fference between them. For art has made the
things which are useful, and done the things which are needed, in
those shapes and ways of beauty which have no aim but our
satisfaction.

VI.

The way in which the work of art is born of a purpose, of something
useful to do or desirable to say, and the way in which the suggestions
of utility are used up for beauty, can best be shown by a really
existing object. Expressed in practical terms the object is humble
enough: a little trough with two taps built into a recess in a wall; a
place for washing hands and rinsing glasses, as you see the Dominican
brothers doing it all day, for I am speaking of the _Lavabo_ by
Giovanni della Robbia in the Sacristy of Santa Maria Novella in
Florence. The whole thing is small, and did not allow of the adjoining
room usually devoted to this purpose. The washing and rinsing had to
take place in the sacristy itself. But this being the case, it was
desirable that the space set apart for these proceedings should at
least appear to be separate; the trough, therefore, was sunk in a
recess, and the recess divided off from the rest of the wall by
pillars and a gable, becoming in this manner, with no loss of real
standing room, a building inside a building; the operations,
furthermore, implying a certain amount of wetting and slopping, the
dryness of the rest of the sacristy, and particularly the _idea_ of
its dryness (so necessary where precious stuffs and metal vessels are
kept) had to be secured not merely by covering a piece of wainscot and
floor with tiles, but by building the whole little enclosure (all save
the marble trough) of white and coloured majolica, which seemed to say
to the oaken and walnut presses, to the great table covered with
vestments: "Don't be afraid, you shall not feel a drop from all this
washing and rinsing."

So far, therefore, we have got for our lavabo-trough a shallow recess,
lined and paved with tiles, and cut off from the frescoed and panelled
walls by two pilasters and a rounded gable, of tile work also, the
general proportions being given by the necessity of two monks or two
acolytes washing the sacred vessels at the same moment. The word
_sacred_ now leads us to another determining necessity of our work of
art. For this place, where the lavabo stands, is actually consecrated;
it has an altar; and it is in it that take place all the preparations
and preliminaries for the most holy and most magnificent of rites.