Having done this, you must place your workman in the midst of
beautiful surroundings. The artist is not dependent on the visible
and the tangible. He has his visions and his dreams to feed on.
But the workman must see lovely forms as he goes to his work in the
morning and returns at eventide. And, in connection with this, I
want to assure you that noble and beautiful designs are never the
result of idle fancy or purposeless day-dreaming. They come only
as the accumulation of habits of long and delightful observation.
And yet such things may not be taught. Right ideas concerning them
can certainly be obtained only by those who have been accustomed to
rooms that are beautiful and colours that are satisfying.#2599•
The conditions of art should be simple. A great deal more depends
upon the heart than upon the head. Appreciation of art is not
secured by any elaborate scheme of learning. Art requires a good
healthy atmosphere. The motives for art are still around about us
as they were round about the ancients. And the subjects are also
easily found by the earnest sculptor and the painter. Nothing is
more picturesque and graceful than a man at work. The artist who
goes to the children's playground, watches them at their sport and
sees the boy stoop to tie his shoe, will find the same themes that
engaged the attention of the ancient Greeks, and such observation
and the illustrations which follow will do much to correct that
foolish impression that mental and physical beauty are always
divorced.#2637•
The object of art is to stir the most divine and remote of the
chords which make music in our soul; and colour is indeed, of
itself a mystical presence on things, and tone a kind of sentinel.#2805•