|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: Now, what America wants to-day is a school of rational art. Bad
art is a great deal worse than no art at all. You must show your
workmen specimens of good work so that they come to know what is
simple and true and beautiful. To that end I would have you have a
museum attached to these schools - not one of those dreadful modern
institutions where there is a stuffed and very dusty giraffe, and a
case or two of fossils, but a place where there are gathered
examples of art decoration from various periods and countries.
Such a place is the South Kensington Museum in London, whereon we
build greater hopes for the future than on any other one thing.
There I go every Saturday night, when the museum is open later than
|
