past; and which they again must have, if in the future they are to be directly related to the most lasting interests of life.

Art is fundamentally an external symbol or manner of life. It is character dealing with the uses and with the hopes of life. And to have the power of artistic creation is to have the power of supplying life with symbols-those great and graceful things, which, active in sensuous form, initiate and direct the aspirations, and so make for the more perfect patterning of life. Whether then we speak of this need of imaginative interest as involving an arbitrary pattern in the conduct of life, or as involving an arbitrary pattern in the conception of Art, matters not, though we speak of it here as a principle of Art.

Look back for a moment, and see what this has been in the past. Look back into time and review those ages in which the artistic nature of man produced its Scopas, its Brunnelleschi, and its William of Wickham, and what do we see? We behold times in which the artist seemed to find the true spirit of his pattern in making Art a minister of his daily life; the beauty of his table and the glory of his altar. To him, Art was not chiefly the rounding of the earthen rim that man might drink more thankfully of the cup of life, but rather its symbolic endowment for the sake of imaginative interest. Never in those days was Art regarded as some ornate edging of life's vesture, to have or to miss, as chance might decree, or as the purse might indulge. Rather was it, that in dignified alliance with objects of perpetual service, Art entered every home, gracing each agency of life, and giving to every kind of life its necessary set of symbols. And why was this? Why was Art nowhere a stranger, nowhere an idol? First, because he only was an artist who felt the need of symbols; secondly, because the artist thought not to supply the world with Art, but sought to fashion for himself a new world of imagery.

Therefore it was, directly this symbolic function of Art went, directly this went which was the secret of its power and of its success, Art went away, and no skill-no Meissonier's hand could keep it.

In those days, then, Art was in act and in intention neither less nor more than the ordering, so to speak, of the water-way; the choice completion of the well-head; a choice completion which has always been the outcome of a common effort to heighten use to an all-wide joy, so that everything which the eye might see, or the hand might handle, within the tabernacle of man's existence, while adequately meeting his creature requirements, might arouse his reason, his taste, and his sentiment.

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The choice completion of things necessary: this is the function of the decorative Arts,' those Arts that, beginning in the endowment of the platter with simple imagery, find their end in the glorification of the temple walls. "Look that thou make them after their pattern shewed thee in the mount." How then shall we follow this pattern in architecture? If we answer this, we answer for all the Arts; for this Art comprehends all others, inasmuch as it is architecture that builds the inner formal world in which all actual imagery lives, and which all imagery makes interesting; a world as self-contained and as fully informed by the Creative Genius as that outer world wherein Nature reigns; one also to be as much reverenced, since it is the joint creation of all peoples and of all ages; the soul treasury of all remaining from the inner life of the human past. For our purpose, however, we will take it part by part, dismissing architecture proper by saying it should be the Scholarship of Construction informed with character and with purpose: or to use our old definition, the choice completion of skilful building. If we understand this, it is sufficient 1 That is, those arts that appeal to the imagination through the eye.

for its service and for its symbolism. For that music of proportion which comes from the delicate adjustment of space to space in window and wall is one of the grandest elements of Beauty, and it is the highest compliment the artist can pay to their necessity that he makes them lovely in their mere disposition and measure. But in the sculptured or pictorial ornament of these features, this is the authoritative pattern after which the artist must work, would he be guided, and would he have his Art adequate in interest. In order, the requisites are these :

I. His ornament should be a finish of finished construction.

II. It should make a direct appeal to the sense.

III. It should be interesting and appropriate in symbolism. Thus, the first is a test of the simplicity of an ornament's application; the second is a test of its power in sensuous effect; the third is a test of its subjective force.

By saying that it should be a finish of finished construction, it is meant that the ornament should be not the embellishment of illbound books, but the gracing of exquisite workmanship. This implies that it should claim for itself no necessity of structure, so that were the ornament omitted the construction would suffer no change. Now to allow but the slightest departure from this frank simplicity of application, or technical rightness, is inevitably to doom the artistic result of any work, as may be seen in the case of turrets, gables, and other features built up solely for picturesque effect in our suburban villas. To confine this condition within a more restricted limit, as some have tried to do, is unnecessary for the architect, since that sentiment exquis de la service," so strong in the artist, will safely guide in matters of detail, making it impossible for him to exceed the limits of artistic propriety. Now the best example of this simple

application of ornament, is to be found in the decoration of structural points chosen for that purpose by the early Gothic builders, and in the directness of treatment employed by the metal workers and furniture workers of the fifteenth century. By saying that ornament should directly appeal to the sense, is meant that the general aspect of ornament should before all else be decorative and full of taste. And since the decorative aspect depends largely on a certain inevitableness of disposition in the parts, as in the case of musical intervals, the ornament should have movement, and this movement should be rhythmic. Only by insistence on this "tastefulness" or "sympathy" of arrangement in his ornament, by means of symmetry or by means of repetition that is, can the artist hope to be successful in exciting the sensuous nature to the degree required of Art. And in evidence of this decorative quality, we may study the Attic vases, the ornaments of Byzantine buildings, the carpets and the cretonnes of William Morris.

With regard to the subject of the ornament-first of all, this should be interesting in its symbolic treatment; that is, its symbolism must suggest and point to current ideas as in the most noted pictures of S. Palmer, G. F. Watts, and in the designs of F. Shields; secondly, the symbolism should be appropriate, that is, the imagery and temper of the ornament should harmonize with the building's rank, be it monumental in national importance, or be it of only homely service. For it cannot be considered appropriate to allow in a building devoted to public affairs, such as the War Office, that picturesque play, symbolic of a humour only legitimate in a private house. Nor again, can it be considered appropriate, to allow that gravity proper in ornament about a Court of Justice, to control the temper of ornament placed for the delight of the eye on entering a play-house. Of this fitness of

ornament no better examples do we know than the Sculptures of the Parthenon; the Italian altar-pieces, and the mosaics of Burne Jones. But how little effort is made to-day in street architecture to preserve this fitness of things may be seen in the repetition after repetition of the Acanthus, Mask, Mermaid, Cherub, or other hackneyed and long since ineloquent imagery, carved alike on Bank, School House, Music Hall, Mansion, Salvation Hall and Beer House; such is the vulgar inconsiderateness to be attributed to those who hand over the sculpture of buildings to the trader in carved ornaments. our deficiencies do not end here.

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When we think of Sculpture and Painting in their present condition we feel that these have perhaps fallen farthest from their old estate ; for they have ignored their ancestry and have lent themselves to unworthy ends. Both Sculptor and Painter have lost sight of that monumental character of Art which is the soul of its traditional life. They look at their work not as the monument of an imagination dedicated to the religious agencies of life and appealing to the deeplying sentiments common to the Artizan and to the Duke, but as the fashioning of a false bait with which to tempt the "successful man ;" as the toy of another's idleness, or as the idol of his own ungifted industry, so that of the art of each it may be said, Declinat cursus aurumque volubile tollit. To such men, Art is not indeed possible, for they have no very intimate touch with the larger issues of life, and thus, missing life's mysteries and careless of life's aspirations, they need none of life's symbols, saying with the man whose eye is ever on his own navel, "They care not for any art which is not the likeness of what their own eyes see." Did all artists, then, hold undivided alliance with architecture in order to maintain their priestly function, neither the Sculptor of Lap Dogs nor the Painter of Kittens would

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