JO 
LAND & WATER 
September 6, 1917 
was prompted by despair at an liiifiland beyond his ruk-. 
So little did Blike depend upon the J-:ngland about hnn 
that he was mucli happier in South Moulton Street than at 
Felpham in Sussex. It is no exaggeration to say that it 
vv couhl establisii the England that forms the mental back- 
ground 01 Dlake's writings and drawmgs, with the laws anc 
policies that belong to it. we should have all the matenal 
wo need for what is called •' the work of reconstruction. 
When the Englishman, in that sense, becomes articulate 
in language or line the results are not only absorbingly in- 
teresting in themselves but extremely valuable as propaganda. 
The England of the future will owe much more to certain 
writings of Rudyard Kipling, G. K. Chesterton and HUaire 
HcUoc than to Acts of Pariiament. Nor is the value of these 
writings in the historical information, but in the sense of 
England that they convey. Thev are the still, small voice 
if anything connected with Mr. Chesterton could be described 
as small or still— of the Englishman in the cosmopolitan 
liubbub with a prevailing Eastern accent, that fills the land. 
In the pictorial arts the sense of England is rarer, partly 
because painters as a -class are tiresomely concerned about 
■what they see with their bodily eyes ; which is very seldom 
"Englandm any sense that matters, any more" than it is neces- 
sarily the subject matter of painting. 
But every now and thenyou get an English artist who, like 
William Blake, draws from his heart. Such an artist is Mr. 
F. L. Griggs, some of whose etchings we are allowed to n - 
produce here. His con- 
nection with Blake is 
real rather than obvious. 
Blake had a friend call- 
ed Samuel Palmer, who 
spent his life painting 
and etching, with more 
regard for weak 
i m a g i n a t i o ns, the 
England that he shared 
with Blake. Both of 
them were proud to 
claim how much of this 
England they owed to 
.Milton ; and I believe 
that Mr. Griggs would 
be equally proud to be 
called a successor to 
Samuel Palmer. The 
influence is not very 
marked in these par- 
ticular etchings because 
the subjects arc archi- 
tectural ; but to any- 
body who has had the 
privilege of seeing Mr. 
Griggs's work in pure 
landscape the sympath\' 
with Palmer is obvious. 
Equally obvious is it 
that this architecture 
belongs to that land- 
scape, and that both are not merely "bits " that survive. 
but related parts of a consistent whole that exists some- 
where if only in the imagination of the artist. 
At a glance you would say that " The Ford," " The 
Pool " and " The Quay " must , have been drawn from 
actual buildings, if not in the same arrangeiiieiit. As a matter 
of fact, they arc all " inventions," though based on a know- 
ledge of architecture so intimate that it has become uncon- 
scious. Personally, I do not like the word " inventions," 
Ix-cause it suggests something done out of the head, and these 
etchings come from a deeper source. 
Much might be said about their pictorial and technical 
merits ; their effective arrangement in light and shade. 
and their firmness and economy of workmanship ; but I 
prefer, now, to dwell on their extraordinary reality and what 
it implies. For no man could concekve a city like this wlio 
had not in his heart some sure and definite conception of life. 
It is imptjssible even to look at these etchings \vithout be gin- 
ginning to speculate about the life that went on in the city of 
which they show parts, and to form conclusions about its 
character. Wise government, bold policy, honest trade, 
sound craftsmanship, and a dignified domesticity are all 
implied in the look of the buildings. Insensibly, too, the 
imagination passes beyond the city walls and explores the 
surrounding country ; and, indeed, in other plates, in " Maur's 
)'\irm," " Stepping Stones," and " Priory Farm," Mr. 
(Iriggs has given us hints of pastoral and agricultural life as 
firm and flourishing as the civic life o.\pressecl in " The Quay." 
These etchings are memorials of an England that was' once 
and might be again. '. 
One remarkaole thing about these etchings is the practical 
knowledge they suggest. With all their romantic feeling, as 
of the scene of great events, they are inlirely free from 
Wardour Street picturesqueness and the atmosphere of decay. 
The buildings could be lived in. Looking at them one is 
persuaded that Mr. Griggs is as sound upon the plan as he is 
inventive in the elevation ; that he could if necessary build 
the city that he has drawn. It would be a city like Durham or 
Toledo] on a rocky hill in the loop of a river ; and, guided by 
the etchings, one confidently explores the parts of the city 
that are not shown. Its general topography is already famihar. 
And, in spite of the resemblance to Toledo in situation, 
nobody looking at " The Ford " or " The Pool," could mis- 
take it for anything but an Enghsh city. Not only that, but 
there is even a local flavour, and I could name more than 
one village in Gloucestershire that might have suggested the 
street in "The Ford." 
This combination of imagination, practical knowledge, 
a feeling for tradition, and a sense of locality, is extremely 
rare in artists— and even in architects. the impression 
given is that Mr. Griggs would be a useful man to consult 
in any scheme of restoration or reconstruction. He would 
build or restore not only practically and beautifully, but 
with a due sense of the continuity of history. Unless all 
the signs"are misleading, we shall presently be feeling back 
in history for guidance eyen in our practical affairs. The 
return to" the land is a fact accomplished, and unless we are 
to be content with labour camps, we must have houses. 
One effect of the return, particularly if, as is probable, we 
develop the co-operative 
system of agriculture, 
should be the revival of 
the country town. 
Living in London we 
are apt to forget Eng- 
land and how much of 
it still survives in coun- 
try towns in a form that 
could easily be brought 
up to modern require- 
ments. On the whole, 
it is better to join 
hands with the past 
than to jump into the 
future. Life is, after 
all, an old business. 
Th^ " audacity " re- 
commended by Mr. 
Lloyd George is nothing 
more than a bold bid 
for reality ; the reality 
of England that under- 
lies the unreal world 
created by modern ad- 
vertisement. 
Architecture must 
come out of life, but 
it is equally true that 
architecture reflects up- 
on life, and to live in 
a decent house is more 
;ct'ntly. It is not only 
Extend the house 
The Quay 
B!/ F. L. Qrigga 
than, half way towards living dec 
the pig that responds to a clean sty. 
to the street and the architectural influence extends con-es- 
pondingly from private to public life, and along broad 
highways and over firm bridges from town to country. Nor 
is there any need to extemporise an architecture,. with all the 
risks of faddism and the German virtue of " deliberateness," 
for the purpose. As Mr. Griggs has ^hown in other plates, 
there are enough survivals, from the cathedral to the barn, 
to teach us the principles of good building in every department 
of life ; that is to say, buflding in response to the practical 
needs and conditions and the ideals, aspirations and beliefs 
of the community. There is no need to copy the sun'ivals ; 
the better way is to study them and what they meant in 
life. To base our scheme of society on that of Gothic England 
would be silly, because tlie conditions are different ; but from 
the survivals of Gothic England in architecture, and care- 
ful consideration of their* meaning in life, most of us could 
learn something that would help us to organise our lives, 
private and public, upon a saner and finner basis. 
Thinking and feeling precede action, and the individual 
affects the mass; and as a prelude to reconstruction, it 
would not be a bad thing if, instead of girding against the 
present and trying to invent reforms out of nothing, each of 
us retired into his England of the heart and imagined the 
life that should proceed spontaneously from that. Visions 
are more practical and fruitful than theories, and in their 
vision, clearer, firmer and more consistent than most of us 
can fonn, of a better England the etchings of Mr. Griggs 
will prove a powerful aid to reality. Being works of art, and 
not arguments, they share with ; Hood's "I remember 
the magical property of universal and particular application. 
