Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/617

208 had, in earlier days, done by the mere unassisted force of his own genius, was now being attempted on all sides with a conscious purpose. His own work in the early sixties had been based on two principles: the first, that nothing should be done in his workshops which he did not know how to do himself; and the second, that every form of decorative art could be subsumed under the single head of architecture, and had only a real life and intelligible meaning in its relation to the mistress-art, and through the mistress-art to all the other subordinate arts. Following out these principles, his pupils were now occupied, first, in learning what it was they had to deal with by actual work at the lathe, or the dye-vat, or the mason's yard, and then in forming, by the co-ordination and communication of this practical knowledge, the basis for a really popular art such as had not existed within the memory of men now living.

The sense of corporate life among this group of artists and workmen had by this time reached a point where it demanded some visible expression. There was already a sort of freemasonry among them. The Art Workers' Guild, established in March, 1884, had become a great influence towards solidarity. But now an increased motive power might, it was thought, be given to the movement by arranging for periodical public exhibitions of work done. These exhibitions were to be combined with some amount of instruction by acknowledged masters in both the theory and the practice of the various handicrafts. The beginning of this project has been dated from a correspondence which had been carried on some three years before in the Times on the subject of reform of the Royal Academy. It had long been a surprise or scandal to many that the Academy of Arts should