ions of light and shade,
or proximity to other things, it will not look beautiful; no object is so
beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. I
believe that in every twenty-four hours what is beautiful looks ugly, and
what is ugly looks beautiful, once.

And, the commonplace character of so much of our English painting seems
to me due to the fact that so many of our young artists look merely at
what we may call 'ready-made beauty,' whereas you exist as artists not to
copy beauty but to create it in your art, to wait and watch for it in
nature.

What would you say of a dramatist who would take nobody but virtuous
people as characters in his play? Would you not say he was missing half
of life? Well, of the young artist who paints nothing but beautiful
things, I say he misses one half of the world.

Do not wait for life to be picturesque, but try and see life under
picturesque conditions. These conditions you can create for yourself in
your studio, for they are merely conditions of light. In nature, you
must wait for them, watch for them, choose them; and, if you wait and
watch, come they will.

In Gower Street at night you may see a letterbox that is picturesque; on
the Thames Embankment you may see picturesque policemen. Even Venice is
not always beautiful, nor France.

To paint what you see is a good rule in art, but to see what is worth
painting is better. See life under pictorial conditions. It is better
to live in a city of changeable weather than in a city of lovely
surroundings.

Now, having seen what makes the artist, and what the artist makes, who is
the artist? There is a man living amongst us who unites in himself all
the qualities of the noblest art, whose work is a joy for all time, who
is, himself, a master of all time. That man is Mr. Whistler.

But, you will say, modern dress, that is bad. If you cannot paint black
cloth you could not have painted silken doublet. Ugly dress is better
for art--facts of vision, not of the object.

What is a picture? Primarily, a picture is a beautifully coloured
surface, merely, with no more spiritual message or meaning for you than
an exquisite fragment of Venetian glass or a blue tile from the wall of
Damascus. It is, primarily, a purely decorative thing, a delight to look
at.

All archaeological pictures that make you say 'How curious!' all
sentimental pictures that make you say 'How sad!' all historical pictures
that make y