bjects are introduced, or representations of them, it is not
for the sake of information that can be given about these interesting
things, nor for the sake of expressing the artist's mind about them,
nor for the sake of saying anything whatever in regard to them. It is
for the sake of making the building beautiful. When the Oxford Museum
stood presenting to the street a flat-fronted wall, diversed with
pointed arches, and carvers were set to work bands of rich sculpture
around the windows; although Mr. Ruskin had a great deal to do with
that edifice, and architects of his own choosing were in charge of it,
and clever Irish workmen of his own approval were producing the
interesting carvings of those archivolts and tympanums, in spite of
all theories, the object aimed at and the object attained by that
outlay of time and money and skill was the beautifying of the
building, and this was achieved to an extent probably beyond what its
planners proposed to themselves, for the effect of well-applied
sculpture upon a building is beneficial to an extent that would never
be believed by one who has not often watched the changes that can be
wrought in this way. They who have said that the Gothic Cathedral is
nothing but a work of associated sculpture are not far wrong, and to
produce a lovely building, one would rather have the blankest
malt-house or brewery in New York, and some good carvers set to work
upon it, than to have the richest architectural achievement of our
time, devoid as it is and must be of decorative sculpture. For to get
decorative sculpture, you must have your sculptors; and they, you
know, are wanting. Where are the men who will model capitals and
panels in clay, with some sense of ornamental effect? We have the men
who can make a copy in relief of an architect's drawings: but then the
architect, even if he have the sense of ornamental effect, in the
first place can never draw out, full size and with care, all the work
required in a rich building, and, in second place, can never design
sculptured form aright by mere drawings on the flat. The architects of
New York and Brooklyn are employing today, I suppose, 3,000
draughtsmen, of which number two or three hundred at least are engaged
most of the time in making large scale and full-size drawings of
architectural detail, in which sculpture plays a large part. Well, we
need as many modellers, who, either in architects' offices, or in
stone-cutters' yards and terra-c