Gods and goddesses the Greek carved because he
loved them; saint and king the Goth because he believed in them.
But you, you do not care much for Greek gods and goddesses, and you
are perfectly and entirely right; and you do not think much of
kings either, and you are quite right. But what you do love are
your own men and women, your own flowers and fields, your own hills
and mountains, and these are what your art should represent to you.
Ours has been the first movement which has brought the
handicraftsman and the artist together, for remember that by
separating the one from the other you do ruin to both; you rob the
one of all spiritual motive and all imaginative joy, you isolate
the other from all real technical perfection. The two greatest
schools of art in the world, the sculptor at Athens and the school
of painting at Venice, had their origin entirely in a long
succession of simple and earnest handicraftsmen. It was the Greek
potter who taught the sculptor that restraining influence of design
which was the glory of the Parthenon; it was the Italian decorator
of chests and household goods who kept Venetian painting always
true to its primary pictorial condition of noble colour.
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