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67 There is no doubt that Lismer saw teaching as bringing him closer to his goal of being a full-time painter. He idealized art and artists, seeing them as sensitive to physical as well as spiritual experience, and had a strong desire to pass on something of his vision to others. With the improvement in their finances, the Lismers were able to rent another house in Thornhill close to the MacDonalds. Lismer was happy to have steady work, which relieved him of the hard grind of the commercial field: "I disliked the advertising profession completely, although I remember it was at the time on a higher level than was general in England.

At the time Lismer started at the Sheffield School of Art in 1898, the building had been enlarged with the addition of a third storey and the installation of more washrooms. 15 Ruskin, instrumental in promoting English taste in gothic architecture, was dismayed when he saw the confusion of styles in such buildings. In Lismer's day much of the elaborate detailing had disappeared under a pall of grime from the Sheffield blast furnaces, and the building had merged into a row of equally grey warehouses, shops, and offices on Arundel Street.

Instruction is free and you can live very cheaply ... 53 Of the school he said, "Van Gogh studied there at one time, but it wasn't noted for the outstanding nature of its aggressive forms of instruction. "54 During his year in Europe Lismer travelled around Belgium and Holland studying the work of Flemish masters and enjoying the museums and art galleries and the architecture of fine old European cities. He must have felt that he had finally broken away from the provincialism of the Sheffield art world.