you cover your entire door with a meander of wrought iron which
culminates in a small bolt. Enthusiastic followers of the Arts and
Crafts movement often go to morbid extremes. _Recognition_ of
material and method does not connote a _display_ of method and
material out of proportion to the demands of the article to be
constructed. As in other forms of culture, balance and sanity are
necessary, in order to produce a satisfactory result.

But when a craftsman is possessed of an æsthetic instinct and faculty,
he merits the congratulations offered to the students of Birmingham by
William Morris, when he told them that they were among the happiest
people in all civilization--"persons whose necessary daily work is
inseparable from their greatest pleasure."

A mediæval artist was usually a craftsman as well. He was not content
with furnishing designs alone, and then handing them over to men
whose hands were trained to their execution, but he took his own
designs and carried them out. Thus, the designer adapted his drawing
to the demands of his material and the craftsman was necessarily in
sympathy with the design since it was his own. The result was a harmony
of intention and execution which is often lacking when two men of
differing tastes produce one object. Lübke sums up the talents of
a mediæval artist as follows: "A painter could produce panels with
coats of arms for the military men of noble birth, and devotional
panels with an image of a saint or a conventionalized scene from
Scripture for that noble's wife. With the same brush and on a larger
panel he could produce a larger sacred picture for the convent
round the corner, and with finer pencil and more delicate touch
he could paint the vellum leaves of a missal;" and so on. If an
artistic earthenware platter was to be made, the painter turned