And these labours in Venice contributed in no unessential manner to lead English painting, in general, away from its one-sided æsthetics and rather more into the mud of the streets, caused it to break with its finely accorded tones, and brought it to a more earnest study of light. Beside his idealised Venetian women, Luke Fildes also painted large pictures from the life of the English people, such as "The Return of the Lost One," "The Widower," and the like, which struck tones more earnest than English painting does elsewhere; and in his picture of 1878, "The Poor of London," he even recalled certain sketches which Gavarni drew during his rambles through the poverty-stricken quarter of London. The poor starving figures in this work were rendered quite realistically and without embellishment; the general tone was a greenish-grey, making a forcible change from the customary light blue of English pictures. _Dudley Hardy's_ huge picture "Homeless," where a crowd of human beings are sleeping at night in the open air at the foot of a monument in London, and _Jacomb Hood's_ plain scenes from London street life, are other works which in recent years were striking, from having a character rather French than English. _Stott of Oldham_, by his pretty pictures of the dunes with children playing, powerful portraits, and delicate, vaporous moonlight landscapes, has won many admirers on the Continent also. _Stanhope Forbes_ painted "A Philharmonic Society in the Country," a representation of an auction, and scenes from the career of the Salvation Army, in which he restrained himself from all subordinate ideas of a poetic turn.
In the same way those artists are important who work according to the demands of decorative painting. A picture in a room should be like a jewel in its setting, in harmony. It should fit agreeably into the scheme of decoration, its colour in unison, its lines melodious, its general effect toning well with the general design.
[Illustration: BRANGWYN. ILLUSTRATION TO THE RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.
(_By permission of Messrs. Gibbings & Co., the owners of the copyright._)]
These principles, taught by Morris, have had a formative influence on the work of a large number of artists. There arose a tendency which, by borrowing characteristic effects from woodwork, carpets, and stained-glass, and by the application of style to line as well as to colour, went one step further than Burne-Jones.