extremities of
the sea-wall (Procoplus says), ' like the
clasp of a diadem.' On the high ground
at the extreme point the first Greek
city had been built, and this always
remained the acropolis. Constantine
largely rebuilt the city, and Justinian
adorned it, but its greatest splendour 69

Of Beautiful was probably subsequent to the reign
Cities ^f gj^gQ ^i^g Macedonian.
Looked at from the Bosphorus, the
leading first impression would have been
of a vast multitude of flat domes, — not
merely several, but the space Inside the
walls crowded with domes like a tray
full of marbles, large and small. The
seaward slope of the old acropolis at
the point was occupied by the palace
area. This was a large garden con
taining Isolated buildings : dwellings,
churches, fountains, exedrae, a pharos.
One of the palaces, the House of Jus
tinian, still stands built on the actual
sea-wall. Another was the Golden
Triclinium, and a third the Palace of
Porphyry. The gardens, then as now,
would be full of tall cypresses. The
buildings were of thin bricks and white
marble : some of them would be sheeted
with slabs of coloured marbles ; others
70

would be covered with a golden mail Of Beautiful
of mosaic. The doors and some of the Cities
domes were of gilt bronze, — such, for
instance, was the dome of the gate
called Chalce, opening from the palace
to the square towards the city. This
square, called the Augustasum, was be
tween the palace and Sta. Sophia, which
Is built on the crest of the old acropolis.
One of many tall columns bearing
statues, which rose like minarets among
the domes of the city, stood in this
square ; it was plated with gilt bronze,
and supported a colossal gilt bronze
statue of Justinian on horseback. Here
also was the silver statue of Eudoxia
on its porphyry pedestal. This square
has many correspondences with the
great Forum of Rome ; In it was the
Senate, and amongst the buildings sur
rounding it was a dome standing above
arches opening to four ways, which
71

Of Beautiful formed a canopy to the golden mlle-
C"i^5 stone of Constantinople. Just outside
the Augustseum was the entrance to the
great Hippodrome, which contained an
Egyptian obeHsk, the tripod from Delphi,
and a crowd of statues. Opening from
the Augustasum, a wide colonnaded
street ran backwards through the city to
the Forum of Constantine — a circular
area surrounded by colonnades, where the
porphyry column still stands. Beyond
this a main street led past the Church of
the Holy Apostles, where the emperors
were burled, to the great marble tower
In the land walls, called the Golden Gate.
Most of the other streets were so
arranged as to open towards the sea, the
prospect of which was carefully guarded
in the city buUdlng-act ; even the house-
fronts above the ground story were
mostly twisted round on corbels to assist
In gaining them a seaward aspect.
72

The city was, and is, full of greenery. Of Beautiful
The numerous monasteries had large Cities
gardens, and every church had a cloister
in front fuU of trees, and having foun
tains In the midst. In other places
gardens and even cornfields were found
within the walls. Some of the churches
were covered all over externally with
gold mosaic. One of these was the
Church of St. Mary of the Fountain,
described by a Spanish ambassador
about 1400. It was surrounded by
beautiful gardens full of cypress and
fruit trees ; and outside, ' It was all
richly worked in gold, azure, and other
colours.' In the narthex were mosaics
of the Emperor Romanus and the
Virgin, and of thirty towns given to
the church by the emperor, and here
also was a Jesse-tree, ' all in mosaic
and most marvellous.'
For last impressions, see the blue
73

Of Beautiful sea washing the towers of the ten miles
Cities q£ ^^j^_ Look at the thousand low
domes, lead-grey or gilt, backed by
tall cypresses and interrupted now and
then by a tall, statue-bearing column.
Let our last look of all be at Sta.
Sophia, which surmounts the seaward
point. Its dome — star-sprinkled to the
Interior — expanded above ' pastures ' of
marble on rainbow arches. The altar
Is of jewelled gold, standing under a
canopy of silver. From the vaults
hang such a multitude of lights that at
night the forty windows of the lighted
dome seem like an illuminated coronet
suspended above the imperial city.
The new influence in art. Christian
and Constantlnopolltan, soon reached
Italy, and then came farther west and
north along the old Roman routes,
along the coast of the Mediterranean,
over the Alps to Lyons and Central
74

France and Britain, along the river Of Beautiful
courses of Germany where Charles the Cities
Great made AIx a Byzantine city.
About the year looo this Eastern
tradition, under the influence of Western
energy, began to change into a new art
which was to become the glorious
Gothic of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. Of this period I shall take Paris and
London as types, passing by Venice
built in the sea ; Bologna and Verona,
those wonderful towns of towers within
their swallow-tailed battlements, Flo
rence, Pisa, Lucca, Siena. We must
also pass by the great church and craft
cities of France, and England, and
Germany — Tours, Never s, Bourges,
Chartres, Amiens, Canterbury, Lincoln,
York, Winchester, Nuremberg, Prague.
We must see them all in one general
glance as from cloudland. Look at the
75

Of Beautiful green belt of Europe, sea-washed, veined
with streams, bossed with mountains,
and dotted all over with towered
cities. Each Is of no great size ; each
Is simple and self-contained within Its
walls, one larger building, as It were,
laid down midst vineyards, set on a hill,
or strung on a river's thread. See
from our high view-point the flood-line
of approaching dawn light up, one after
the other, these miracles of splrework
and sculpture.
In the Middle Ages the mere getting
through of life appears to have been
made romantic : the people seem to
have played at war romantically, to have
traded artistically, and to have built
fairy architecture.
There Is indeed much in a habit of
mind ; It Is impossible to say how much
of the present is shaped, not by neces
sity, but by what Stevenson called
76

' commercial imagination,' the make- Of Beautiful
believing of politicians. ' Ah 1' It is ^^"^^
likely to be said, ' those of the Middle
Ages equally looked back to a Golden
Age long gone by' ; but really It is
hardly so. Indeed, so far as the outer
world goes, everything written and
wrought seems to show that these
people rather liked being alive. Every
where it is apparent that they knew
they were having a gooctl time.
If any history of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centjiries is ev\er attempted
before the monuments are \all restored
out of existence, it should appear from
the chronicles and romances that Art
was not then the result of a blind
instinct and accident; those people
knew very well that they Hked sunlight
on whitewashed walls, blue sky seen
through traceried parapets, pinnacles
appearing over trees, the twinkhng of
77

Of Beautiful gilt vanes, sharp arches, long aisles,
dues bright windows, and stories, which
everywhere —
' In gold and azure over all
Depainted were upon the wall.'
If a romance writer or illuminator
wanted to describe or figure a castle
of romance, he did not recall some
mouldering ruin, but went and looked
at the newest thing from which the
scaffolding hafl xrard.y been struck.
Thus In on& romance a ' huge high '
castle Is sai/d to have had so many
towers, pirinacles, and chimneys, ' all
chalk whlte^' that it seemed to be ' pared
out of paper.'
Perhaps the most amusing city of
English romance Is that In Lydgate's
PP^ar of Troy. Its marble walls were
200 cubits high, and at each corner a
great crown of gold fretted with rich
stones shone bright in the sunshine.
78

Six gates of brass, In as many towers, and Of Beautiful
a vast number of turrets, surrounded the Cities
walls. On the tops of the turrets were
raised up brass figures of savage beasts
— bears, lions, tigers, boars, dragons,
harts, elephants, unicorns, bulls, and
griffins. The houses were ornamented
by ' craft of masonry,' and covered with
lead. The streets were paved chequer
wise, white and red, and along them ran
cloisters, 'For men to walk together twain and twain.
To keep them dry when it happed to rain.'
But how came this marvellous and
universal beauty In things made ? Is
Art a wind that bloweth where it listeth,
or is it subject to conditions ? I find
the central principle of the Middle
Ages not In feudalism, not even In
the Church, but in the guild system.
The Church itself was a guild which
permitted no underselling or adultera- 79

Of Beautiful tion in its own sphere. The feudal
^''^^ system was practically the rule of the
guild of land- and war-lords, while the
universities, as Is well known, were
guilds of scholars. By means of their
guilds the craftsmen, too, won a place,
and built up and governed the free
cities. So was good work understood.
So the good workman was honoured.
The place taken by the craftsmen,
and mediaeval art, are complementary
phenomena. The misleading and, in
deed, meaningless phrase, ' Gothic archi
tecture,' should give way to some such
term as Mason-craft or Guild-work.
Paris was the great and typical Gothic
city — supreme In all, it was Canterbury,
London, and Oxford in one ; a royal
and ecclesiastical capital, a university,
and a great mart and city of craft. It
was the centre of the medlasval move
ment, which is best symbolised and
80

summed up by the noble Lady Church Of Beautiful
standing at the middle point of the Cities
little island in the Seine, which was
covered by the original Roman town.
Paris was by acclamation the most
beautiful city of the Western world.
The fourteenth century English author
of Philobiblon says : ' What a rush of
pleasure rejoiced our heart as often as
we visited Paris, the paradise of the
world. On account of our love the
days appeared too few, and we ever
longed to remain there.'
Old Paris has been best understood
in the chapters inserted in Victor Hugo's
Notre Dame — chapters written, as he
says, to inspire the nation with a love
for their national architecture. Hugo
is one of the dozen or two people who
have ever really seen Gothic art, and his
description rises to almost a shriek in
its clear intensity of understanding. I
F 8i

Of Beautiful know nothing more ironical than that
Cities sixty years after he described the
'leprosy' (It is his word) of restoration
which had disfigured the fair face of
the great cathedral, we should still be
energetically pulling down or peeling
the skin off the last examples of Gothic
art. Paris was born on the little cradle-
shaped island of the Seine which to-day
forms the city proper : the city was joined
to the mainland by two bridges. It has
been enlarged at different times by
enclosing segments on the north and
south banks of the river within fortified
walls. Within these walls the houses
accumulated — like water in a basin —
to overflow and have the boundaries
again enlarged.
Geographically, as well as in organisa
tion, mediaeval Paris was clearly divided
into the city, the university, and the town.
82

The university occupied the 'Southwark' Of Beautiful
of Paris, and was crowded with colleges Cities
around the Sorbonne. On the Island of
the city stood Notre Dame ; the Old
Palace with its vast hall surrounded
inside with statues of all the kings, and
covered by wooden vaults painted
blue, fleur-de-lise in gold ; and the Ste.
Chapelle, that wonderful crown of stone
built by St. Louis' mason above the
Crown of Thorns. The King's Great
Hall, which became the Palais de Justice,
was the Westminster Hall of Paris. The
Ste. Chapelle was, like St. Stephen's, the
Palace Chapel. There was as well, a
crowd of some score of churches on the
island. During the rivalry of Richard i.
and Philip Augustus, the town on the
north side of the river, and the univer
sity quarter to the south, were included
within walls. On the river bank on
the north side, in a position analogous 83

Of Beautiful to that of the Tower of London— just
Cities beyond the walls, that Is, but westward —
the King built his castle, the Louvre,
a reply to Richard's ' Saucy Castle '
(Chateau Galllard) which crowns a
chalk cliff at Les Andelys, by Seine-side.
Later, in the fourteenth century, the wall
of the northern town was rebuilt in a
much larger circuit to include the
Louvre, which, under Charles v., was
much Increased and became an enormous
fortification, where as many as twenty-
three towers are said to have surrounded
the great keep. On either river bank
were several other palaces, dozens of
churches, Inns, markets, and the streets
occupied by the various crafts — petrified
waves of a sea of gables. A zone of
great abbeys surrounded the city, within
and without the walls. Beyond, the
open country was diapered with castles,
monasteries, village churches. Look
84

back in thought, says Hugo, see the Of Beautiful
dawn break over this ' hedge ' of towers "^^
and spires, detach on a clear horizon the
profile of old Paris. Listen ! as the bells
wake, can anything the world over be so
moving and so joyous as this tumult
of sound, a very furnace of harmony,
a thousand bronze voices chanting
through pipes of stone three hundred
feet high. ' And then compare ' 1
When Roman London was founded,
the river was a great spreading flood
with islands here and there, and several
streams running into it on the ground
now occupied by the larger city. Close
against the east bank of one of these
streams — which in consequence came to
be called the ' Wall-brook' — a large walled
citadel was built at the head of a wooden
bridge which passed over the river.
Edgware Road was then, as now, the
north-west road ; Bede tells us it was
85

Of Beautiful called Watling Street. If we look at a
Cities rehef map and see how in a perfectly
straight line it passes the Hampstead
Hills, we shall see good reason for Its
position. Approaching London, It turned
sharp to the left and passed along the
course of Holborn. The citadel above-
mentioned must not be confused with
the city Included within London Wall ;
it was rather a great castle or fort, the
ordinary dwellings being without It.
Cannon Street Station seems to occupy
the acropolis of London ; London Stone
seems to mark it historically. It was
not until the fourth century that the
city wall was built, of which London
Wall marks the position northwards.
Several writers have thought that the
Roman wall did not extend so far west
as to Include the site of St. Paul's ; not
only does this seem likely, but from the
congested nature of the wards in central

London as compared with those both Of Beautiful
east and west, I think it probable that Cities
the Roman boundary was considerably
within the present city limits. Indeed,
the symmetrical arrangement of the
streets between Foster Lane on the
west, and BIshdpsgate Street on the east,
suggests that the Roman city did not
extend far beyond these lines.
Of the pre-Norman age many facts
may be gleaned. There Is no doubt
that St. Paul's was founded at the be
ginning of the seventh century. A
grave-stone found in the churchyard,
now in the Guildhall, records two
Danes. In the Heimsiiringla there is
an interesting description of London
Bridge in the reign of ^thelred. ' A
bridge was there across the river, be
twixt the city and Southwark [called a
' cheaping-town'], so broad that wagons
might be driven past each other there-
87

Of Beautiful over. On the bridge were made strong-
Cities holds, both castles and bulwarks looking
down stream, so high that they reached
a man above his waist ; but under the
bridge were poles stuck Into the river.' ^
The folk-mote of the people was held
at the north-east angle of St, Paul's
Churchyard against the Cheap ; here
public questions were settled by their
Yea or Nay.
In Norman times the city became
very prosperous. The Tower was now
built, and St. Paul's and the palace of
Westminster were rebuilt. Apart from
the great buildings. It would in much
resemble a Devonshire village ; many
houses were mud and the roofs were
thatched. According to Fitz-Stephen,
the twelfth century historian, there were
in his time thirteen conventual and 126
smaller churches. Smithfleld, he says,
1 Ed. W. Morris, ii. p. 13.
88

was the playground of the people ; round Of Beautiful
about the city were meadows and many Cities
streams by which the wheels of mills were
' put in motion making cheerful sound ' ;
' many were the excellent springs of clear
water flowing over bright stones ' — such
were Holy -Well, Clerkenwell, and St.
Clement's. Within the city, craftsmen
following similar occupations were
grouped together. The dwellers In the
city were noteworthy, he continues, for
handsomeness in dress and manners.
' It is happy in the healthiness of Its air,
in the Christian rehgion, in the strength
of its defences, the nature of its site, the
honour of its citizens, the modesty of
its matrons — it is pleasant in sports and
fruitful of noble men.' Such was the
ideal of the ' Dark Ages.' Fitz-Stephen
was not alone in his admiration for
London ; the writer of the Chronicle of
Ingulphus says he was born 'In the most
89

Of Beautiful beautiful city of London.' In the
ballad of Chevy Chace occurs the line
' Worde Is commyn to lovly London.'
' Beautiful ' was doubtless the right
epithet for the city when, small and
white. It was served by one long bridge,
and was dominated by the ' famous '
church of St. Paul's.
Perhaps London reached the maximum
of its romantic period at the mid-point
of time between the two descriptions of
Fitz-Stephen and Stow — the end of the
fourteenth century. London had then
recovered from the effects of the Black
Death, but its romantic beauty had not
been altered by the later merchant-
Gothic of the fifteenth century. It was
the London of Chaucer.
Approaching along the Canterbury
Road, we should first see the tall spire
of St. Paul's ; at its apex, glittering in the
sun, is the great gilt relic bowl which
90

contained a fragment of the True Cross. Of Beautiful
Passing the Norman Abbey at Ber- Cities
mondsey, and a great number of inns
which especially gathered In this quarter,
we come to the gateway of the bridge.
The inns just mentioned are galleried
buildings surrounding open courts like
eastern khans, both alike being derived
from Rome and Constantinople. The
bridge Is a work of most romantic early
Gothic of King John's time. It Is very
narrow, and thus seems of exaggerated
length. At Intervals jut out the deep
triangular recesses over the piers, one
of which bears the Chapel of St. Thomas.
On the left, by the south end of the
bridge. Is the noble church of St. Mary
Overle, rebuilt after a fire in 1 2 1 3 . Close
to the far end, on the right. Is the church
of St. Magnus, showing traces, doubtless,
of its remote foundation by the Danes.
Still further to the right (beyond the
91

Of Beautiful quay-pools where the craft are drawn
Cities ^jp \^y the yards of the traders) rises
the great square keep of the Tower of
London surrounded by a circlet of
towers within a moat. Westward from
the Tower stretches the town. What
at first sight strikes the eye Is the mul
titude of tall spires, rising behind the
quay walls like the masts of a harbour
full of ships.
These spires were of wood covered
with lead, some of them being brightly
painted and gilt. The city was thronged
with churches, and almost every church
seems to have had at least one such
spire. Above them all rose the central
spire of St. Paul's, 500 feet high, the
highest spire In the world. Close by
eastward, was another great spire over
the detached belfry which contained the
big bells of the city ; this was also leaded,
and was surmounted by a figure of
92

St. Paul. Still eastward, there was another Of Beautiful
such spire, at St. Michael, CornhlU ; to ^"'^^
the west rose that of St. Bartholomew,
Smithfield ; and another was situated at
St. John's Priory, Clerkenwell. I have
been thus particular as to these leaded
spires, as they give the dominating
character to the city as seen against the
sky — the profile of first and last Impres
sion. They were In no sense make
shifts for stone ; Stow, for instance, says
that the last-mentioned, built in 1381,
was a most curious piece of workmanship,
graven, gilt, and enamelled, to the great
beautifying of the city.
As Constantinople was a city of low
domes, and Bologna a city of towers, so
London was, first of all, a city of leaded
spires. The next thing to strike us is
the snowy whiteness of everything : the
houses, churches, and even St. Paul's it
self, are all whitewashed, and illuminated 93

Of Beautiful here and there with pictures of St.
Cities Christopher, a Majesty, a Virgin, or
some heraldry and knotwork. Recall
to your minds some bright little fishing
town or out-of-the-way village, for In
regard to their whitewash these are still
in the mediaeval period, and Gothic
London was much more like a great
village than it was like the present fifty
square miles of solid building and paving
stones. Some of the larger houses were
splendid stone buildings standing over
vaulted crypts. The smaller houses
were also of stone, of timber framing,
or even of clay walling ; the roofs were
of red tiles. The best general idea of
London before the fire may be obtained
In a coloured drawing of 1588 by
Smith the ' Rouge Dragon.' Here the
red roofs, white walls, and lead spires
are the predominating characteristics.
I should hke to explore the old city
94

further ; to look into St. Paul's, a great Of Beautiful
avenue of stone, twenty- five arches long ; Cities
to remark the teredos of enamel, the
green porphyry pavement of the choir ;
to inspect the wonderful chapter-house
and cloisters, two stories high. If we
rightly timed our visit, we should see a
chorister in the guise of an angel censing
the church.
Leaving St, Paul's Churchyard by the
north-east archway in its enclosing wall,
we should pass St. Paul's Cross and
the isolated belfry before referred to.
According to Dugdale and Stow, this
tower is mentioned as early as Henry i.
In it hung the heaviest bells in the city,
and when the people assembled below it
in folkmote, they were summoned by
these bells. In an interesting article on
such belfries in France, VioUet le Due
says : — ' When, in the eleventh century,
the first communes were established, they
95

Of Beautiful assembled at the sound of the bell.
Cities From the end of the twelfth century
towers called beffrois were built for the
town bells exclusively, visible signs of
the franchise of the commune. Later,
the belfry was united to the Maison de
Ville, the municipal prison. But few
of these " monuments of the liberty
of the people " still exist In France.
From these belfries rang out the hours
of labour and of rest, the curfew and
the firebell. The belfry was for a long
time the only town hall, the " municipal
m.orm.va.^nX. par excellence."' The 'Bell-
house' by St. Paul's, which was such a
symbol of corporate citizenship, has
been strangely overlooked.
Then we would go out Into Cheap
(in early documents called the Forum),
and see the craftsmen's shops and the
new Guildhall, rebuilt about 1336 ; or,
leaving Ludgate, with a glance at its
96

:ies

sculptured kings, pass along the Strand Of Beautiful
by the waterside towers and palaces ; ^itie
by the Temple and Henry the Third's
House of Jews (destroyed this year,
1 896, by the Keepers of Public Records),
till we came to the lovely Eleanor Cross
at Charing, and at last to Westminster,
where the immense new roof is just
being erected over the old Norman hall
of the king's palace, and the workmen,
under Henry Yevele, the great master-
mason of the time, are at work on the
nave of the Church. Happy should we be
if we had met some pageant of the Guild
Companies on our way; or seen the
people go a-maying, ' when every man,
except impediment, would walk into the
sweet meadows and green woods, there
to rejoice their spirits with the beauty
and savour of sweet flowers, and with
the harmony of the birds.' On this
May-day too, I think, we might have
G 97

Of Beautiful heard the voices of the choir of singers
Cities filtering through the air from St. Paul's
steeple. Such, in briefest, was Gothic
London ; such were the notions of
masons and carpenters as to a city worth
looking at and living In.
I cannot stay, nor have I the will,
to follow the history of London after
the fire. As rebuilt by Wren, It
was fine enough, but all romance had
gone ; scholarship had superseded living
art. Instead of beauty that all under
stood and enjoyed, a pretentious and
unreallsable grandeur was aimed at.
The age of Dons had set in.
This time Is best represented by the
suburban houses and gardens, pleasant
enough places for those who could afford
such islands of comfort round a sea
of Hogarthlan misery. The houses. It
Is true, were but prosaic square boxes
of brick, with a few tags of Latin
98

' ornaments ' inserted here and there, and Of Beautiful
the life was a somewhat thin gentility con- Cities
gruous with Sheraton furniture, Sheffield
plate, and Chelsea china. Still, the gar
dens were nice, especially the blossoming
trees — limes, chestnuts, acacias, tulip-
trees, catalpas and magnolias, mulberry
and medlar, whitethorn, lilac, and syrlnga.
Coming to modern London, I must
confess that my heart fails me at the
enormousness — the enormity — of it. A
half-hundred square miles, once wood
and cornland, roofed over, where we
grow sickly like grass under a stone,
intersected by interminable avenues all
asphalt, lamp-posts, pipes and wires : a
coll of underground labyrinth which
Dante might have added to his world of
torment — the Inner Circle : a gloomy
sky above, fi-om which falls a sticky
slime of soot : public pageantry reduced
to the two shows of the 5 th and 9th of
99

Of Beautiful November : gardens which seem to imi-
C"'^^ tate stamped zinc — such are the charac
teristics of modern London.
Little good it serves to wail or rail,
yet at times the most of us must shiver
with despair, and examine chances of
escape like creatures untamed to a cage,
longing for the time when the weeds
and flowers biding their time under
the paving-stones will again expand to
the rains and wave in the breezes.
Away, however, with fear or false
hopes, delusions and illusions ! The
time win surely come when men will
tire of perfecting means to mean ends —
the wasting of life for the killing of joy.
Surely these telegraph ropes and iron
bridges need only exist as long as they
amuse people.
Meantime, Ideals must be translated
Into the bald prose of betterment. And
here, indeed, there is much of good hope

if we will only recognise how ugly Of Beautiful
London is, even amongst modern cities. Cities
and clear ourselves of the notion that
just it is normal, and that everything
Is funny which isn't like Oxford Street
or Mile End Road.
First of everything, I think we re
quire some accessible and authoritative
history of London, and especially of the
mediseval period, which has been so
overlaid by the annals of the coffee
houses and playhouses.
Paris has a worthy history in Hoff-
bauer's fine folios, in which the early
city is reconstructed step by step. If
we are to have good citizens, we must
teach a tradition of citizenship in our
schools, as In the army the men are
instructed In the traditions of their
regiment. I would have a series of
historical maps built up, one over the
other, showing the growth of the city

Of Beautiful from Roman days, accompanied by eight
Cities Qj. ^.gj^ handbooks — the best that might
be made, in the spirit of Mr. Ruskin's
Our Fathers have told us — treating, say,
of such subjects as: — (i) Pre-Conquest
London ; (2) Old St. Paul's ; (3) Medi
aeval London ; (4) The Monasteries ;
(5) The Craft Guilds; (6) Westminster;
(7) Pageants and City Life. If only
the County Council could subsidise the
French Government to undertake a
history of London !
We should approach the question of
the beautifying of London from the side
of tidying up of necessary work : there
is little hope just now of Art produced
with malice aforethought. We must,
above all, get rid of the grandeur Idea
of Art. We have only to go to Vienna
to see what modern mechanical grandeur
will do for a city. Art is but the
garment of life. It is the well doing of

what needs doing. Art Is not the pride Of Beautiful
of the eye and the purse, it Is a link Ciues
with the child-spirit and the child-ages
of the world. The Greek drama grew
up out of the village dance ; the Greek
theatre was developed from the stone-
paved circles where the dances took
place. If we gathered the children who
now dance at the street corners into
some better dancing-grounds, might we
not hope for a new music, a new drama,
and a new architecture .''
Unless there is a ground of beauty,
vain it is to expect the fruit of beauty.
Falling the spirit of Art, It is futile to
attempt to leaven this huge mass of
' man styes ' by erecting specimens of
architect's architecture, and dumping
down statues of people In cocked hats.
We should begin on the humblest
plane by sweeping streets better, washing
and whitewashing the houses, and taking
103

Of Beautiful care that such railings and lamp-posts as
are required are good lamp-posts and
railings, the work of the best artists
attainable. It were easy to take a map of London,
and marking on It a few Important
buildings, strike avenues across It h la
Haussmann, — easy and vain. Repudiat
ing, as I do, all idea of grandlfying
London at a coup, or to any great extent
formalising It, I am certain that, before
It can be thought of as a whole — a city
— there must be some sort of more or
less actual, or sentimental, order and
unity given to It. Merely a central red
dot on a map, with a circle of so many
miles radius having some more dignified
association than cab fares, would be a
comfort to one. At present, London
Is as structureless as one of Its own fogs.
In counting up the great primary
facts of London, the magnificent curve
104

of the river from Westminster to Of Beautiful
London Bridge comes first. One end Cities
of this, our Golden Horn — or, rather.
Golden Bow — rests at St. Paul's, the
acropolis of the old city ; the other end
is at Westminster Abbey, the lovely
Gothic church of the seat of govern
ment. Waterloo Bridge, which Is quite '
the most splendid modern monument we
have, accurately bisects the river front, '
which, moreover, has been very respect
ably embanked. Our great representa
tive building of Central London is the
British Museum, which stands at the
apex of a triangle on the base given by
St. Paul's and Westminster. This
triangle, resting on the river, with Its
angles at St. Paul's, the Abbey, and the
Museum, comprises Central London.
By a most remarkable chance, the line
of Waterloo Bridge, carried northward,
heads straight for the facade of the
i°5

Of Beautiful Museum, and southwards. Is continued
^"'^^ to the Obehsk, the point of the star of
roads of South London. This line Is
the axis of modern London. Making
an avenue from Waterloo Bridge to the
Museum would alone almost give an
organic system to London. Such an
avenue should be wisely extravagant,
wide, full of trees, and preserved from
carriage traffic, for which, indeed. It
would be too steep. It would open up
the river to the heart of London, and,
properly managed. It would be easy, by
reason of its steepness, to make the
river visible from any part of it, even
from the steps of the Museum. The
river is now as nearly as possible wasted
to us, whereas the blue of it, with the
passing traffic in summer, and the
wheeling gulls in winter, might furnish
delight unending.
The short alleys opening from the
io6

Strand to the Thames should also be Of Beautiful
widened so as to give recurring sights Cities
of the river. Our main avenue, with
its freedom from vulgar traffic, should
be a Sacred Way, a place of fountains
and trees, where statues might be erected
to the ' Fortune of the City,' and to the
city fathers — Erkenwald, our forgotten
saint; Mayors Fitz-Alwin,FItz-Thomas,
and Walter Hervey; Bishop Braybrook;
Stow, the humble chronicler ; Chaucer ;
Wren, the first and last ' great ' architect.
All attempts to make such an avenue
an artery for cabs and omnibuses
would be worse than useless, and would
only lead to the destruction of Water
loo Bridge as inadequate for Increased
traffic, and the substitution for It of some
monstrosity in rolled steel and red paint.
Waterloo Bridge as It stands is second in
importance only to St. Paul's, and must
be preserved at any cost and sacrifice. 107

Of Beautiful At the head of the avenue the Museum
"^^ should be opened out to Oxford Street,
forming a good big space into which
would jut Hawksmoor's church. Here
also should stand the Egyptian monu
ment now on the Embankment. Where
the road intersected the Strand, a monu
mental stone might be placed for Golden
Milestone and Omphalos of the city and
the world.
Once grant the existence of such a
half-mile of avenue, done with sufficient
nobility of purpose, and all future im
provements would certainly fall Into
place, without any large and violent
change in the direction of the streets
which have grown up along the courses
of bridle roads and field paths. For
instance, whenever — If ever — civilisation
is carried to South London, some im
provements would be devised having
relation to this axial line. Possibly a
1 08

fine street, across the chord of the river's Of Beautiful
course, linking two bridge-ends, might Cities
ultimately become the direct line of
passage from east to west.
We have seen that the north bank of
the river bow is embanked from West
minster to Blackfriars. If a similar
embankment were completed on the
south side, a ring of river-front exercise
ground would be opened up hardly to
be matched in any city of Europe.
Round about this area of Central
London stand the railway stations, places
now of indescribable shabbiness and
squalor, but capable of suggesting
something to the imagination. They
are the great gates of the greater roads
— portals to the outer world.
Finally, a dividing off of London
from non -London is essential. We
must aU have wished for some ' reserva
tion,' and I have heard it suggested 109

Of Beautiful that a zone embracing Richmond Park,
Cities Putney, Wimbledon, and so on, is even
now a possibility. Most of such a belt
might be made use of as fruitful garden
ground ; but somewhere here I should
like a quiet street of tombs, where the
more distinguished dead might He,
whose names were otherwise recorded
In the names of the streets.
Be all this as it may, a new and better
London can only be completed as old
Rome was founded — by turning a
plough trench round about It.

Ill
OF THE DECORATION
OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS
WALTER CRANE

OF THE DECORATION OF
PUBLIC BUILDINGS
There are, apparently, two theories or
decoration in buildings : one might be
termed the organic theory. In which the
decoration Is an essential and Integral
part of the structure, to which It gives
final expression ; and the other, the
inorganic theory. In which decoration is
considered merely as so much super
added or surface ornament, and often
not so much to emphasise as to conceal
structure, or to furnish a mask for it.
In the Greek (Doric) temple, the
H IT3

Of the sublimated form — or perhaps the pro-
decorationjf Public
Buildings

Decoration totype — of the Greek house, following
of Public . , ... ^ . . .
in stone the tradition of primitive

wooden structure, certain spaces natur
ally occurred — such as the spaces be
tween the angle of the pediment and
the horizontal lintel, and between the
triglyphs or beam ends, and these spaces
were appropriately filled with sculptured
slabs which served at once the structural
function of closing the apertures and
enriching and relieving the building with
expressive sculpture.
With the development of Gothic
architecture, sculptured decoration (as
Indeed decoration of all kinds) became
more and more important, while still
strictly organic, being used to emphasise
structural necessities such as the ribs
and functions of interior vaults, the
caps of the clustered shafts, the tracery
of windows, as well as the spandrlis of
114

arches, corbels, arcades, canopies, pin- Of the
nacles, parapets, stringcourses, gar- Decoration
.of Public
goyles, and recessed and canopied tombs Buildings
built into the Interior walls of churches.
One cannot separate the decorative
features of a Gothic building from its
structure. It is an organic part of it,
as the leaves and flowers are of a tree.
The sculpture of a Doric temple Is
also organic, as we have seen, though
on a different principle, the ornamental
emphasis being on the interstices of the
structure rather than on the constructive
features themselves, as in the Gothic.
In the course of social and archi
tectural evolution, however, we have
become somewhat mixed and composite
in our architectural styles. With com
plexity of life complexity of form and
arrangement have increased, and the
result Is that modern buildings have lost
to a great extent that impresslveness 115

Of the which is due to simplicity, and that
• ecoration
3f Public
Buildings

Decoration organic character or relation between
structure and decoration which 1 have

endeavoured to indicate.
We live In a huge architectural
conglomerate, an amalgam of many in
dustrial and residential districts press
ing around what was once the city of
London compact within its walls. In
this conglomerate traces of every period
are found, back to the Roman founda
tion, and each succeeding period has
left an Increasingly Important architec
tural deposit, until our own century,
which has been more destructive than
the great fire as regards old London,
in new London (though tempered by
scattered designs of refined and eclectic
architects) is more suggestive of the
activity of the modern builder and con
tractor than of noble architecture and
thoughtful and expressive decoration.
ii6

There seems to have been a constant Of the
endeavour with architects and builders, Decoration
since Sir Christopher Wren, to reconcile Buildings
the classical pediment and pilaster with
public, domestic, and street architecture:
to design imposing facades of Greek
and Roman temples and then brick up
the portico and cut windows in it : to
repeat the pediment over every window,
and to make a Doric, Ionic, Corinthian,
or composite portico on every door.
This classical taste has left its mark
on London. Purest, perhaps, in the
neighbourhood of Regent's Park, you
can trace it down the severe reserve of
Gower Street, to the gloomy Doric
dignity of the peristyle of the British
Museum, and from the stucco mansions
of South Kensington, to more and more
debased forms in all the suburbs, cor
rected here and there by an infusion of
that happier, more adaptable, domestic, 117

Of the and certainly ruddier ' Dutch mixture,'
Decoration j^^own as Queen Anne.
Buildings Here and there a gable from Bruges,
a Tudor casement, a window from
Fontainebleau, or Hampton Court, may
nod at you or lead your thoughts
astray ; but, sooner or later, you are
bound to meet the real, up-to-date,
modern commercial street building, a
really ' handsome ' one, where the con
structive work is entirely done by the
steel framing, fantastically masked with
playful and flamboyant designs in terra
cotta, heightened with glass mosaic, cheap
stained glass, and iron work — the whole
mass apparently supported upon sheets
of plate glass. Unto this favour we
have come ! The acme of inorganic
decoration. After such triumphs of art the cliff
dwellings of the many-storied flat, or
the cloud - capped altitudes of the

monster hotel scarcely move one — Of the
except perhaps to stand from under in Decoration
r , • ,,• , of Public
case of their tumbling down. Buildings
Now we may consider this subject
of the decoration of public buildings
from several different points of view,
as, for instance : —
I. From the point of view of public
sentiment and national character and
ideals. 2. Or, as the expression of the de
sign, object, and purpose of particular
buildings, Interior and exterior.
3. From the technical point of view
of methods and materials, and adaptation
to climate and conditions.
Firstly, then, as public sentiment Is
formed, presumably, from the aggrega
tion of its unit, in the mind and heart
of the private citizen, some index may
be gathered from the life and feehng of
the typical individual, as far as It may
119

Of the be articulate, which forms the dominant
Decoration ^^^^ ^f ^^^ nation: for the typical
of Public .,,15 •
Buildings character of the man will be determined
by the typical character of the unit.
We are often credited with being a
reserved race, somewhat sombre even in
our pleasures ; clinging to fixed habits
and traditions ; averse from outward
display ; self- conscious ; distinguished
more for business qualities than lively
imagination, and possessing an eye more
generally fixed upon the main chance
than upon mural decoration ; a heart
for material prosperity rather than
spiritual beauty.
Well, let us ask ourselves whether
the general aspect of our big towns does
not on the whole suggest or reflect, in
the character of their public as well
as private buildings, such characteristics,
so far as they are capable of being
expressed in architectural design.

One must allow of course something Of the
for locality, for even the railway has not Decoration
' . , , , ,. . of Public
yet succeeded in altogether obliterating Buildings
local varieties — In spite of blue slate.
Then too, happily, there are still left,
here and there, survivals of another age
(and presumably of a different type of
Englishman) in most of our towns in
the shape of buildings full of historical
associations, and haunted with the
romance of a past age, the outcome of a
different spirit and different conditions.
But, as we have seen, our century of
machine industry and commercial com
petition has done more to obliterate the
past in our cities than any former one ;
and the new developments of mechanical
and material resource which modern
scientific invention has brought in, too
rapidly succeed each other, or are too
rapidly modified, to be perfectly adapted
and united to harmonious form by

Of the artistic invention, which is a much
Decoration slower growth, and owes much of its
of Public ^
Buildings charm to tradition and association.
In the adaptation of light to modern
buildings (which may be considered an
Important part of their decoration, or an
adjunct to it), we may see an instance
of what I mean. Centuries of use had
thoroughly united the old system of oil-
lamps and candles, lanterns, or cressets,
and torch-holders, with charming and
appropriate form in metal. Some half
century or more ago gas was introduced,
and demanded new adaptation of form
from the designer in its mountings.
The demand was too rapid for mature
and well-considered forms. The bare
tube or tubular bracket with the turn-tap
burner was all that the thing actually
needed, and anything superadded was
apt to take the unfortunate look of
ornamental excrescence, because really

unrelated and inorganic. The mon- Of the
strosity known as the ' gasaller ' rooted Decoration
,j- . 1 . ,,,..,. of Public
itselr in the private and public ceiling. Buildings
No sooner was the world partially re
conciled to the fearful but convenient gas-
fitting, than the electric light came along
and again dislocated the ideas of the com
mercial designer, who for the most part
took the traditional course of combining
the new invention with the old forms ;
and the heavy tubular forms of gas and
candelabra fitting were playfully used
to hold or support the light wire and
electric torch, which, in its simplest
form of pendent string and incandes
cent, pear-shaped glass, has a certain
elegance and suggestiveness, and at the
most only needs suspension and protec
tion by metal fittings of proportional
lightness. Something of this kind of difficulty
of organic adaptation has beset the
123

Of the architect and the decorative artist ever
Decoration gjj^j-g ^he demands of utility and beauty
of Public . , , , .
Buildings became distinct, and natural growth in
design became choked with archaeology,
pedantry and authority, or simply ex
tinguished in the rush of commercial
competition and utilitarianism. The
well-worn pattern-book of classic, or
Gothic, or Renaissance forms has been
freely consulted, and constant endeav
ours have been made to make the old
architectural clothes. Irrespective of
climatic origin and adaptability, fit the
collective and complex wants of the
modern citizen, who not so long since
was at least firmly persuaded that
nothing looked so dignified (' imposing,'
I believe. Is the right word) as a Greek
or Roman pediment or colonnade for a
public building. Whoever has seen the
temples of Athens and Rome bathed in
the broad and lasting sunshine of Greece
124

and Italy, must feel convinced of the Of the
unsuitability of such types of architec- Decoration
\ , r V of Public
ture to our damp and roggy climate. Buildings
However, classical education gave
us our Bank of England and Royal
Exchange. ' The lines on the Bank may be
typical of accounts,' quietly remarks
John Ruskin. Let us hope so. The
Royal Exchange is more definite. The
legend upon the entablature of its
classical pediment usefully reminds us
that ' the earth is the Lord's and the
fulness thereof,' which might perhaps be
in some danger of being forgotten, con
sidering the power of the financier and
the value of sites in the neighbourhood.
The pediment is filled with a sculptured
representation of a somewhat unemo
tional exchange of commodities from
different parts of the earth, presided over
by Britannia. From all accounts, the
125

Of the reahty It covers is hardly so decorous.
Decoration probably the professional, picturesque
Buildings symbohsm of Bulls and Bears would be
nearer the mark, and likewise be better
understanded of the people, If expressed
in an appropriate frieze upon this temple
of our destinies.
Classical columns again confront us
upon the Lord Mayor's mansion, no
doubt to suggest the dignity of the
pillars of society so often and so splen
didly entertained within ; but for any
suggestion of medlasval richness and
historic association one must go to the
old Guildhall, with its rich, open-
timbered roof.
Passing westward. Wren's masterpiece,
our great pagan-Christian Cathedral,
compels the admiration due to wonderful
structure and magnificent proportions
on a great scale, though the cross upon
the summit of the dome is the only
126

of Public
Buildings

symbol to denote to what power it is Of the
dedicated. Decoration
Inside it has been the field for modern
experiments in decoration, though one
would say few buildings seem to require
additional ornament less. To concede
that any decoration placed there is en
tirely successful, would be to Ignore the
Impossibility of the work of one age of
being perfectly united to, or harmonious
with, the work of another, when neither
belongs to a period of natural growth
and that organic development which
characterises a living style.
By far the most important recent
experiment in interior decoration on a
large scale In this country has been Mr.
W. B. Richmond's mosaic scheme in
the choir, and whatever view one may
take of the advisability, or otherwise, of
attempting to decorate buildings of a
past age, It must be conceded that the
127

Of the scheme is thoughtful and comprehensive
Decoranon ^^^ ^j^g designs are rich and ably com-
of Public , . , , , ,.
Buildings posed in the spaces, and that great credit
is due to the artist and his assistants for
the spirit and method In which the
work has been done — setting the cubes
of glass in on the surface, and thus
getting that variety, lustre, and bril
liancy we admire in the old work.
The defects are those inseparable
from habits of work the reverse of
monumental, as well as the difficulty
of harmony with the building as afore
said, and the difficulties of working on
an unaccustomed scale — a scale, indeed,
which seems to demand heraldic bold
ness and directness of design, with
extreme breadth and simplicity of treat
ment, both of form and colour, relying
almost entirely upon great masses, and
frank silhouetting upon gold.
English Law asserts its dignity In a
128

vast fortress in thirteenth century Gothic Of the
style at Temple Bar— the work of an Decoration
extremely able and learned architect, gyiij-
As regards this and the Knightsbrldge
Barracks, it was said that 'we make a
civil building like a medlasval fortress,
and we house our military in a civil
building.' Still, as I suppose the real
power is with the law which has to be
set in motion first, and which controls
the military arm, there may be some
excuse for such an anomaly.
An insignificant trophy of arms over
one of the gates is all the decorative
allusiveness allowed upon the barracks
— unless the large spherical stones upon
the piers of the wall and gateposts of
the officers' quarters are intended to
suggest cannon-balls.
This plainness is perhaps compensated
for by the expensive and splendid living
decorations on guard at the Horse Guards.
I 129

Of the So far, the national temper of reserve
Decoration j^^g j^^^j^ most In evidence as to external
of Public , ^^^
Buildings decoration; and even at Westminster,
at the great national Speech-House, we
must go inside to see the important
decorations — unless we count the great
towers, and it may be said that towers
are perhaps the chiefest of means of
decorating externally a building or a
city. What, for Instance, would Florence
be without the Tower of the Signoria ?
or that noble group formed by it and
its neighbours, Giotto's Tower and
Duomo ? When we think of Florence
we think of this central group of build
ings by which, through all changes. It
maintains its wonderful character and
beauty among the cities of the world.
Well, here In our Houses of Parlia
ment some of our painters have been
called in, with very various results in
130

mural painting ; and though serious Of the
and able work has been done by in- Decoration
dividual artists like Dyce and Maclise, Buildings
there seems to have been rather a want
of a concerted scheme in the choice and
sequence of subjects, which, had they
been selected a decade or two later,
might have been more in the spirit of
John Richard Green's Short History of the
English People. One would have liked
more work of our revered veteran
painter, Mr. Watts, there ; — his lofty
epic and poetic mood, his figurative,
typical, and symbolic feeling, so rare
in modern art, being peculiarly adapted
to great mural work.
One of the finest things there as a
piece of decoration, to my mind. Is Mr.
Poynter's St. George, in the outer hall
of the House of Commons.
Let us hope St. George Is still In the
councils of England, and not merely on
131

Of the the back of her gold piece. He slew
ecoration ^j-^g-Q^^ ^j^j restored ravaged lands to
of Public P . ^
Buildings their rightful owners. I should not
like to picture him using Maxim guns
and dynamite against half-armed African
tribes fighting for their territory and
Independence. If the English people
countenance such proceedings, I hope,
at least, St. George has nothing to do
with them.
In the stillness and solemn light and
mystery of the great Abbey we may
recover that sense of unity and repose
too often disturbed In modern buildings.
It Is there. If anywhere, we may —
' Forget six counties overhung with smoke,
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,'
even as our lost poet and craftsman,
William Morris, bade us in the intro
duction to The Earthly Paradise. It
is there, under the vaulting that has
covered so many generations, that
132

enshrines so much of our history, the Of the
resting-place of so many great English- Decoration
men, we feel the collective impersonal Buildings
spirit, as well as the pride of race and
love of country, as we feel and see the
work of many minds and many hands,
the skill and imagination of many
generations of artist craftsmen speaking
to us from the carved stone and wood,
when architecture and decoration were
one. And then we may reflect that this
splendour and dignity was the growth
of an age when England was a com
paratively small and poor country.
Unity of sentiment, solemnity, splen
dour, — these should be the dominant
qualities in the artistic expression of
great public buildings.
Not that lighter and more playful
moods have no place even in cathedrals,
which above all are intensely human.
The whimsicality, gaiety, and humour 133

Of the of the carver plays about them here and
Decoration jj^^j.^^ • ^^ ^j^^ carvlngs of the choir stalls,
of Public
Buildings under the miserere seats, coming out in
all sorts of quaint imaginings, as he
sports in the flowers of the capitals, or
with the gargoyles of the roof. The
heraldic designers, too, who furnished
so large and important a part of the
decoration of medlasval buildings, both
within and without, were no stiff and
dry pedants, but full of romance and
pretty fancy, freely using badges and
bearings as ornaments, and playing with
a rebus for a name, or an emblem or
posy. Yet they could be full of dignity
and pride on occasion ; over the gates
of castles, for instance, and the gates
of cities, to Impress the approaching
stranger or guest.
We have largely lost the true signifi
cance of heraldry and its decorative use,
134

of Public
Buildings

with its petrifaction Into a code of Of the
rules. Decoration
And yet the love of a badge or
emblem is not extinct. National en
thusiasm is soon evoked by a flag ; and
bunting, with its extremely abstract
symbolism, remains the most popular
form of at least temporary decoration
of streets and public buildings, and at
any rate nothing gives so much gaiety,
colour, and movement, as fluttering
banners and pennons. The spirit has
not changed though the forms have,
and it must be said, in heraldry, since
the Middle Ages, greatly for the worse.
The Plantagenet lion on the standard is
not the plucky and spirited and, withal,
highly decorative beast that he was in
Edward the Third's time.
Yet it would be no bad thing for
our streets, if, with the revival of
design, each house should bear its
135

Of the distinctive badge, and not merely a little
Decoration gmoky fire Insurance plate. It Is a
of Public , . , ,.
Buildings g°°^ practice, too, to place recording
tablets upon houses of historic interest
— the birthplaces of notable people. It
is at least educational, and tends to
foster local interest in local buildings.
They might take highly interesting, if
simple, forms In the hands of good
artists. Name-plates and signs of all
kinds are capable of charming treatment,
and add much to the Interest of streets.
To return to the monuments of
modern London.
More determined and elaborate efforts
in exterior decoration are seen in the
Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial.
There are good points in the encaustic
frieze of the former, which really helps
to express the building, though the
groups are of very various merit.
Mr. Armstead's sculptured reliefs of
136

artists on the phnth of the Memorial, are Of the
the most decorative and lifelike things Decoration
J . . , , of Public
in design in that ornate structure ; but -n u-
° ' rSuildings
the conception as a whole, as of a gilded
shrine emerging from lumps of white
marble, is not altogether happy.
The building containing the finest
decorations in London, is, after all, the
National Gallery ; but there they are in
the form of choice pictures, chiefly of
the Italian school and Flemish schools,
and do not form part of a concerted
scheme. But a picture, after all, may
be the finest piece of decoration in the
world. There are terra-cotta animals on the
Natural History Museum (which sug
gest the stuffed ones within), and stone
lions at the gate of the Imperial Insti
tute, apparently waiting for suggestions
as to a use for that building. South
Kensington Museum, with its untold
137

Of the treasury of decorative art, yet waits for
Decoration ^ gj-fjij^g roof-tree.
Buildin s Nothing, however, Is more remark
able, and sometimes apparently un
accountable, than the change of direction
of interest in the arts. It is as if the
centre of social gravity shifted from age
to age, and as forms of art, being
evolved out of, or rather being the ex
pression of, social life, shift and change
with it.
The decoration of public buildings
should be the highest form of popular
art, as it was In the Middle Ages, when
a town- hall, or church, was no bad
equivalent for a public library storied
with legends and symbols — histories, as
they were, which impressed themselves
upon the unlettered, through the vivid
language of design.
At present, the highest form of
popular art appears to be the poster,
138

which, if it does not always decorate our Of the
buildings, at least often covers them. Decoration
The hoarding Is the really public picture- Buildings
gallery, and many clever artists con
tribute to it. Some have shown a
thorough understanding of the treat
ment proper to bold mural work pro
duced by simple means, but very few seem
to be aware of the decorative value of
lettering, which is often vulgar, coarse,
and debased. The worth of the poster
as a field for design Is the essentially
vulgar idea with which it is hopelessly
connected, of pushing somebody's wares.
If it does not push or shout it cannot
have much commercial value, presum
ably : and then, too, each poster is
intended to destroy its neighbour; thus,
though you may get a clever individual
design, you cannot get a combined
decorative effect upon the present prin
ciples of posting a hoarding. A figure
139

Of the designed for height and distance, too.
Decoration j f^ ^ ^j yme.
of Public ^ .„ ^ , . . .
Buildings StiU, as to hanging, it is not so very
different in principle to the average
picture show, where widely divergent
styles, motives, and scales, are jostled
together on the same wall.
We waste artistic talent upon the
lively but ephemeral poster and news
paper, which to-day are on the hoarding,
or the breakfast-table, and to-morrow
are trampled under foot of man, while
not infrequently dull - as - ditchwater
work Is perpetuated In public buildings
and places In substantial and expensive
materials. The fact that there are col
lectors of posters, and that they are
reduced by photography to the level
of the drawing-room table, hardly com
pensates. It would be better to concentrate
pubhc announcements in the form of
140

posters and bills on particular places on Of the
buildings, where they might be arranged Decoration
in panels according to subject and scale, g •,,.
instead of making every building In
progress a public waste-paper basket.
The modern advertiser has evidently
laid to heart Thackeray's sarcastic advice
to the seeker after good society — ' Never
mind being obtrusive, so long as you
obtrude.' In our search for modern decoration
which is not only part of the archi
tectural expression of a building, but
also expressive of its object and purpose,
we may go far. Perhaps the new de
velopment of municipal life and spirit
in our towns may do something towards
it, by fostering a sense of citizenship
and local pride, and centralising and
giving organic life and purpose to the
vast jungles of bricks and mortar we
call cities, or districts. We seem to
141

Of the have reached a period of development
Decoration .^hen Street improvements generally
Tj •,]¦ take the form of clearances for traffic.
rsuildings Primitive man began with clearings In
the forest, and built his hut ; civilised
man, too, has to begin again with clear
ings — but in a forest of buildings.
Our municipalities and vestries are
apparently too much absorbed in the
fundamental difficulties of contracts and
the necessities of drainage, paving, and
lighting of vast and populous areas, to
have time for the cultivation or con
sideration of external structural beauty
In our streets and buildings. These
ought they to have done, but not to
leave the other undone.
There are no artists elected on com
mittees of county councils, because, we
are told, there are no artists on public
bodies from which these are chosen. The
pursuit of art and the business of public
142

life are very difficult to reconcile, no Of the
doubt ; but at least in matters of art Decoration
J . , . . . , . of Public
education, and its organisation, their Buildings
aid has recently been sought.
The private citizen of any taste or
refinement desires his house to be healthy
and complete in every part, and would
consider it barbaric not to endeavour
to satisfy the eye also, or the sense of
comfort, even, would not be complete.
So the collective citizen should not be
content with the organisation of the
ordinary fundamental needs and utilities
(important as they are, and far as they
still are from some citizens' reach), but
when these have been secured, should
seek some higher and more comprehen
sive means for the expression of the
aims and ideals of the community which
should satisfy its needs, while stimulating
the imagination and uniting its senti
ment, 143

Of the The history and legends of localities
Decoration ghould be carefully preserved, and identi-
of Public . ,,.,.,,.
Buildings ^^^ ^^^" *^^ public buildings — town-
halls, schools, hospitals, churches, and
meeting-places of all kinds. We might
then at least get some public compensa
tion for the public loss of beautiful
and historic spots obliterated by the
spreading of the town, and the jerry
builder. One of the best modern recent public
buildings I have seen is the new Public
Library at Boston, Massachusetts. The
design was broad and simple, of more
or less Lombardic origin ; a long, low-
pitched roof, a facade of white stone,
enclosing a court, with a range of round-
headed windows ; the arms of the city
designed by a good sculptor over the
porch, and above the windows a series
of the symbolical marks of the famous
printers — Aldus, Caxton, and so on
144

— in a kind of black inlay in circles. Of the
Inside, important mural decorations by Decoration
Puvis de Chavannes, John S. Sargent, Buildings
and E. A. Abbey, some of which have
been seen in this country. A pleasant
form of international rivalry might be
found in the development of national
ideals and taste in public buildings —
and it would cost less than ironclads.
One of the best, most characteristic,
and appropriate pieces of decoration
which has been done in our times, is the
series of mural paintings illustrating the
history of Manchester, in the Town
Hall of that city, by Ford Madox
Brown, who was certainly one of the
most English and original of our modern
painters. Here we have a series of wall pictures
giving not only a general history of
Manchester, but a history of England,
almost, in typical scenes from different
K 145

Of the periods, from the building of the Roman
Decoration f^^.^ ^^ ^j^e trial of Wycliffe, and, on the
of Public , . r , 1
Buildings Other side, from the seventeenth to the
nineteenth century. Among the works
of the same artist in the south room
of the recent Arts and Crafts Exhibi
tion might have been seen the full-size
cartoon for one of these frescoes — The
Baptism of King Edgar — and one of the
finest. It is full of the painter's remark
able dramatic and intellectual grasp, and
that freshness and directness of concep
tion and composition which gives one
the impression of his having been an
eye-witness of the scene he represents.
His fine choice of suggestive accessory,
and use of subsidiary incident, as well
as his fine decorative and mural feeling
combined with Immense energy, humour,
and vigour, is seen in the drawing of
another of the frescoes — The Expulsion
of the Danes.
146

There was a small drawing also, in Of the
the same Exhibition, of the fresco of the Decoration
chemical discoverer, John Dalton, ex- Buildings
perimenting with a pole in a pond in
search of marsh gases, while a country
boy is set to catch the bubbles in a
bottle — giving rise to the children's idea
that he was ' catching Will o' the Wisps.'
This is one of the pictures upon the
wall opposite to the earliest mediaeval
subjects, where are given other incidents
in the lives of various inventors and
benefactors associated with Manchester :
such as Sir Thomas Chetham, in the
court of the old monastic building called
Chetham's Hospital, which still exists,
in which he founded a public library ;
Crabtree the draper discovering the
transit of Venus ; the inventor of the
spinning jenny escaping from the factory
people, who only saw their employment
going. The windows of the hall come
147

Of the down too low, and rather interfere with
Decoration ^.j^g effect of the pictures ; but, in spite
of Public ^ , , , , r .
Buildings °^ drawbacks, they form, as a series, a
very fine and original decoration, and
one entirely suited to the purpose and
position of the building.
If every municipality would do like
wise, we should soon have an English
school of mural painting, as well as
a painted local and social history of
England. It is opportunity that Is wanted. Our
painters mostly work for the dealer
or private buyer, and on a comparatively
small scale, and have, as a rule, but few
chances of cultivating what feeling they
may have for large mural work. In which
command is not obtained all at once ;
and we must certainly take to the water
before we can learn to swim,
I believe in France young painters
who distinguish themselves at Paris, are
148

often encouraged by being commissioned Of the
to paint for the public buildings of their Decoration
. of Public
native town. A very good notion. Buildings
In Birmingham something is being
done in this direction, by setting some
of the students of the Municipal Art
School to work for the municipal build
ings. I may here mention a remarkable
piece of mural painting now in pro
gress in London in a building — a chapel
which is intended, not for service, but
simply as a quiet place for meditation,
for any one weary of the rush and roar
of London streets.
A chapel of Byzantine form has been
built by Mr. Herbert P. Home upon
the site of an old Georgian one, not
far from the marble arch on the Bays-
water Road. Owing to the munificence
of a lady — the late Mrs. Russell
Gurney — Mr. F. J. Shields has been at
149

Of the work some time on a scheme of pictorial
Decoration decoration covering the whole of the
of Public . . ^ , 1 1 T ¦
interior or the criapel. It is not yet

Buildings

complete, but sufficiently so to show
the thought, invention, and significant
symbolism, combined with a fine sense
of composition and linear and colour-
expression, which the artist has put into
his work. The scheme of subjects
comprehends the chief events and per
sonages in the Biblical story, presented
as a typical and connected whole, and
as the exponents of the Christian faith,
and bears the stamp In every part of
the strong individuality and personal
conviction of the artist. It is seldom
in our time that an entire interior Is
decorated by painting, and that the
work Is that of a single artist. It
recalls the days of Giotto and his typical
mural work at Padua and Assisi.
Churches, from time Immemorial, as
150

the most sacred of public buildings and Of the
as the collective and typical houses of Decoration
, 1 , , , • • r of Public
the people, have been the recipients or Buildings
untold treasures of art and craftsman
ship of every kind, and still seem to
make the greatest and most permanent
demands upon, and to offer the largest
opportunities to, the designer. Apart
from its spiritual suggestion and pur
pose, one reason may be that the
Gothic church retains the simpler form
and arrangement of the typical mediaeval
dweUing — the great hall, or nave, with
the raised dais at the end. Walls,
screens, windows, desks and seats, being
considered parts of the building, all
lend themselves to artistic treatment.
If we built churches in the same
spirit in which they were built in the
Middle Ages — that is to say, in strict
relation to contemporary habits and
sentiment, — not that I must be under-
151

of Public
Buildings

Of the stood to advise it, however, — we should
Decoration i^^^ke our churches resemble our re
ception or drawing-rooms, only on a
greater scale. The joinery introduced
in the last century with its room
like, high-panelled pews furnished with
stools and cushions, showed an approach
to contemporary domestic treatment
and sentiment ; but, curiously enough,
in an age of increased domestic luxury,
we have reverted to the primitive
severer type in our churches.
There is another sort of public
building of ever-Increasing importance,
however, which might well take some
thought and work of the artist — I
mean the school. Here, again, per
manent mural design might find a
home and fill an important part in
stimulating and cultivating the imagina
tion, informing the mind, and unifying
sentiment under the spell of association
152

by means of painted histories and Of the
typical figures. Decoration
Every child might grow up under Buildings
the influence of typical pictures giving
to the eye a complete conception of the
universe, as it might by means of large
coloured mural simple designs be led
through the prehistoric ages, and the
physical changes of the earth, with their
typical plants and animals ; the proces
sion of the seasons and the fundamental
agricultural labours of man ; the stars
in their courses ; and, from his first
beginnings, to follow man's progress and
the evolution of social life ; the notable
epochs of history ; the notable men
and women ; the typical pursuits and
ideas of each age ; the outward habit
and show of many-coloured life, like a
moving pageant through the glow or
gloom of passing centuries ; the noble
deeds of the past ; the achievements of
153

Of the human labour and invention ; the history
Decoration ^f ^^.^ ^^^ letters — ah these things
Buildings "^ight be associated with school life,
and impressed upon young minds by
the unforgetable language of line and
colour on the school walls. Surely such
influences would tend to lighten the
labours of the teacher as well as to
enrich and ennoble life, and make
better citizens in the end.
In the meantime, something is being
done in a quiet and inexpensive way by
means of printed pictures coloured by
hand, which are issued by the Fitzroy
Picture Society. These are tasteful and
decorative, being typical and mural in
treatment, and well calculated to relieve
the dulness of the average school-room,
and give them a touch of imagination.
I can now only briefly touch the
subject under my third head — the point
of view of methods and materials.
154

For the decoration of public buildings Of the
the principal means and materials are Decoration
1 II 1 „¦ of Public
sculpture — marble or stone — modelling Buildings
in terra-cotta or bronze, mosaic, marble
and glass ; stained and painted glass,
leading and lead work, metal and iron
work, cut brick, sgraffito, wood-carving,
painting, oil, fresco and tempera ;
plaster, stucco and gesso ; tile work
and glazed faience ; and, for interiors,
one might add wood panelling, inlays,
and tapestry.
The selection of materials must be
governed by considerations of suitability
to climate, to locality, position, and
deflnite material conditions generally,
which indeed should govern all vital
architectural design, for out of such
have grown what we call the historic
styles, which cannot be rashly imported
from one country to another, or used
as masks for all sorts of different 155

Of the requirements without loss of meaning.
Decoration confusIon, and degradation.
of Public .^.^.^ , . ,
Buildings We must guard, too, against the
idea that ornament is necessarily decora
tion. We may have simple buildings
with hardly any ornament which are
yet decorative, while we may have
buildings covered with ornament which
are not decorated at all.
Sculpture has been the chief means
of decorating European buildings ex
ternally, both ancient and modern, and
though it has a severe struggle for
existence In our towns, what with pubhc
apathy and coal smoke, the sculptor
remains the chief public decorator, and
one still hears of important work from
time to time, such as Mr. Ster
ling Lee's panels on the St. George's
HaU, Liverpool ; Mr. Hamo Thorny-
croft's frieze for the Chartered Ac
countants' building in the City, in which
156

the sculptor and the architect (Mr. Of the
John Belcher) have worked harmoni- Decoration
1 , 1 n «• T. > °f Public
ously together ; also Mr. Pomeroy s Buildings
 o
sculptured reliefs for the new Town
Hall at Sheffield. Such works as these
at any rate show that we can have sculp
ture of style and decorative distinction
upon our public buildings If we want It.
Terra-cotta seems to wear very well
and keep Its colour through London
smoke, as far as I have observed, and
the natural simple colours of the fired
clay harmonise well with brick-work.
In exterior colour decoration we have
been very tentative and timid, though
the return to simple materials like red
brick and terra-cotta in architecture
suggests a growing feeling for it. If a
body and a glaze could be proved to
stand the vicissitudes of our damp
climate, what decoration could be more
cheerful than a frieze in coloured relief
157

Of the across the front of a street facade, in
Decoration ^^e spirit of Luca and Andrea della
of Public , , ^ , , , r ¦ r ,
Buildings Robbia s noble frieze of the acts of
mercy which decorates the Ospedale at
Pistoia ? (a coloured cast of which may
be seen at South Kensington).
In the porch of the cathedral In the
same city is a beautiful specimen of
the architectural use of the lighter
kind of Robbia ware in white, blue,
and yellow. A round vault covers the
porch, and this is coffered with the ware
in panels, the tympanum of the arch
over the door being filled with a
Madonna and Angels. The sunlight
striking upon the pavement Illuminates
the glazed relief with soft, reflected
light, which suggests the true position
of work of this kind, which here is In
pleasant contrast with the black and
white bands of the marble facing of
the arcade. 158

Mr. Conrad Dressier and Mr. Harold Of the
Rathbone, each in different ways, are Decoration
' , , ¦ ¦ L of Public
engaged in a notable artistic effort to Buildings
revive Della Robbia ware and adapt It
to modern architectural decoration, and
both have done remarkably Interesting
work in the material. I have seen a
charming recessed wall fountain by the
former artist which was executed at
Mr. Rathbone's works at Birkenhead.
The figure panels after Madox Brown by
the latter show what delightful colour Is
possible to be obtained in glazed faience,
I rather think that where Della
Robbia ware is used upon a building the
building itself must be very simple and
light In colour, if not white, and no
other kind of decoration must be used.
Interior courts and arcades faced with
plain white tiles, with a coloured frieze
or panels, and pilasters, would be ap
propriate where light was wanted. 159

Of the It may be a question whether our
Decoration climate furnishes enough sunshine to
Buildings b^i^g out the beauty of the material,
but Its cleanness of surface Is in Its
favour In regard to our black towns ;
and one would like to see it freely
tried, as It would give us colour at least,
which Is so much needed in our archi
tecture. As regards mural painting, the old
difficulty about fresco in this country
need not be an obstacle, as admirable
and permanent effects can be obtained
in other ways. Even Madox Brown,
who used Gambler Parry's method of
spirit-fresco for his earlier panels at
Manchester, considered that painting in
flatted colour on canvas, and having the
picture fastened down on the wall panel
with white lead, on the French plan,
was quite as good for mural work.
Mr. Shields uses this method, but has
i6o

the painted canvas panel fastened down Of the
upon slabs of slate, with a space be- Decoration
tween the slate and the body of the Buildings
wall at the back, so that there is no
danger of damp.
Panels of fibrous plaster can also be
used perfectly well for mural painting,
and even simple tempera painting on
plaster is possible, as it can be cleaned
perfectly with bread.
Sgraffito is not reliable in our towns
for external work, though extensively
used in Italy and Germany ; but though
limited in range can be made most
effective, controlled by taste and de
corative feeling. The large designs of
Mr. Heywood Sumner give a good
idea of its value as Interior mural de
coration on a large scale.
Glass mosaic Is the most splendid
material for either external or Internal
work ; and one might say of mosaic
L l6l

Of the decoration, as indeed of all other
Decoration methods, that, where used. It must be
of Public , . .^ ....
T, -ij- dominant, if not exclusive, in the spirit
Uuilaings ' ' '^
in which it Is used at St. Mark's and
the churches of Ravenna.
In the decoration of a public building
the attention should be centred upon
some leading and distinctive feature,
and the effect should depend upon the
use of one kind of work.
If sculpture is the method, concen
trate the Interest upon the sculpture.
If mosaic, then everything must be
subsidiary to It. It does not do to
make a building Into a pattern-book of
styles and methods.
The same principle applies to interior
work. If mural painting is to be the
centre of interest, clear the stage for it.
Do not let stained glass or mosaic or
sculpture compete with it. All sorts of
arts and crafts may have their place in
162

subsidiary ways in appropriate fittings. Of the
but they should not clamour for atten- Decoration
,. , , , . of Public
tion or disturb the central motive.

though they may add to the repose and
richness of the fagade or the room.
Principles, of course, are nothing
without practice ; but so far as they go,
and speaking generally, I venture to
think that it is in the directions I have
indicated that we may come nearest to
having impressive and beautiful decora
tion on public buildings.
We cannot get outside our own
times. If we do not care for sincerity,
harmony, and beauty In our own lives,
we shall not get them in our public
buildings ; if we do not think these
qualities important — If we are entirely
absorbed in seeking our individual and
material prosperity, and are oblivious of
the social bond, we are not likely to get
noble buildings or impressive decor a-
163

Buildings

Of the tions ; but we must remember that a
Decoration people without art, collectively speaking,
Buildings ^^ Inarticulate, and that, after all, the
highest, most vital art is the expression
of character.
There is a saying attributed to
Schiller, that ' Man is not really man
until he plays.' The art of a nation
may be said to be the outcome of its
play, though It is play Involving its
best energies.
At all events, the only evidence of
the character and ideals of the great
communities and civilisations of the
past Is to be found in the relics of their
arts. Stamped in the unmistakable
characters of design, every age has left
the record of its distinctive faith and
conception of man's life and the universe,
and for the most part upon its public
buildings. The deepest religious symbolism and
164

typical thought were embodied in ancient Of the
and medieval pubhc buildings, from the Decoration
, ,. r^ , , of Public
heroic embodiment of Greek mythology Buildings
in the Parthenon pediments to the
frescoes of Giotto at Assisi and Padua
— typical mural work. We have the
impressive sculptured front of Wells
Cathedral, the beautiful shrines of Siena
and Orvieto (each a varied treasure-
house of art both without and within),
while a serenity and sweetness akin to
the Greek seems to awaken again in the
thirteenth century Gothic sculpture at
Amiens, Paris, and Auxerre, which also
touch ordinary human life and labour.
The modern vision of the evolution
of nature, of the stream of human pro
gress flowing ever onwards from its dim
prehistoric sources ; the great social
ideal of a common and interdependent
life, involving an unbroken chain of
co-operative human labour necessary to
165

Of the the maintenance of life and the creation
Decoration ^f collective weakh with its splendid
of Public ., „. . , 1 • u- r
Buildings possibilities ; the true relationship of
the human family on the earth ; the
conception of the service of humanity
as directing and centralising life and
giving it purpose — such themes have
yet to be adequately expressed or sym
bolised in the places where the highest
thoughts and aspirations of a people are
most fittingly and enduringly expressed
— in the design and decoration of noble
public buildings.

i66

IV
OF PUBLIC SPACES, PARKS
AND GARDENS
REGINALD BLOMFIELD

OF PUBLIC SPACES, PARKS
AND GARDENS
The subject of my paper this evening.
Public Spaces, Parks and Gardens, Is
one, I think, which concerns all of us
who have to live In cities. Not only the
artist, but every one who passes through
the streets, every citizen (and I use the
term in its widest sense) has a direct
Interest in the seemly laying out of his
city, in that orderly distribution which
Is essential to its beauty and dignity.
Yet this subject is one which, in
recent years, has been left to lie outside
the scope of the arts. It has been
treated without regard to principles ;
and whether the anarchy of ideas that
169

Of Public prevails Is cause or effect, we have come
Spaces, Parks j.q accept as Inevitable the growing
and Gardens , , . ^ ... ,xt
degradation of our public spaces. We
spend thought on the inside of our
houses, and develop to a fault the In
sidious instinct of the collector, but the
setting of our buildings Is still an affair
of haphazard, and we seem to have
given up, as desperate, the attempt to
make the city beautiful as a whole.
Slipshod administration Is accepted by
the public without protest, and the
artist. In despair at the intellectual
atmosphere that surrounds him, tends
more and more to withdraw into him
self. The consequence Is that we do
not get the best ability available. Pro
blems of the greatest artistic difficulty
are often settled by amateurs, and the
laying out of our streets and public
places proceeds on no consecutive system
whatever. 170

Now, In this attitude of mind there Of Public
is a real danger : the danger that attends Spaces, Parks
the withdrawal of the best Intelligence
of the country from matters of public
Importance. And this danger is doubly
formidable nowadays. In so far as we
have lost touch of that fine tradition
which, one hundred and fifty years ago,
would have controlled the efforts of the
amateur and the less-gifted professional.
It would be Indeed hard to find. In the
recent laying out of our public parks,
any principle of design at all, any theory
at work as to the kind of place a public
park should be, and as to the method
of treatment suited to a place of public
use, and maintained at the public ex
pense. Again, any one who walks
down a modern London street can see
at a glance the chaotic state In which
the aesthetic of art is at present plunged.
It is not simply that good architecture 171

Of Public josdes bad, and that there is no attempt
Spaces, Parks ^^ ^ harmony between the different
and Gardens , ., ,. ,. • i ¦ j-
buildings. It IS not even that indi
vidualism has run riot. The street
may be partly redeemed by a good
design here and there, but, as a whole.
It expresses nothing but various fashions,
it offers no evidence of any sense of
tradition, any community of aims and
ideals. It Is but too evident that art
is divorced from our serious existence ;
it is not thought worthy of the energy
and intelligence which we freely devote
to politics and business. Art has indeed
its well-defined technical limits, but the
groundwork of ideas that lies beneath it,
cannot be separated from our general
attitude to life itself, and it seems that
we have not yet got rid of the habit of
taking life in sections, of sub-dividing
its Interests into separate compartments,
and overlooking the relationship that
172

exists between them. We have pushed Of Public
the sub-dlvlslon of labour to a vice. Spaces, Parks
rj^, . . , ... and Gardens
1 he consequence is that the specialist
loses sight of all that lies outside his
own particular lines, and in so doing
loses sight of the end that alone justifies
his existence. Architecture, for example,
has come to be looked upon as a narrow
particular art of detail, not as that wide
commanding art whose vision embraces
the whole range of human craftsman
ship. This larger sense of art which
conceives of all the arts as working
together for the attainment of beauty.
Is still far away in the distance. Most
of us rest content with the academic
view ; we devote some time and perhaps
money to the claims of art, and, after
this, art is shut out of our existence,
and we resume our normal habit, not so
much of indifference as of oblivion.
The point of view, then, from which
173

Of Public I venture to approach this subject
Spaces, Parks jo-nlght. Is not that of the technical
and Gardens designer. Rather, I shall endeavour
to deal with It on a wider basis : taking
It for granted that this matter of the
design of streets and public spaces is
one branch In the family of art, not to
be treated as a side Issue, but rather as
the last touch of civic architecture, as
a problem that calls for the patient
thought that Is necessary to any other
expression of the human intelligence.
In his opening lecture on ' Art and
Life,' Mr. Sanderson pointed out to
you how widespread, and yet Intimately
connected, are the issues with which art
has to deal. Its work Is organic, —
that is to say. Its full expression can
only be given by means of a well-
considered relation established between
the individual parts. It Is not enough
that an architect should create a fine
174

building, or the sculptor carve some Of Public
excellent monument. Further thought Spaces, Parks
J „ , . and Gardens
and effort are necessary to bring these
into relation ; the streets and public
places of the city should bind them
together into one beautiful whole, so
that every part of it works together
with every other part for the attainment
of beauty. It is in this sense that
architecture Is architectonic, — the wise
mistress who brings order and sanity
into chaos, and combines the music of
the other arts Into one perfect sym
phony. Perhaps at no period of the civlhsed
world has this aspect of architecture
been more completely overlooked. In
our pride of mechanical invention, we
have lost that mature art which is not
satisfied with isolated excellence, but
seeks to establish a harmony in the
immense aggregate of details that go to
175

Of Public make up a city. The Athenian of the
Spaces, Parks ^-jj^g of Perlcles pursued his work In
the midst of the most admirable build
ings disposed In that large monumental
manner which is of the highest quality
of architecture. The last of the great
walls between the city and the har
bour was completed. Hippodamus of
Miletus had laid out the Pelrasus in
orderly squares and liberal spaces. Far
away on the Acropolis gleamed the
marble of the Propylasa and the Par
thenon, and between them the bronze
figure of Athene Promachos seemed to
quiver in the splendid light that played
round the city of the violet crown. It
is a significant fact that, while the other
towns of Greece were content with
narrow streets and squalid buildings,
the fine intelligence of the Athenian
expressed itself In the ordered beauty
of his city. Here, at least, was a fit
176

background for the purest art the world Of Public
has ever seen. Spaces, Parks
_^.„ . . and Gardens
Uirterent in quality, yet not less im
pressive in its tremendous power, was
the art of the Roman. In the archi
tecture of his cities he introduced a very
personal note of his own. His Intellect
was essentially lucid and clear-sighted.
Possibly a poor artist, but at least a
magnificent constructor, he laid out his
cities on a broad, comprehensive scheme,
with ample thoroughfares and public
spaces ; and no difficulties of engineer
ing or considerations of cost induced
him to deviate a halr's-breadth from
his monumental plan. He adorned his
public spaces with the fairest statuary,
and lined the walls of his courts with
rare and beautiful marbles. He had,
moreover, that habit of grouping his
fine buildings in such relation to each
other, as that their effect was enhanced
M 177

Of Public instead of being stultified. Even when
Spaces, Parks jj^g f^,.^ jg discounted that he had slave
labour and the resources of the known
world at his back, the courage of his
expenditure on public works in the
adornment of his city makes our own
municipal efforts seem little less than
contemptible. The Rome of the Caesars shows how
far we have fallen behind in the handling
of great cities. We are proud of our
engineering skill, yet there are not
many men who could deal with the
constructive difficulties of the palace of
Caligula. We have absolutely nothing
to compare with that sumptuous area
of Apollo which stood on the Palatine
Hill. It is worth dwelling on this for
an instant. If only to stimulate our
imagination of what a noble city should
be. The area of Apollo was an open
court, entered by a lofty marble arch,
178

and surrounded by a peristyle of fifty- Of Public
two columns of giallo antico, set against Spaces, Parks
^^ r J ¦ i i r t i and Gardens
walls or white marble from Luna and
Hymettus. Between each pair of
columns were statues of the Danaides,
and opposite each Danaid an equestrian
figure of her murdered bridegroom.
In the centre of the court was the
Temple of Apollo Palatlnus, and in the
open space before the temple, an altar
surrounded by the four statues of
Myron's wondrous oxen. Now all the
details of this work were probably
beautiful, but the essential fact about It,
and the quality which one has to realise,
is that its architecture and its sculpture,
and their adjustment to the site, were
conceived of as a whole, and not piece
by piece. The Roman saw that Isolated
beauty merely makes adjacent hldeous-
ness more hideous, that It was folly to
plump down a temple or a statue and
179

Of Public leave it to its fate (as has been done.
Spaces, Parks f^j. instance, with St. George's Hall at
Liverpool). He knew that, If Its fuh
value and effect was to be got, the skill
of the artist must be brought to bear
on the surroundings, and that these
must be welded together into one well-
balanced composition. Somehow this
masterful habit seems the natural out
come of such a character as the Roman's.
It Is undoubtedly more easily attained
in a society habituated to the ways of
Imperial administration than in an
atmosphere of cross purposes and un
certain system such as exists to-day.
Something, too. Is due to the habit of
life. The Roman spent much of his
time and did much of his business In
the open, and the area of Apollo was
but one among several of these splendid
open spaces. The modern Londoner
does his business Indoors, and. Indeed,
i8o

is so much immersed in it that he is Of Public
content to possess in Trafalgar Square Spaces, Parks
, , , , ,. ... and Gardens
tfie one and only public square in this
gigantic city, and in the Thames Em
bankment the only roadway that has
not been laid out with merely com
mercial objects.
With the fall of Roman civilisation,
this large conception of architecture
was lost. The arts had to be built up
again, and when at length they reappear
In the Middle Ages, a change had taken
place, not only in their external form,
but in the spirit that lay beneath and
prompted their expression. Art was no
longer conscious, deliberate, judging as
between good and evil ; It was now
moving as a natural force, hardly realis
ing to itself what It was doing. The
change was responsible for some of the
most beautiful qualities of medlasval art,
but it had its defects. Architecture

Of Public was now an affair of craftsmanship.
Spaces, Parks glided by inestimable tradition. It is
and Gardens , . , , . . ^
true, but it had in some measure lost
that architectonic sense to which I
referred at the beginning of this paper.
The castle or the cathedral formed the
nucleus of the town, and houses were
built up round these centres with some
happy instinct for effect which gives
them an undying charm. But the joy
we have of them Is something different
in kind from the intellectual pleasure
given by the simplicity and order of a
well-planned city. This pleasure is the
privilege of a riper civilisation. It did
not lie within the consciousness of the
mediaeval artist ; and however much
we may delight in the romance and
emotionalism of this extraordinary phase
of art, we should look to It in vain for
any clue to the problem that confronts
our modern civilisation. The coiidl-

tions of our existence and our attitude Of Public
towards life have changed entirely, and Spaces, Parks
. . , ...... and Gardens
It IS only our strong traditional instinct
that deceives us into thinking that we
can find In the art of the Middle Ages
adequate expression of our own ideas
and necessities. Our problem Is how
to open up our cities, how to get light
and air and breathing space : but the
man of the Middle Ages sought for
shelter and protection by packing his
houses together within the circuit of
his walls. He left a market-place where
the citizens could gather in time of
trouble, but In time of peace he had
to make his playground outside the city
walls. The Idea of laying out a city
on a deliberate plan was not yet realised,
and when new cities were founded —
an occurrence of extreme rarity In the
Middle Ages — their plan was subordin
ated to military considerations. 183

Of Public It Is not, in fact, till the Renaissance,
Spaces, Parks ^j^^^ ^j^g ij^ea of the architecture of
and Gardens . . , . /- , . ^- j-
Cities — that is, of the systematic dis
position of streets, squares, and open
spaces with a view to their effect — was
again realised. Artists became conscious
for the first time since the fall of the
empire ; they turned back on themselves
and took account of their work. Their
theories may have been wild, but the
point is that they had theories at all,
that they worked no longer by instinct,
but by deliberate Intention. Something
of the masterful controUIng spirit of
Imperial Rome seems to have lived
again in these men of the Renaissance.
Order and proportion were what they
had to offer Instead of the wayward
fancy of the Middle Ages, and If a city
was now to be designed. Its larger lines
were considered beforehand, and build
ings were to take their place In this
184

scheme as so many details of the design. Of Public
Palladio devotes his third book to the Spaces, Parks
... - 1 • , and Gardens
consideration or ways, streets, bridges,
and squares, and though the practical
person may discover little but platitudes
in his chapters, the fact that the great
Italians considered the laying out of
cities and open spaces an essential part
of architecture had its effect on the
next two centuries.
To this we owe the immense develop
ment in garden design which belongs to
the seventeenth century. Hitherto the
garden had been but a small walled-in
enclosure, dainty and fanciful In all Its
details, yet something apart from archi
tecture ; but with the Renaissance came
the Idea of dealing with the house and
grounds together, and that fuller imagi
nation which enabled Inlgo Jones to
conceive his magnificent plan of White
hall, and to set down a model for the
i8s

Of Public treatment of pubhc squares In his design
Spaces, Parks f^^ Lincoln's Inn Fields.
and Gardens .^.^.^ , , , i ,
We have as usual to go back to the
seventeenth century for our precedents.
The French developed this branch of
design with astounding ability ; and
Lenotre and the able architects of Louis
Quatorze produced at Versailles, St.
Cloud, and elsewhere In France a series
of absolute masterpieces In garden design.
There are certain features In their work
which perhaps hardly appeal to the
English temperament, but It never failed
In the essential quality of style, and It
has been an unmitigated loss to art that
the tradition which they established In
the treatment of parks and great pubhc
spaces should have been swept aside in
the eighteenth century.
Wren, most versatile of men of
genius, was quick to see the significance
of this great movement. His scheme
i86

for the rebuilding of London struck Of Public
a fresh note in Enghsh architecture. Spaces, Parks
Much had indeed been done already by
Inigo Jones in his designs for Lincoln's
Inn Fields and Covent Garden, but here
for the first time was a comprehensive
plan of the laying out of a city, in
comparison with which what has actually
been done in London seems little better
than tinkering. Wren's general idea
was to provide three main centres as
points of predominant Interest in the
city. ( I ) A circular ' Place ' on the
top of Fleet Street Hill ; (2) a triangular
space at the top of Ludgate Hill, to
include St. Paul's ; and (3) an open space
to include the Royal Exchange, sur
rounded by the Mint and other offices.
These three points were to be connected
by broad straight streets laid out on a
deliberate system, and there can be little
doubt that, had Wren been allowed to
187

Of Public carry out his scheme, he would have left
Spaces, Parks London one of the most beautiful cities
and Gardens .
in Europe.
But his scheme for London shared
the fate of two other fine conceptions
of his — the design for the grand fore
court at Hampton Court, which was to
terminate the avenue of Bushey Park,
and that magnificent Imagination of the
royal palace at Winchester, with a wide
straight ' place ' In front of It leading
down to the Cathedral. Yet Wren's
ideas did their work. He lifted public
architecture to a different plane, and
the early part of the eighteenth century
is memorable In the history of art for
stupendous achievements In the laying
out of grounds and gardens. An oppor
tunity of designing a city did actually
come a little later on, when Wood
reorganised the city of Bath for Ralph
Allen. But throughout the last century
i88

the great tradition of the seventeenth OfPubHc
century masters was gradually losing Spaces, Parks
J <-,, , , , /. , and Gardens
ground. Chambers was the last of the
older school ; and since his time we
have tried one desperate experiment
after another, with the result that we
have lost our way, and that the nine
teenth century will probably be memor
able as the most barren of artistic
creation in the history of the civilised
world. I am talking of architecture
and what are called the minor arts.
Great individual work has of course
been done, but these brilliant flights are
like the course of Icarus. They sink
below the horizon, leaving but some
vague memory to take Its place in that
subliminal consciousness which forms the
background of our work. They have
not struck root. They have helped us,
as yet, but little to build up again our
broken tradition, 189

Of Public I have made this brief historical survey
Spaces, Parks ^^ support the position advanced above,
and Gardens , , . , , . ,
that, as compared with the ancients, and
with the great masters of modern art,
we have dropped far behind In our
treatment of public spaces ; so much so,
indeed, that we seem to have lost sight
of the significance of this problem, of
Its extreme Importance in the work of
making our cities beautiful. Where,
then. Is the source of our failure ? I
think It is to be found in the absence
of any principle ; In our Incapacity to
arrive at any dominant idea which will
Introduce logic and system into our
chaotic practice. Now, Wren at any
rate, in his plan for the laying out of
London, had two main objects in view :
( I ) to make the most of his buildings
architecturally, and to provide fine vistas
leading up to definite objects ; (2) to
provide the most direct and ample
igo

thoroughfares possible to the chief Of Public
places of public resort ; and these would Spaces, Parks
probably be admitted to be the main
ideals to be aimed at in the laying out
of cities. Yet, In fact, the first of these
two principles has been overlooked ;
and the second, though recognised In
theory, has been subordinated to other
considerations. New streets have been
planned with regard to convenience of
building sites, to get over the difficulty
of some obstinate tenure, and to avoid
the heavy outlay involved in a clean
sweep. One Is aware of the great diffi
culties that municipal bodies have to
contend with ; none the less, If ever we
are to improve our cities, these difficul
ties must be faced and dealt with. We
have to learn the folly of frittering away
great sums of money on schemes merely
ephemeral, and which stand in the way
of large and permanent improvements. 191

Of Public What we want Is a principle. In-
Spaces, Parks ciiyidual architecture is of course a
and Gardens , , i , , ,, i ¦
matter beyond control, but the laying
out of streets is on a different footing ;
and if the authorities In charge could
make up their mind to any one definite
and consecutive idea, something would
be done to redeem the streets from their
prevailing insignificance. If, for In
stance, streets were laid out solely with
regard to convenience of traffic, we
should at least have the embodiment of
an Idea ; there would be something that
appealed to the imagination in the con
sciousness of a principle of some kind
manifest In every detail. The railway
terminus would be the point of de
parture. Instead of the mean approaches
that drop one suddenly at some of
our great stations, wide open spaces
would be reserved in front of them,
and It would be possible to give their
192

surroundings that grim appropriate Of Public
dignity which results from the exact Spaces, Parks
, . - and Gardens
adaptation of means to ends.
I do not mean that this is the principle
to be sought for. The stream of traffic
can be dealt with like a watercourse. It
will suit itself to whatever channels are
found for it ; and I have taken this
merely as an instance to show that any
principle is better than the blind, hap
hazard tangle which results from working
on no system at all.
Perhaps the sanest method of dealing
with a great city would be to determine
on the buildings which are of absorbing
Interest and public Importance ; and
taking these as data, so to lay out all
future streets and public spaces as to
make these buildings the principal
features, and to bring them into rela
tion with each other. By this means
one building would help another ; and
N 193

Of Public Instead of the series of abrupt shocks
Spaces, Parks jq q^j. gssthetic sense, which Is all that
and Gardens . . • j r
our Cities provide for us, some continu
ous impression would be possible of a
great and beautiful city. It seems
superfluous to dwell on such an obvious
principle at all ; yet In fact it has not
been followed in London, except in
Waterloo Place with Westminster Abbey
In the distance, and that one admirable
work, the Thames Embankment. The
British Museum Is to all Intents in
visible till you get right up to It. Here
was a chance for making the most of
a costly and impressive building, which
has been lost. A square In front of
the British Museum, laid out on large
and simple lines, woidd have redeemed
one of the dullest parts of London
from its dreary ugliness, and have
formed a fitting conclusion to the great
thoroughfare that has yet to be made
194

from the Strand to Oxford Street. Of Public
Even the Germans, whose taste Is by Spaces, Parks
, , , , , and Gardens
no means absolute, have done better
with their museum at Berlin. Northum
berland Avenue is another instance of
a great opportunity wasted. All our
attempts, in fact, in this direction show
the same absence of Idea, the same
shortsighted effort after an Immediate
practical settlement; and the consequence
is that, instead of being, as they should
be, the visible symbol of the intelligence
of a great people, they merely express
the meanest side of modern commercial
life. Moreover, we have lost that
precious quality of audacity which can
sometimes do the work of genius. The
streets that we do lay out — Shaftesbury
Avenue, for instance — are timid and
tentative. The roadway is too narrow
for the traffic, the pathway so exiguous
that the trees we industriously plant
195

Of Public win never have room to grow. The
Spaces, Parks jgj^j^jg of refuge are mere spots in
and Gardens , , j ^ -i i
the Street : nearly every detail shows
the weak hand of uncertain purpose.
Portland Place and parts of the Mile
End Road seem to me the only roadways
in London laid out on an adequate
scale. In all this work we want courage
and we want principle. We have lost
touch of the sober gravity of the
masters of the eighteenth century, and
not yet replaced it by any fit expression
of our own existence.
The design of streets and open spaces
is undoubtedly a matter of intricate
difficulty ; but in the case of public
gardens and parks the designer has, or
should have, a perfectly clear field. He
has no vested Interests to deal with, no
necessities of traffic to meet. It is a
fair and square question of design ; yet
we are hardly more successful with our
196

parks and gardens than we are with our Of Public
streets, and it is a somewhat depressing Spaces, Parks
n . , . . ^ . and Gardens
reflection that recent work is interior
to what was being done in England
thirty or forty years ago. The straight
walk into Regent's Park is an excellent
piece of work, hardly simple enough,
it is true, yet quite admirable as com
pared with Battersea Park and the
design of certain of the newest public
parks laid out In London, These
and most other public parks attempt
to mask the absence of idea by an
abundance of trivial detail. Corners
here and there may be pretty ; the gar
dener is a clever and laborious man,
and may make his flower-beds bright,
but there is nothing to impress the
imagination with that sense of spacious
dignity which hangs about the gardens
of the seventeenth century. Their
design is wanting in distinction ; they
197

Of Public faU habitually Into that ' petite maniere
Spaces, Parks mesqulne,' as the old writer called it,
and Gardens , . , . , . . , r i j
which IS the certain evidence or bad
design. Much of the laying out of the
Bois de Boulogne seems to me a per
fect realisation of the bourgeois ideal
—a type of all that Is to be avoided In
the design of public gardens. More
over, considered from a practical point
of view, these parks are not effectual.
Space is wasted by these little irregular
lots of bushes, and It is not easy to play
cricket with a tree In the centre of the
pitch. It would Indeed be a distinct
practical gain to have the grass cleared
of these fancies of the landscape gar
dener, and the trees and bushes confined
in formal avenues and groves.
But the landscape gardener is not
easily dislodged. He has held the
field for a hundred years, and It is a
curious fact that, although we have such
198

admirable models as Kensington Gardens Of Public
and Hampton Court, our public parks are Spaces, Parks
.„ , . , . , . J J and Gardens
still laid out in the manner introduced
in the latter part of the last century.
The men who brought in what is known
as landscape gardening were neither
designers nor men of exceptional ability.
They represented no fresh movement
in art, but a passing sentiment in litera
ture : yet they and their successors have
stereotyped certain conventional notions
of design which have no reasonable
ground in theory, and are nearly always
disastrous In practice. With many of
these notions private persons have long
parted company, yet they remain a
rooted habit with municipal and other
bodies who control the expenditure of
public money. Public bodies, it is well
said, have no conscience, and, in matters
of art, this defect is not redeemed by
their intelligence. 199

Of Public The characterisdc of the older work
Spaces, Parks jg g, certain grave simplicity, which left
nothing to chance and the unforeseen,
yet did not suggest unduly the hand of
the designer. The elements of the
design of Hampton Court Gardens are
very simple : a straight broad walk
before the Palace, with a semicircular
garden in front, and the Longwater
stretching away from the outer edge of
the semicircle. All the complications
of Kensington Gardens, all its vistas of
tree stems, resolve themselves into a
few avenues laid out on a definite
system. The effect Is obtained by
simple means used with knowledge and
imagination. There is no effort ap
parent, no straining after effect ; the
eye rests contentedly on quiet masses
of foliage, and uninterrupted stretches
of grass. The charm of nature Is
there without its wildness ; only in a

certain orderly restraint the intelligence Of Public
of man is suggested, and perhaps In a Spaces, Parks
1 , , . , 111 and Gardens
statue here and there, or in the moulded
curb of the water piece. These are
places in which one feels at home, and
the gain of designs laid out on these
broad lines Is, that every year they
improve as the trees fill out and the
masses of foliage begin to tell ; whereas
In most of our modern parks, such
design as there is becomes in time
unintelligible owing to the growth of
the trees.
It is impossible to lay down rules In
the abstract for the treatment of a public
park. The nature of the ground and
the size of the park, together with its
purpose, vary in every case, but there
StiU remain models in abundance for
Imitation. The great Italian gardens,
admirable as they are, seldom apply in
England. They were inspired by the

Of Public nature of the ground, and little oppor-
Spaces, Parks ^unlty or necessity exists in England
and Gardens _ , . . ^ , . ,.
for their series or terraces and magnm-
cent staircases. The gardens of the
Tuileries and the Luxembourg show
what may be done on a comparatively
moderate scale by the use of simple
means, employed with due selection
and an accomplished sense of scale. The
gigantic grounds of Versailles are too
heroic in size ever to be Imitated.
Their prodigal use of fountains, statuary,
and temples Is neither possible nor
desirable, but these are not of the
essence of the design. Its real value
lies In its splendid spaciousness, the
courage and firm grasp of proportion
which enabled Lenotre to design and
carry out such a colossal scheme without
tripping in his scale. The design of
smaller gardens, such as those placed
in squares of houses, ought not to be

a very difficult affair. These should OfPubHc
fall naturally into simple geometrical Spaces, Parks
J . ,11, 11,1 and Gardens
designs, and all that should be necessary
is to keep the detail quiet, and not to
be afraid of repetition ; yet I doubt if
there remains in London a single garden
of this kind which has not been cut
up at random with narrow paths wan
dering aimlessly about the grounds.
Perhaps the most distressing feature
about our parks and gardens are the
fittings, as one may call them, and by
this I mean the fountains, seats, band
stands, and refreshment places. The
seats, for Instance, are mostly of cast-
iron of the worst possible design, and
make one long for the sturdy wooden
seats that still survive in the alleys of
old-fashioned gardens. Or If cast-Iron
Is Inevitable, at least some simple design
might be obtained, which would take
its place In the garden in all sobriety. 203

Of Public The drinking-fountains show the same
Spaces, Parks ill_judged parsimony. It would be
better to have none at all rather than
these lamentable castings, for indeed all
these details show a quite inadequate
conception of what Is wanted. A public
park, it is agreed, must have a fountain
and a band-stand, but anything will do
that can by a fair exercise of charity
be caUed by that name. The result
can only be pretentious shabbiness. If
the necessary money Is not forthcoming
at once, it would be better to wait till
it is, rather than attempt to turn out
a park ready made, and the money that
Is frittered away In a succession of these
wretched ornaments would provide a
few good statues and an occasional
fountain by first-rate sculptors. Really
good work of this kind would be a
lasting pleasure to every one ; for we are
not to suppose that the public cares for
204

the makeshifts provided for it in its OfPubHc
parks. It has to accept them in lieu Spaces, Parks
of better. We have in England at this
moment able sculptors for whom little
work is to be found. It would surely
be a wise and generous use of public
money to employ such men to beautify
our parks and avenues, instead of habit
ually wasting it on merely commercial
fittings. In the gardens of the Tuileries there
are statues of animals by Auguste Cain
and by Barye, admirable In themselves,
and essentially modern. They are
thoroughly decorative in the sense of
taking their place in an ordered scheme.
Yet the least informed of casual loafers
must find interest in their energy and
movement. It Is an example that might
well be copied In England. It is, un
fortunately, a well-known fact that our
English cities are lamentably deficient 205

Of Public In public sculpture, properly so called.
Spaces, Parks q-j^g opportunity has not been given to
and Gardens , • i i 11
our sculptors to rival the superb work
of Mercie, Barrlas, Fremlet, and Car-
peaux, — men who have adorned the
gardens and public places of Paris with
masterpieces of sculpture not inferior to
the very finest work of the Renaissance.
We in England put up statues, by fits
and starts, to our great soldiers and
statesmen, but we nearly always put
them in the wrong places. In narrow
streets, or at crossings where they are
lost In the whirl of traffic and omnibuses,
or disappear into a background of build
ings. The right position for a statue
Is in some place of rest and quiet, where
Its immobility is not outraged by the
rush of modern life ; and clearly parks
and public gardens can offer them this
decent refuge. If we could persuade
our authorities to return to the older
206

methods of design, and allow us now OfPubHc
and then a pole-hedge of lime or horn- Spaces, Parks
, . . , . ^ and Gardens
beam, or some semicircle or yew, for a
background, our sculptors would find
their opportunity ; and I think they
would welcome some chance of escape
from the oppressive seriousness of
modern work. For our art Is getting
heavy-handed. We have stifled that
delicate art which breathes in the
pictures of Watteau and Lancret. In
an absurd search for Intensity, we have
lost all lightness of touch ; we seem to
reserve our art for State occasions.
Now, here, in this garden statuary, is
one outlet for this more playful spirit.
In the last century there was a manu
factory of garden images in Piccadilly —
in fact, there were four. Mr. John
Cheere, the owner, did a splendid trade
in cast lead figures — gods and goddesses,
nymphs and shepherds. Pan with his
207

Of Public pipes, Actason with his hounds, mowers.
Spaces, Parks shepherdesses, and Father Time with his
and Gardens , , . ^
scythe : these sweet suggestive figures
still linger rarely In old-world gardens,
almost living by the associations of the
many that have loved them. These
figures are typical of a life and environ
ment that seems almost lost to us now.
For in all these matters, the most
advanced thought Is that which puts
itself back. We have made tremendous
strides in science and mechanics, but
meanwhile the arts have been neglected
and starved of their right intellectual
food. As we have advanced In one
direction, we have In this century fallen
back in others. We have lost our sense
of proportion, we have less understanding
of the grace of life than our forefathers,
less knowledge of how to make our
surroundings comely and reasonable ;
and we shall not find the way to this
208

by desperate attempts at making our art Of Public
and our language modern. In so doing Spaces, Parks
, 1-1 TXT ^^^ Gardens
we only make it vulgar. We must
search again for tradition. We have to
recover that fine selection, that subtle
sense of proportion, which are the first
elements of style, the power of rejecting
the irrelevant and unessential, that nice
adaptation of means to ends which tends
to become more and more the greatest
quality of art.
We have indeed to arrive at a new
understanding of what art is, and what
it can do for us in our life. I have
spoken to you to-night of architectonic
architecture, of the art that can bring
order and thereby dignity into the count
less aggregate of buildings that help to
make up a city ; and this aspect of
architecture is, 1 think, the essential
characteristic of art. Its strength, as a
factor in human thought, lies not in
o 209

Of Public meteoric displays of manipulative skill.
Spaces, Parks |l,^j. -^^ ^j^g g^eady fight that it sheds on
and Gardens .
chaos, in the sane order and harmony
that It establishes between conflicting
elements. It Is here that it takes Its
place In the work of life, and at this
point that it becomes to us a great
ennobling influence in the restless
labours of humanity.

2IO

V
OF COLOUR IN THE
ARCHITECTURE OF CITIES
HALSEY RICARDO

OF COLOUR IN THE
ARCHITECTURE OF CITIES
It has been the object, in the series of
lectures of which this Is the last, of each
lecturer to treat the conception of the
city as — speaking broadly — a whole,
having a collective, individual life, the
sum of cumulative entities directed to
agreed ends, and working hand-In-hand
on agreed lines to reach those ends ; and
not as a disorderly mass of discordant
entities, jealous of their own individu
alities and rights, regardless how much
these may be at the expense of their
neighbours, and eager to resist, as an
encroachment on their rights, any notion
213

Of Colour in of compliance to what may be held as
the Architec- ^.j^g general need of the locality. We
ture of Cities , „ ,. , , ,
are gradually tending towards a broad
conception of civic life, civic duties,
civic responsibilities, and civic pleasures,
sinking our own idiosyncrasies for the
sake of the public good, and enduring
a great deal of restriction on our liberty
for the furtherance of the common
wealth ; and it Is these qualities of
endurance, renunciation and harmony
on which we count to give the keynote
and charm of the city. Important as
these qualities are in the setting out
and structure of our cities, they become
thrice important when we come to deal
with the question of colour. Coloxir
demands large spaces on which to realise
itself ; in small patches and spots It
serves chiefly to Irritate us, both by
calling attention to the want of it else
where, and by its failure to count as
214

colour. Take, for instance, the coloured Of Colour in
window boxes and blinds In a street, '^^ Architec-
_,, . , ,, , , . ture of Cities
1 hey might as well not be there for
all the impression that they make on
the general colourlessness of the street ;
whereas, if they were parts of one general
scheme of colour — say, turquoise tiles in
a street where the houses were wholly
clothed In vines and ampelopsis — they
would count as briUIant climaxes In a
symphony of green, and their Influence
would sink into and diffuse Itself In the
general mass of colour, as the rays in
a star sapphire seem to pulse all through
the jewel, though fhey start from a
focus no larger than a point. It follows
that if colour requires to be dealt
with only in large areas and with broad
effects, it must be applied on some broad
general principle, and not left to the
taste of individual effort.
In considering a scheme for the
215

Of Colour in colouring of a city, one must distinguish
the Architec- between those places where we can
ture of Cities , ^.x , , i ,
employ Nature s palette and where we
must use man's. In our parks, squares
and open spaces we can use trees, turf
and flowers ; but in our streets, where
the only colour that is not of our own
making or collecting, is the narrow strip
of sky above our heads, we must look
to the buildings themselves to supply us
with colour. This brings up before us
the question : On what principle of the
application of colour are we to work ?
The answer, I think. Is that just as the
city, In its disposition of Its forms and
spaces, represents the corporate life of
its citizens, so the colouring should be
an indication of its corporate life also :
that is to say, the colouring in the main
should be heraldic. This has already
been felt, and acted upon. In the in
stances where colour has been employed
216

by bodies of men — such as vestries, Of Colour in
parish councils, railway companies, and '^^ Architec-
, f, T X 1 1 -1 '^ire of Cities
the State, In London, each parish
colours its lamp-posts the parish colours
— the dust and water-carts carry the
proper bearings and legends : through
out Great Britain, scarlet is the proper
tincture of the Post Office. On
the sea coast, where in general what
of original building there is, has been
pushed aside to make way for the
modern erections that serve the con
venience of visitors, and occasional
residents — and hidden by the dreary
artificialities that constitute the attrac
tions of the place — the eye is gladdened
and the landscape relieved, by the black
and white heraldry of the coastguard
stations. Oizr railway trains and our
omnibuses tell by their colour the
companies to which they belong and the
routes they take. Amidst so much that
217

Of Colour in has died, as time has rolled on from the
the Architec- Mi^i^Jie Ages to ours, heraldry has come
ture of Cities .,,,.. . i j t j
— Still living — into our hands. 1 need
only Instance the heraldry of the cricket
and football fields, with their distinctive
blazers and caps — there are innumerable
others one could quote. A kind of
classification of buildings would grow
up, each group denoted by some special
colour-treatment. State buildings, such
as the Parliament Houses, Law Courts,
Mansion House, galleries and museums,
let us suppose, would be built — as Indeed
they are — of stone, with wide open spaces
all round, and the colour would be
supplied by means of broad tracts of turf
and evergreens In formal shapes. Our
churches embody associations, traditions
and feelings still extant, and so, fulfilling
the conditions required, call for no
special modification. Of old times,
cities had walls, and the gates of the
218

city were its pride. For us of the Of Colour in
present day walls have become un- ^^^ Architec-
, . . - ture of Cities
necessary, and in the expansion of our
modes of life impossible. Our gates of
to-day are those huge vomitories — the
great railway termini ; and we might
well attempt to make conspicuous what
play so great a part in determining our
every-day affairs. The stations them
selves are, for the most part, masked
by hotels ; and as long as this system
obtains, we must endure the obscuration
of what might be an impressive and
triumphant expression of our entry Into
town. But the stations, with their cuttings,
arches and passages, might be lime
whited, and — please — the hotel frontals.
The stranger, coming to town, would
know of his lessening distance from the
terminus by the Increasing quantity of
brilhant white around him. It is true
219

Of Colour in that this whitening would require
the Architec- fj-gquent renewal, but this from a
ture of Cities . . c • i j ... u
sanitary point of view would not be
a disadvantage : since, in the process of
renewal, we should collect the great
mass of the dirt and filth constantly
accumulating and destroy It. And,
moreover, the fresh areas of lime would
do much to neutralise the corroslveness
of the gases that Issue from the funnels
of the locomotives. Moreover, such a
determined attack upon the gloom and
dirt of the railway station might do a
further good, by calling upon invention
to relieve this pressure of expense by
contriving methods whereby the com
bustion of coal was more cleanly done,
and the sum total of dirt In other ways
diminished. We have London already divided
up into various divisions — electoral,
parochial, and the like. Let us take

advantage of these, and display these Of Colour in
divisions outwardly to the eye. Already ^^^ Architec-
, • , 1 11, ture of Cities
the parish lamp-posts, and other ob
stacles, are distinguished from each
other by pattern and colour. To define
the boundaries by means of the colour
of area railings, parochially coloured,
would be an additional convenience ;
and some form of superposed tint or
quartering in part might define the
electoral divisions. That whole streets
should be coloured, or built of coloured
materials, is perhaps too much to ask
for — at least, at the beginning ; but
crucial houses, such as those that occur
at the corners of streets, having im
portant information to give, or those on
the verge of the parish boundaries,
should proclaim their position and
knowledge by their easily recognisable
colourings. Moreover, the Vestry HaU
and parish Library would gather up In

Of Colour in concentrated form the accepted heraldry
the Architec- ^£ their office and locality, making them
landmarks in the neighbourhood by the
splendid richness of their colour, con
taining in their accumulation the separate
badges and symbols elsewhere distributed
through the locality, and explaining In
the sum of their achievements the various
voices whose utterances form the chorus
of civic life.
The system of Indicating historical
houses, and houses made notable by
some famous Inmate, might be made far
more effective by a larger method of
proclaiming the fact. At present, the
writing on the disc is often illegible to
all but the keenest eyes, and the whole
memorial counts for so little on the
general mass of the building that It
eludes the notice of any except a hunter
of that particular specimen. This de
velopment might be taken in hand by

such a body as the County Council, or Of Colour in
the Vestry ; but perhaps could hardly be ^^^ Architec-
1 , f f . ture of Cities
adequately done by private enterprise.
I might go on detailing special in
stances of the many ways that we might
employ colour in explanation and adorn
ment of our buildings, but there would
be the risk of engendering a disagree
ment over details, and it is sufficient for
the purpose of the hour if I have made
clear the principles on which we should
act. In the complexity of modern life, we
must seek for any aid that we can find
that may help us to express what we
recognise to be the right and wrong of
it; what we mean to do with it as a
whole, as well as in our own individual
case. In the matter of architecture, we
may use colour to signify and tell things
that we could not possibly explain by
form, or light and shade alone ; just as
223

Of Colour in In a play the words and gestures of the
the Architec- actors do not tell us everything. You
have to divine, by careful watching, the
motives that impel the dramatis persona,
underlying their statements and their
actions ; so, when you come to add to
the storm and stress of the drama the
revelation of music (as in one of
Wagner's operas), you become a witness,
not only of the outward human body,
with its speech and outward acts, but of
the soul as well ; and before your
enchanted gaze is displayed the secret
working of the heart, its desires and its
memories, that which impels it and that
which curbs it.
Another means of interpretation has
been given us, and we come away almost
terrified by such a display. Such a
means of revelation, though touching a
different side of our emotions, can
colour be to us ; nor are the emotions
224

touched by music greatly different from Of Colour in
those roused by colour. I mean more Architec-
. 1, , -,1 • ture of Cities
especially colour qua colour — as in, say,
a glorious sunset ; and not colour as
applied in pictures for definition's sake.
We all know Beethoven's C Minor
Symphony. It opened with the forceful
knocking of Fate, and from there we
passed on to the suave but sad question
ing melody of the slow movement,
rising sometimes into almost certitude,
but relinquishing, when pressed home,
its fancied security. We have passed
through the ways of the scherzo, flill of
rugged gloomy defiance, and our path
seems nearly at an end. Amidst the
awed expectation, accompanied by hushed
drum-taps, we push on with throbbing
pulse and aching gaze, peering down
the narrow alley for the spectacle that
we know to be close upon us ; and
passing through the last few bars that
p 225

Of Colour in separate us from the finale, we come
the Architec- ^pon its almost unimaginable pomp.
ture of Cities ^^^ . j-
We are in presence or a sumptuous
pageant ; all that we know of the
splendour of rhythm and movement is
there ; all that we can hope of mortal
success seems to meet Its achievement
there. Range upon range, the pillars of
sound stand orderly- — Irradiated now by
the bright flashing of trumpets, another
moment standing softly dim In the
shadow of the orchestra. Phrase upon
phrase clamours up, brilliant, trium
phant. Intense, and their response surges
over them like the tide of the ocean.
Pinnacles of music start out as the
shifting light illuminates, now one, now
another, and sink back Into the great
bosom of sound. Delicate webs of
tracery are there, and deep Impenetrable
spaces of shade.
Let me quote a well-known passage
226

from the Stones of Venice, on such Of Colour in
another picture : — *e Architec
ture of Cities
' We find ourselves in a paved alley, some
seven feet wide, where it is widest — full of
people and resonant with cries of itinerant
salesmen. Overhead an inextricable con
fusion of rugged shutters and iron balconies,
and chimney flues pushed out on brackets to
save room, and arched windows with project
ing cills of Istrian stone, and gleams of green
leaves here and there where a fig-tree branch
escapes over a lower wall, from some inner
cortile, leading the eye up to the narrow
stream of blue sky high over all. On each
side a row of shops, as densely set as may be,
occupying, in fact, intervals between the
square stone shafts, about eight feet high,
which carry the first floor — intervals of
which one is narrow and serves as a door,
the other is, in the more respectable shops,
wainscotted to the height of the counter and
glazed above, but in those of the poorer
tradesmen, left open to the ground, and tlie
wares laid on benches and tables in the open
227

Of Colour in air. The light, in all cases, entering at the
the Architec- front only, and fading away in a few feet
ture of Cities fj-gm the threshold into a gloom which the
eye from without cannot penetrate, but
which is generally broken by a ray or two
from a feeble lamp at the back of the shop,
suspended before a print of the Virgin. . . .
We will push past into the shadow of the
pillars at the end of the Bocca di Piazza, and
then we forget them all ; for between these
pillars there opens a great light, and in the
midst of it, as we advance slowly, the vast
tower of St. Mark seems to lift itself visibly
forth from the level field of chequered stones,
and on each side the countless arches prolong
themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the
rugged and irregular houses that pressed
together above us, in the dark alley, had
been struck back into sudden obedience and
lovely order, and all their rude casements and
broken walls had been transformed into
arches charged with goodly sculpture and
fluted shafts of delicate stone.
' And well may they fall back, for beyond
those troops of ordered arches there rises a
228

vision out of the earth, and all the great Of Colour in
square seems to have opened from it in a the Architec-
kind of awe, that we may see it far away — '"''^ °^ Cities
a multitude of pillars and white domes
clustered into a long, low pyramid of coloured
light ; a treasure heap it seems, partly of
gold and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl,
hollowed beneath into five great vaulted
porches, ceiled with fair mosaic and beset
with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber
and delicate as ivory — sculpture fantastic and
involved of palm-leaves and lilies and grapes
and pomegranates, and birds clinging and
fluttering among the branches, all twined
together into an endless network of buds and
plumes ; and in the midst of it the solemn
form of angels, sceptered, and robed to the
feet, and leaning to each other across the
gates, their figures indistinct among the
gleaming of the golden ground through the
leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like
the morning light as it faded back among
the branches of Eden, when first its gates
were angel-guarded long ago. And round
the walls of the porches there are set pillars
229

Of Colour in of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and
the Architec- deep green serpentine spotted with flakes of
ture of Cities gnow, and marbles, that half refuse and half
yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-Hke, "their
bluest veins to kiss " — the shadow, as it steals
back from them, revealing line after line of
azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves the
waved sand ; their capitals rich with inter
woven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and
drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and
mystical signs, all beginning and ending in
the Cross ; and, above them, in the broad
archivolts, a continuous chain of language
and of life — angels, and the signs of heaven,
and the labours of men, each in its appointed
season upon the earth ; and above these,
another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed
with white arches edged with scarlet flowers
— a confusion of delight, amidst which the
breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing
in their breadth of golden strength, and the
St. Mark's Lion, lifted on a blue field covered
with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the
crests of the arches break into a marble foam
and toss themselves far into the blue sky in
230

flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if Of Colour in
the breakers on the Lido shore had been the Architec-
frost-bound before they fell, and the sea- ture of Cities
nymphs had inlaid them with coral and
amethyst.' ^
Have we not really touched on the
same emotions ? And how universal is
our hunger for colour ! Consider what
efforts we make to procure it, — the
flowers in our parks and window-boxes
— the brilliant posters on our hoard
ings — the trees In our boulevards. As
far as Informing the passer-by is con-
concerned, an advertisement might be
as well in black and white, but we go to
the trouble and expense of polychromy
to implant upon his memory a pleasant
remembrance of the statement made.
Indeed, I have heard it regretted that
the hoarding, with Its varied wealth of
1 Ruskin's Stones of Venice, vol. ii., §§ xii. xiii.
xiv. 231

Of Colour in colour, should have in the end to yield
the Architec- piggg to the building that Is growing
behind It. This feeling can only be
ascribed to its service as a medium for
the display of colour. So, again, our
admiration for the trees in our streets is
not on account of their form, or their
shade, or their hygienic qualities in
freshening the air — it Is for the blessed
quality of colour that they give us In
the arid, dirty street, when the eye is
tired of looking on endless vistas of
monotonous drab, and one pants for the
refreshment of some foliage or a patch
of green grass. And the eye Is so
provident and resourceful — out of quite
a little of actual colour, it will construct
fields of colour for itself, if only the
distribution but be helpful.
It is sufficient, on a mass of black, to
plant here and there pieces of blue in
quite small quantities, and the whole
232

area becomes one sea of sapphire ; or Of Colour in
place your threads of green on the the Architec-
black, and the whole field becomes a
deep meadow of green ; or put purple
studs on your black, and the black dis
solves into a robe of violet. Consider
for a moment how valuable a quality
this is In a place like London, where a
field of black is so easily obtained !
This charitable quality of colour should
put heart into us ; for the courage to
make mistakes, and to learn from them,
is quite necessary in such schemes of
colour. It will be said that mistakes
in schemes of colour are more serious
than in form, because they cannot be so
well ignored, and impress themselves
so lastingly on one's eyes and memory.
But even then, is It such a tragedy ?
Are people really so conscious of mis
takes in colour, and Is not the meaning
of colour often allowed to supersede and
233

Of Colour in pardon the sin of Its misuse ? For
the Architec- instance : the piUar-boxes at our street
ture of Cities - ...
corners are or an uncompromising red,
and In many places jar with their sur
roundings to a painful extent. Yet
who complains, or would complain ?
Its service to us, the meaning of Its
colour, its ready distlnguishabllity, all
justify the discord, and modulate it
promptly into the key of our require
ments. I could take another Instance. This
summer, the balconies and portico of
a large house at Hyde Park Corner
bloomed out into a considerable wealth
of flower and foliage. There was, If I
recollect rightly, a great quantity of
yellow calceolaria and yellow daisy,
topped by pink geranium. In Itself the
mixture of green, yeUow and pink was
made quite without taste, and was per
fectly painful. Yet from my position
234

as a rider on omnibuses, where one Of Colour in
had the fullest view of it, I never heard '^^ Architec-
1 , ^ .. r 1 ¦ ture of Cities
any one remark on the failure of this
colour scheme, whilst I heard countless
varieties of admiration from people
who at any rate considered themselves
qualified to judge. Again, the mean
ing of the colour, the purpose of the
flowers, quite swamped the confusion
of the hues. We are so grateful for any
little attention shown us In the streets.
We are too apt to look upon our
emotions as, at best, purveyors to our
Intellect, and then only after they have
been carefully inspected and clarified.
But in reality our emotions should be
the dominant things with us, and the
service of the brain is to feed them with
selected food and to train them with
perfected discipline. That sad unlearn
ing that we call knowledge, the regretted
surrender of our illusions, seems to take
235

Of Colour in our courage away. We cannot live in
the Architec- i^ugion — no good can come of that —
ture of Cities , r • i ii ¦ j.
but we may fairly call upon science to
supply us with a clear ground to build
our ambitions upon. At present we
are living, so to speak, without any
margin — on the least possible materials.
Art is not possible on such terms. We
want something over for pomp, for play
and play-room. Old as the world Is
now, and old — so to speak — as are the
children upon it, our emotions are not
much changed.
We are so instructed that we have
put away childish things. We do not
play now, — no — but we should like to.
It Is three thousand years since the hearts
of the Achaeans were gladdened by the
shout of Achilles as he stood on the top
of the trench near Troy ; It Is but a
hundred years ago that the Marseillaise
spoke to similar courage in the breasts
236

of the French. Will there come a time Of Colour in
when one's pulse is no longer stirred by '^^ Architec-
_ , ture of Cities
the notes or the post-horn, or ones
limbs by the intoxicating beat of the
drum ? Think what we have spent — in
our galleries and museums — to cultivate
such emotions, and how, by deliberately
giving the lie to all these qualities In
them we call precious, in our city life,
we foster the impression that such things
lie apart from our life and are only
curious examples of men's nightmares,
not their aspirations. Art is now col
lected, shut up in cabinets, divorced
from ordinary actual life and con
sequently out of contact with it, labelled
as something quite independent, to be
indulged in or not, according as the
humour may take us. Let us quit our
selves of such a view. Let us accept
the vast accumulation of the past as
a storehouse, not to draw therefrom 237

Of Colour in specific examples for our present use —
the Architec- j-Qgas, helmets, and spears no longer fit
ture of Cities , , . ,
our present needs — but treating them as
the outcome of the spirit actuating the
old masters who produced them, to
draw from them something of their
inspiration, and to learn from them
something of their experience.
But we must start from some firm
basis — men's affectations have only a
temporary, misleading value, and we
must seek these bases from the actual
facts of our existence, trying to dis
cover what are the actual conditions of
our present life, and how we are to face
them — to get our problems as naked as
we can before we think of what stuff
wherewith to clothe them. When life
was simpler, fewer and less subtle forms
were required to express It ; the ap
paratus of life was both smaller and
more distinct. Only the elect were
238

permitted to express themselves and to Of Colour in
have expressed for them, the passions of ^^^ Architec-
1.1- T 1 11 • ture of Cities
their lives. Labour had no voice — no
rights. On such terms, a city would
become a most intelligible affair. It is
girdled by a wall — for your aristocracy
are warriors and hunters — and set on a
hill. The foundation-stones were set,
and the city built, in the fervour of
rehgious enthusiasm.
Thus the Medes built the town of
Ecbatana. Up the sides of a steep hill
rose the seven circular walls, one Inside
the other, enfolding the treasury and the
king's palace. The outer wall was of
immense diameter, and the terraces en
closed by each ring carried collections
of country houses with small farms and
gardens attached, rather than the suburb-
building to which we are accustomed.
The city was consecrated to the great
powers of the firmament, and the
239

Of Colour in devotlon of its founders was registered
the Architec- ij^ ^j^g form and colour of its walls.
ture of Cities ^_, , , , n
The battlements to the outer wall were
white ; to the next, black ; the third,
scarlet ; the fourth, blue ; the fifth,
orange. The two last walls had their
battlements silvered and gilt. Return
ing from an expedition or from the
chase, there stood before his eyes the
city of his home, voicing in its chord of
colour the seven great orbs that guarded
his family and hearth — the sun, the moon,
and the five planets — who rose and set
in ceaseless vigilance, to call him to
action, to give him rest, to bring forth
meat for him and the kindly fruits of
the earth ; and when the fever of life
was over, to proclaim to him by their
silent march overhead through the In
finite vault of heaven the immeasurable
might of Fate, and the tranquilhty of
the grave. 240

This profusion of colour and metal Of Colour in
work strikes us as extravagant, even in ***^ Architec-
, r 1- . ture of Cities
conception, not to speak of realisation ;
but in Herodotus' time he was writing
of facts well known to many of his
readers, who had seen Nineveh and
Babylon, and the pictured splendour of
Egypt. In the island of his fancy
Plato builds his metropolis, sumptuously
if you will, but not beyond measure so.
The inhabitants of Atlantis were as
other men are, except In the measure of
wisdom allotted to them. For the rest,
the description of the island, the fer
tility of the soil, are scrupulously kept
within the bounds of probability ; the
manner in which traditional names and
indications of geography are inter
mingled ; the extreme minuteness with
which the numbers of the inhabitants,
etc., are given ; the confession that
though the depth of the ditch appeared
Q 241

Of Colour in incredible, 'yet he could only repeat
the Architec- ^hat he had heard,' — are all so many
ture of Cities . . , ...
ingenious strokes to give the impression
that what he relates Is the truth. And
this Is how he describes his citadel : —
'The Island in which the palace was
situated had a diameter of five stadia. All
this, including the zones and the bridge,
which was the sixth part of a stadium in
width, they surrounded by a stone wall on
all sides, placing towers and gates on the
bridges where the sea passed in. The stone
which was used in the work they quarried
from underneath the centre island, and from
underneath the zones, on the outer as well
as the inner side. One kind of stone was
white, another black, and a third red, and
as they quarried, they at the same time
hollowed out double docks, having roofs
formed out of the native rock. Some of
their buildings were simple, but in others
they put together different stones, varying
the pattern to please the eye, and to be a
natural source of delight. The entire circuit
242

of the wall, which went round the outermost Of Colour in
zone, they covered with a coating of brass, the Architec-
and the circuit of the next wall they coated ture of Cities
with tin, and the third, which encompassed
the citadel, flashed with the red fight of
orichalcum. The palaces in the interior of
the citadel were constructed on this wise : —
In the centre was a holy temple dedicated to
Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inac
cessible, and was surrounded by an enclosure
of gold ; this was the spot where the family
of the ten princes first saw the light, and
thither the people annually brought the
fruits of the earth in their season from all the
ten portions, and performed sacrifice to each
of the ten. Here, too, was Poseidon's own
temple, which was a stadium in length, and
half a stadium in width, and of a propor
tionate height, having a strange Asiatic look.
All the outside of the temple, with the
exception of the pinnacles, they covered with
silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the
interior of the temple the roof was of ivory,
adorned everywhere with gold and silver and
orichalcum ; and all the other parts of the
243

Of Colour in walls and pillars and floor they lined with
the Architec- orichalcum. In the temple they placed
ture of Cities statues of gold : there was the god himself
standing in a chariot — the charioteer of six
winged horses — and of such a size that he
touched the roof of the buildings with his
head ; around him were a hundred Nereids
riding on dolphins, for such was thought to
be the number of them in that day. There
were also in the interior of the temple other
images which had been dedicated by private
individuals. And around the temple on the
outside were placed statues of gold of all the
ten kings and of their wives, and there were
many other great offerings of kings and of
private individuals, coming both from the
city itself, and from the foreign cities over
which they held sway. There was an altar,
too, which in size and workmanship corre
sponded to the rest of the work, and there
were palaces, in like manner, which answered
to the greatness of the kingdom and the
glory of the temple.' ^
t Plato, Dialogues: 'Critias' (Jowett's trans
lation). 244

In the picture of St. Mark's Square at Of Colour in
Venice, Gentile Bellini shows Venice as ^^^ Architec-
1 1 1 1 ., TT ture of Cities
sumptuously coloured and gilt. Houses
that were not encrusted with marbles
and mosaic sought colour and magnifi
cence in fresco. Here in England our
abbeys and cathedrals spared colour
neither outside nor in. Our streets were
full of colour, partly from the buildings
themselves, but mainly from the gaily
dressed throngs in the lanes. Brilliant
processions swept through the streets,
or glided past on the river. The
opulence and extravagance of colour
mounted high— it reached the Field of
the Cloth of Gold, and then came the
reaction. So far as the people were
concerned, colour outside home faded
entirely away. It faded from the
church, for the pictures were removed
by the Reformers, the stained windows
knocked out and the walls defaced ; it
245

Of Colour in faded from the streets, for the nobles
the Architec- .yj^j^Q bullt palaces built them of stone
and banished colour from their fronts,
too wise to waste the painting of their
finest artists by exposure to the inclem
encies of wind and rain, and too proud
to content themselves with anything less
than the masterpieces of painting. Then
came the Great Fire, compelling the use
of stone and brick for city architecture.
It faded from the shelf, for the Illu
minated manuscript gave way to the
printed book. Still, elements of colour
remained that are fading now. The sky
was clear, the grass was green, and the
seasons decked the trees with the tremu
lous green of spring, the full verdure
of summer, and the russet, gold and
scarlets of autumn. It Is not too much
to hope that we may some day move
again In an atmosphere that permits us
to see the glory of the sun — the dawn,
246

sunset and twilight, the majesty of night, Of Colour in
the checkered azure of the sky — an ^^^ Architec-
, , .,, ¦ 1- • 1 . ture of Cities
atmosphere that will permit living things
to grow and prosper in it, and our struc
tures to stand uncorroded and undefiled.
It is so much every one's wish, that we
seem almost within distance of obtaining
that measure of self-denial, co-operation,
and public spirit, necessary for the
success of any scheme of smoke abate
ment. That we desire colour in our
streets, the shop-fronts and the adver
tisements on the hoardings show. The
revolt against the grey stucco -fronted
houses was in part due to the same
feeling that followed on the Gothic
Revival — a desire to avoid anything that
might savour of dishonesty in construc
tion ; but the red buildings arose more,
I think, as a protest against the
monotony and colourlessness of our
streets. Now that we have tasted blood
247

Of Colour in — SO to speak — we want more, and we
the Architec- .^g^j^j. i(. permanent. Red brick and
ture of Cities ,• , i j ,
terra-cotta discolour ; coloured stones
and marbles grow dim and perish in
shocking haste ; and It would seem as if
no building material but what had got
practically a glass face to it would be
able to contend against the corrosion
of the air of a manufacturing city.
The use of permanent coloured build
ing materials In our towns would involve
great changes In our treatment of our
buildings. The mere fact that they are
permanent comes as a shock, because
till now we have been in the habit of
calling upon Time to aid us — by soften
ing here, blunting there — enforcing
some particular effect, and repressing
some other ; constructing contrasts by
the aid of dust and lichen, and in a
measure harmonising what was discord
ant by blending the mass into a whole.
We must give up this. But In a
248

city, is this sacrifice a serious one ? Of Colour in
Before Time has begun to spare any ^^^ Architec-
,,.,.. , . , ture of Cities
attention on the building, the grime and
smoke of our fog-laden atmosphere have
done their work of degradation, and, in
the quick passage of its decay we get
a harmony, but It Is a harmony of filth.
On the other hand, we have advan
tages. All those shadows and half-tones
that we so carefully construct by means
of cornice and pillar, architraves and
mouldings, we can supply in colour —
that is to say, we can get their equiva
lents In contrast by variety of colour.
And then — in our dark and narrow
streets — what a boon to be relieved of
the pressure of cornice and pillar —
especially when they appear to be rest
ing on huge areas of plate glass 1
We want no projecting mouldings In
our streets ; nothing to lessen the
amount of sunshine that may get in
them ; nothing on which the soot and
249

Of Colour in dirt may lodge. Every time that the
the Architec- -^yoodwork of your windows had to be
repainted, the walls would be washed
down and your buildings will stand as
they did on the first day that the
scaffolding was removed. One hears it
said that colour, used in such quantity
as this, however well It might look In
a hot climate where there is abundance
of sunshine, would not suit our cold and
dark climate. But this Is not so. Of
course, there are occasions when the
necessity of reflecting back the maximum
amount of light overrides all other con
ditions, but this does not affect the fact
that the full wealth and beauty of colour
Is best seen, not under strong light, but
under soft half light. Strong light
bleaches colour. Nor In Nature do we
find strong colour until the light begins
to abate. Go Into a garden soon after
the sun has set, and see what fire of
colour is there. It is then, as you look
250

on the grass lawn, that you know what Of Colour in
sheer green can be : transcending colour, "^^e Architec-
1 J , . J 1 . ture of Cities
as jewels and stained glass seem at times
to transcend colour and rise into music.
There is the red of the clove carnation —
grave and subdued — not the lambent fire
of the tulip, nor the roused ember-glow
of the begonia, nor the dazzling scarlet
of the geranium — but clouded Into an
austere dignity of red, as seen in the
sunlight. But as the shadow of evening
draws near, the carnation glows as a
live coal. Petal after petal seems to
struggle up from the full arteries of the
plant through the soft films of purple
clouding. Tipped with the fire of the
ruby and stained with the hues of the
garnet, the colour seems to palpitate
and suffuse the mysterious dark spaces
from which It rises, till the green lances
that are Its leaves float on a violet sea,
forming a weedy tangle enmeshing these
sanguine islands that are the very heart's
251

Of Colour in blood from the realms of spice, as they
the Architec- surrender their fragrance to the ambrosial
ture of Cities . -1,1 r 1 1 1
air. There is the blue of the larkspur ;
the blue of Infinity was Its home, and it
touched all the deep places of this earth
in Its passage hence. It was woven by
Persephone as she lay in the lap of
Demeter. Threads of it came from the
wine - coloured ocean — from the still
dark pool In the lonely glen — from
many - fountalned Ida came strands of
green moss and the creamy foam of
leaping waters — and the great powers
that he under the world hymned a
solemn chant whilst she wove.
There Is the yellow of the wall
flower, tawny and stained with russet.
All day the bees came about it, murmur
ing, for Its honey. It served as a golden
throne to the butterflies, and the lizard
sought security behind Its bushy growth.
But now its cascades of yellow are un
troubled, and the multitudinous hues of
252

gold and copper, of jacinth and amber, Of Colour in
of orange and citron, now that the ex- ^^^ Architec-
, . - , , . ... ture of Cities
haustion or the day is over, mingle into
a translucent mass of fragrant honey —
the candied Paradise of which the closed
butterfly and hived bee dream.
I do not say that the light In our
streets will reveal to us such Imagery
from the colours that would be used,
but I do mean that these intensities and
qualities of colour are what we ought
to use. Here and there we may strike
the scarlet of the poppy, the yellow
of the iris, and the blue of the salvia —
but only as a crowning touch and focus
in the great fields of colour that are
the groundwork of our decoration.
Let us go Into Trafalgar Square
and, taking up our position by King
Charles's statue, let us try and conceive
' the finest site in Europe ' In terms of
colour. We will not attempt to re
arrange the disposition of the walls and
253

Of Colour in terraces, nor rebuild the houses ; and
the Architec- ^^ij-j^ jj^ig careful moderation upon us,
ture of Cities -.i j- -.^i
we must gaze with dim eyes on either
side of us. Perhaps, without imputation
upon our claim for moderation, we
might remove some of the statues.
Before us rises the column, relieved
against the green of the square — for we
would have the area in which the foun
tains play laid down with turf and
studded with trees of formal shape and
no great size, standing either in the
ground or in wood boxes. The great
basins of the fountains (might they be
reduced .'') we would line with blue tiles
of varied tints and so modulate the
colour of the water in them. On the
north wall we would gather up all
the heraldry of the County of London
and place it there in the form of
enameUed shields, so that the wall shall
be as rich in colour as the page of
a missal. The reliefs and figure of
254

Gordon's statue we will have gilt, and Of Colour in
in future we will ask that the pedestals Architec-
shall show as little stone as possible ;
let us have in the panels enamel plates
of some rich colour, over which are
fastened the gilt bronze letters of the
inscription. Above the balustrade rises,
from its strip of green, the National Gal
lery, and to the right comes St. Martin's
Church. Far back and between stand St.
Martin's Town Hall and Library, and
here again all that there is of electoral
and parochial of St. Martin's would be
blazoned forth. The walls would pro
claim the hue of St. Martin's cloak ;
bands of inscriptions would set forth
the nature of St. Martin's property, —
what was public, what private. Along
the receding perspective of the streets
the threads of St, Martin's colour would
stretch like arteries from the heart of
the parish. Part seen, as we look down
the Strand, would be the immense mass
255

Of Colour in of Charing Cross Station and Hotel, —
the Architec- jjj^g ^ snow mountain against the sky.
There Is this amiable quality about
whitewash, that when you have whitened
the building you also have coloured It.
The white seems to borrow and steal
from far and near. It collects blue from
the sky, green from the trees, reds and
russets from the walls, and sober shad
ings from the ground. It holds them
lightly, tremulously, — a cloud crosses
the blue sky and the whole gamut of
colour vibrates In another key.
The club buildings on the one side
of Trafalgar Square, and Morley's Hotel
on the other, would be in white, except
where they bore the heraldry of their
locality ; whilst the Post Office, that is
now semi-concealed in the latter, would
flame out in Its state-colours.
But what a change this symphony in
gold and white and green would be
from the present drab monochord !
256

And it would be In greatest measure Of Colour in
Independent of the seasons — for grass '^'^^ ¦^'''^hitec-
is green the whole year through ; and
If bays and cypress are too tender to
survive our winter's gloom and fogs,
they can be removed into security
during the dark months and placed
again in their positions when the days
have lengthened themselves. I have
spoken of it before, but I repeat it again :
that if you use colom- you must use
it in large masses. I must add, that it
must be gradated. There are many
methods of achieving that result — but
gradated it must be. A piece of un-
gradated colour is a monstrosity. It
does not exist In Nature, and though
we may oppose Nature in many of the
things we do, we may not oppose her
in that. Nor, except with the paint-
pot and machine-made tile, is it easy to
procure uniformity of tint, so resolute
seems Nature on this particular. This
R 257

Of Colour in appears at first to conflict with the use
the Architec- ^f whitewash, but It is not so really.
All colours, lay them as carefully as
you will, get gradated by reflected lights
and colours Impinging on them, but,
as a rule, not in sufficient quantity to
appease the eye ; whereas white is able
to accept all the external colour that is
available, to an extent that can satisfy
the eye. Our colouring, therefore, must
be in large gradated masses, and — again
accepting Nature's methods in this
matter — sparing in the use of brilliant
positive tints. The sea is blue, and
the earth Is green, and there is plenty of
it, but the flowers are few — even when
the meadow is shot with buttercup and
daisy, and the cornfield with poppy.
But the wise application of colour is
a matter which we may consider after
we have agreed upon the principle.
Heraldry had its roots in war ; and
from the strife of men against men,
258

their passions, their abilities and hopes. Of Colour in
came the superstructure of colour, ^^^ Architec-
charged with history and meaning, ""^^ ° '"^^
fenced round by law. The temple
walls, the battlements, the ships' bul
warks, were gay with shields of heroes ;
from tower and spire waved the pennons
and standards, placed there by man's
hand, but kept there by man's blood.
We, too, have our strife — but it is
against want and disease, dirt and dis
order. We fortify our city against these
enemies, setting our houses in order,
summoned by the pity of these later
days, and marshaUed by the knowledge
their science has given us. Strong and
brave, let us go out to our fight clothed
with the distinction that colour can give
us, and cheered by the camaraderie that
such colour confers : and, the day's
work done, there is the city beautiful —
firm, stable, our home. Within its
259

Of Colour in many walls are the hostages we have
the Architec- giygn to fortune, — the treasures our
ture of Cities . . , . , ,
forefathers fought to secure, the monu
ments to which we are the heirs. Is
it too much to hope that some day
our children may say to the stranger,
' Walk about Zion, and go round about
her : tell the towers thereof. Mark ye
well her bulwarks, consider her palaces ;
that ye may tell It to the generation
following ' ?

260

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