Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/70

 Some modern essays in mural painting show that the habit of mind and method of work fostered by the production of trifles for the picture market is not favourable to monumental painting. Neither the mood nor the skill, indeed, can be grown like a mushroom; such works as the Sistine Chapel, the Stanzi of Raphael, or the Apartimenti Borgia, are the result of long practice through many centuries, and intimate relationship and harmony in the arts, as well as a certain unity of public sentiment.

The true soil for the growth of the painter in this higher sense is a rich and varied external life: familiarity from early youth with the uses of materials and methods, and the hand facility which comes of close and constant acquaintanceship with the tools of the artist, who sums up and includes in himself other crafts, such as modelling, 46