ings; we cannot be persuaded that we like a man when really we
dislike him; if we could, our whole society would soon dissolve in a
moral anarchy. But with regard to the works of man, or that part of them
which is supposed to aim at beauty, we are in a state of aesthetic
anarchy, because there is a whole vast conspiracy, itself unconscious
for the most part, to persuade us that we like what no human being out
of a madhouse could like.

So the real problem for us is to discover, not merely in pictures, but
in all things that are supposed to have beauty, what we really do like.
And we can best do that, perhaps, if we dismiss the notions of art and
beauty for a time from our minds; not because art and beauty do not
exist, but because our notions of them are wrong and misleading. The
very words intimidate us, as people used to be intimidated by the jargon
of pietistic religion, so that they would believe that a very unpleasant
person was a saint. When once we look for beauty in anything, we look no
longer for good design, good workmanship, or good material. It is
because we do not look for beauty in motor-cars that we enjoy the
excellence of their design, workmanship, and material, which is beauty,
if only we knew it. Beauty, in fact, is a symptom of success in things
made by man, not of success in selling, but of success in making. If an
object made by man gives us pleasure in itself, then it has beauty; if
we got pleasure only from the belief that in it we are enjoying what we
ought to enjoy, then very likely it is as naked of beauty as the Emperor
was of clothes. The great mass of people now have a belief that ornament
is necessarily beauty, that, without it, nothing can be beautiful. But
ornament is often only added ugliness, like a wen on a man's face. It is
always added ugliness when it is machine-made, and when it is put on to
hide cheapness of material and faults of design and workmanship.
Unfortunately, it does hide these things from us; we accept ornament as
a substitute for that beauty which can only come of good design,
material, and workmanship; and we do not recognize these things when we
see them, except in objects like motor-cars, which we prefer plain
because we do unconsciously enjoy their real beauty.

So, in the matter of ornament, we need to make a self-denying
ordinance; not because ornament is necessarily bad--it is the natural
expression of the artist's superfluous energy and delight--but because
we