self, scorching with expanse of light, stretching from their feet to
the Gorgonian isles; and over all these, ever present, near or
far--seen through the leaves of vine, or imaged with all its march of
clouds in the Arno's stream, or set with its depth of blue close
against the golden hair and burning cheek of lady and knight,--that
untroubled and sacred sky, which was to all men, in those days of
innocent faith, indeed the unquestioned abode of spirits, as the earth
was of men; and which opened straight through its gates of cloud and
veils of dew into the awfulness of the eternal world;--a heaven in
which every cloud that passed was literally the chariot of an angel,
and every ray of its Evening and Morning streamed from the throne of
God.

What think you of that for a school of design?

And then look at the depressing, monotonous appearance of any modern
city, the sombre dress of men and women, the meaningless and barren
architecture, the colourless and dreadful surroundings. Without a
beautiful national life, not sculpture merely, but all the arts will die.

Well, as regards the religious feeling of the close of the passage, I do
not think I need speak about that. Religion springs from religious
feeling, art from artistic feeling: you never get one from the other;
unless you have the right root you will not get the right flower; and, if
a man sees in a cloud the chariot of an angel, he will probably paint it
very unlike a cloud.

But, as regards the general idea of the early part of that lovely bit of
prose, is it really true that beautiful surroundings are necessary for
the artist? I think not; I am sure not. Indeed, to me the most
inartistic thing in this age of ours is not the indifference of the
public to beautiful things, but the indifference of the artist to the
things that are called ugly. For, to the real artist, nothing is
beautiful or ugly in itself at all. With the facts of the object he has
nothing to do, but with its appearance only, and appearance is a matter
of light and shade, of masses, of position, and of value.

Appearance is, in fact, a matter of effect merely, and it is with the
effects of nature that you have to deal, not with the real condition of
the object. What you, as painters, have to paint is not things as they
are but things as they seem to be, not things as they are but things as
they are not.

No object is so ugly that, under certain condit