of the people--the peasant costume with its embroidery and jewellery,
always so full of character and colour, relics of long antiquity
and tradition, the odds and ends of which are carefully scraped
together and served up to the tourist long after they have ceased to
be realities in the life of the people. This native art, found in all
unexploited countries, is highly interesting, as showing how naturally
a people collectively express their sense of beauty in colour and form,
how naturally, with leisure and fairly easy conditions of life, the art
instinct asserts itself.
It is on the unquenchable spontaneity of this instinct that I should
rely to give new birth to new forms of art, even were all types and
conditions of the art of the past destroyed.
After a course of examination at South Kensington of vast multitudes of
designs in any and every style under the sun, I could almost bear such
a catastrophe with equanimity, since no aspiring designer could then
crib Persian or Chinese, mediæval or Greek patterns, spoil them in the
translation, and serve them up as original designs.
All the learning and archæology in the world will not fill us with an
instinct for art, since art (to recur to our definition), being a form
of vital force, must spring from life itself. It depends on realities,
and draws its best inspiration from everyday existence. It is bound to
reflect the character of that life, and in so doing gives the history
of the people and the spirit of the age of which it is the outcome.
We have only to consider how much of our knowledge of past ages and
races we owe to the relics of ancient art which have been preserved to
us; and this brings us to the consideration of another aspect of the
importance of art to a community, and one not likely to be overlooked
under socialistic conditions--I mean its educational value.
At present I think this is very much neglected. While we crowd our
galleries and exhibitions with masses and masses of pictures every
year, our public halls and the walls of our schools are left blank for
the most part. This seems to suggest that we are thinking more of our
shop-windows than of the windows of our minds--especially those of the
rising generation. But why should not the capacity of children for
receiving ideas through the eye be taken advantage of? Why should not
the walls of our schools be pictured with the drama of history? Why
should they not be made eloquent with the wonders of the earth by true
and emphatic drawings of the life and character of different countries
and peoples?
It has been said that the worst drawing conveys a more definite idea of
a thing than the best description. Bringing it down, therefore, even to
the plainest utilitarian level, the importance of drawing is obvious
enough. A socialistic society would, however, not be likely to gauge
its value by so narrow a standard, and when the object of education
was recognised as the development of the faculties of the individual,
with a view to the service of the community and reasonable enjoyment
of life, as distinct from the specialising them for a competitive
commercial existence, art would surely be recognised as a most
important factor in that result and accorded due place.
The greatest works of art have always been public works, whether
we think of the temples and statues of classical antiquity, or the
cathedrals and churches of the Middle Ages. In the past art has been
devoted to the service of religion, whether pagan or Christian. The
wealth lavished on churches and pictures and tombs by princes and
popes was spent for the most part, at least, on works that all might
see and admire; and the fact of this larger appeal of art, and that it
has the expression of the deeper feelings and higher aspirations of
humanity, increased its dignity, interest, and beauty.
Nowadays artists, as a rule, work for rich men, and devote their
talents to beautifying strictly private interiors with every kind of
luxury and splendour: working for individual whims and pleasures,
however, cannot be as inspiring as working for the community--for the
time, for the people--and the feeling that the artist may express its
true mind and heart.
Unity of religious belief and sentiment now no longer exists, and art
no longer attempts to act as its interpreter. Painters are content to
be the familiar illustrators of ordinary life and passing fashion,
or the recorders of the superficial facts and phases of nature, and
care not for symbolic imagery or ideals. Architecture and applied art,
generally speaking, are devoted to the comfort or glorification of
well-to-do individuals, or to serve the ends and purposes of trade.
In an epoch when personal comfort and private property seem to be the
main objects of existence, at the price of the absence of both at the
other end of the scale, this is not surprising, since art is bound to
reflect the character of its age.
Now socialism presents a new ideal to humanity. It is a religion and a
moral code as well as an economic system. Its true realisation would
mean again that unity of public sentiment, but in a far higher degree,
and the sympathy of a common humanity freed from the domination of
class and the grinding conditions of commercial competition. Such an
atmosphere could not but be favourable to art in the highest degree.
Not only would the common property in the beauty of nature not be
allowed to be disfigured for the purposes of private gain, but with
leisure and security of living it would not be a question, as it is
now so often, with the artist or craftsman, hindered, in pursuing his
higher aims, and in seeking perfection in his craft, by the cramping
consideration that it will not pay.
And what is true of art work is, after all, true of all work. A
profit-grinding system must of necessity be against the production of
the best in all ways.
Greater simplicity and dignity of life, too, which would naturally
result from a juster distribution of wealth, would have its effect on
both art and architecture, and would find expression in simpler and
sincerer forms of construction and ornament.
If we imagine a truly socialised community--a state of equal condition
(not necessarily of mental capacity or other quality) wherein every
able-bodied member served the community according to their capacity,
it might necessitate a portion of time (determined by the numbers of
the community and their necessities) being spent in some form of manual
labour. This in itself would be an advantage and physical benefit to
each individual; nor so long as enough leisure was secured would mental
capacity be likely to suffer, in its true sense, or the art instinct
or capacity either--on the contrary. There is nothing, after all, like
close intimacy with nature and fact to strengthen the character all
round, and clear the mental vision of morbid states; and as for art,
like the wrestler, it always gains new vigour every time it touches
the ground--the ground of nature and common life.
If your artist would depict the life about him--the drama of men and
women--he will be all the stronger if he has mixed with the actors. If
he would give man in all his labours and actions, it is good that he
should understand those actions and labours--that he should be able
himself to ride, swim, row, or drive the plough, and wield the scythe
or spade. He would be a stronger man and a better artist: for it is as
much what we _know_ and _feel_ as what we _see_ that comes into our
work in art. Would he be an artist in any of the handicrafts, let him
first be a smith or a carpenter, let him understand the material he
would work with, and its capacities; for it is from the workshop that
all good traditions in applied design must come.
I have spoken of probabilities and possibilities, and of necessity both
enter largely into the consideration of my subject as of any thought of
the future construction and condition of society.
Now, while I have the best hopes for art, I do not think it probable
that under socialism any one will get labour-values to the extent of
£70,000 for a picture, but it would nevertheless be quite possible to
get a Raphael.
The type of artist--supposing artists existed as a class or order in
a socialist community--most likely to be fostered would, I think, be
probably such as that represented by the master craftsmen of the Middle
Ages, such as Albert Dürer or Holbein, for instance--men capable of
design in all kinds of materials, who could design a building, make the
pattern of a jewel or a gown, draw a title-page or paint a portrait.
What may be called, in short, the all-round artist would be likely
to be more in demand than the specialist more or less fostered under
present conditions.
The essence of art is harmony and unity. We have seen how art
depends upon life, and is affected by and reflects its character and
conditions. Before we can hope to get harmonious art and thought,
therefore, we must realise harmony and unity in life.
For myself I am confident, in view of these considerations, that what
is good for humanity is good for art. Take care of the pence of healthy
life,--the current coin of individual freedom, of political and social
equality, of the fraternity of human service and common interests,--and
the gold pieces of art, thought, and creative beauty will take care of
themselves.
[Illustration]
ON THE TEACHING OF ART
The teaching of Art! Well, to begin with, you cannot teach it. You can
teach certain methods of drawing and painting, carving, modelling,
construction, and what not--you can teach the words, but you cannot
give the power of expression in the language.
Of course a man’s ideas on the subject of teaching necessarily depend
upon his general views of the purport and scope of art. Is it (1) a
mere imitative impulse, a record of the superficial facts of nature in
a particular medium? or is it (2) the most subtle and expressive of
languages, taking all manner of rich and varied forms in all sorts of
materials under the paramount impulse of the search for beauty?
Naturally, our answer to the question, What should be taught, and
how to teach it, depends upon our answer to this question. But the
greater includes the less, and though one may be biassed by the final
definition, as above, it does not follow that the first-named may not
have their due place in a course of study.
The question, then, really is, What is the most helpful course of study
towards the attainment of that desirable facility and cultivation of
the feeling and judgment in the use of those elements and materials
towards their ultimate expression of beauty?
And here we have to stop again on our road and ask, What is this
quality of beauty, and whence does it come? Without exactly attempting
a final or philosophical account of it, we may call it an outcome and
efflorescence of human life and energy under happy conditions. It is
found in varying degree, and the development of the sensibility to
impressions of beauty follows much the same course and stages as those
of the senses and the intellect themselves--of the development of man,
in short, as a social and reflective animal. As one cannot see colour
without light, neither can we expect sensibility to beauty to grow up
naturally amid sordid and dull surroundings.
To begin with, then, before we can have this impulse and sensibility
towards beauty, it is necessary to create an atmosphere of beauty,--a
condition of life where it comes naturally with the colours of dawn
and sunset; where it has not to struggle as for very life, as it were,
for every breath it draws, or ask itself the why and wherefore of its
existence.
Nor is beauty an independent and unrelated quality, but is the result,
as we find it in its various manifestations in art, of long ages of
growth and co-operative tradition and sympathy.
Seeking beautiful art, organic and related in all its branches, we turn
naturally to places and periods of history which are the culminating
points in such a growth--to Athens in the Phidian age, to England
or France in the mediæval age, to Florence or Venice in the early
Renaissance, for instance, rather than to modern London or Paris. Or
even limiting ourselves to our own day, we have got to expect far more
from the man who has worked from his youth up in an atmosphere of
art, even if it is only that of the modern painting studio, than from
one of our artisans, trained to some one special function, perhaps,
in a process of manufacture, and whose daily vision is bounded by
chimney-pots and back-yards.
A pinch of the salt of art and culture, at measured intervals,
will never counteract the adverse influence of the daily, hourly
surroundings on the eye and the mind. It is useless if one hour of life
says “yes,” if all the others say “no” continually.
Our first requirement, then, is a sympathetic, or at least suggestive
atmosphere--which means practically a reasonable human life, with fair
play for the ideas and senses through the drama of the eye. It ought
to be within the reach of all of us, whereas as a matter of fact it is
hardly possible for any under the present economic system.
Granting our first condition would go a long way towards solving the
next problem--what to teach, for we should then find that art was not
separable from life.
Children are never at a loss what to learn or what to teach themselves
when they see any manner of interesting work going on. They gather
at the door of the village blacksmith, or at the easel of the
wayside painter. Demonstration is the one thing needed, primarily.
Demonstration, demonstration, always demonstration. This is perhaps at
the bottom of the recent strong determination to French methods on the
part of our younger painters. You can learn this part of the painting
business because you can see it done. You could learn any craft if
you saw it done. But it does not follow that there is no painting but
impressionism--with M. Monet as its prophet.
Not that I would undervalue any sincere and genuine impulse; only
the cultivation of this kind of painting exclusively--that is, the
presentment of aspect--specialises a man and differentiates the painter
more and more from other artists; and the concentration of public
interest on this form of art draws away talent from the other most
important branches.
It might be said almost that the modern cabinet or competitive gallery
picture, unrelated to anything but itself (and not always that), has
destroyed painting as an art of design.
I would therefore rather begin with the constructive side of art. Let
a student begin by some knowledge of architectural construction and
form. Let him thoroughly understand--both historic and artistic--the
connection between art and architecture. Let him become thoroughly
imbued with a sense of the essential unity of art, and not, as is now
so often the case, be taught to practise some particular technical
trick, or be led to suppose that the whole object of his studies is
to draw or paint any or every object from the pictorial point of view
exclusively. Let the two sides of art be clearly and emphatically put
before him--that of Aspect and Adaptation. Let him see that it is one
thing to be able to make an accurate presentment of a figure, or any
object in its proper light and shade and relief, in relation to its
background and surroundings, and quite another to give expression to
outline, or to make them into organic pieces of decoration to fit a
given space. Then, again, he should perceive how the various media
and materials of workmanship naturally determine the character and
treatment of his design, while leaving large individual range.
A course of study from this point of view would tend to bring home to
the student the wholesome dictum of Goethe, “Art is art, precisely
because it is not nature,” even if his very first study failed to
convince him of its truth.
The formative capacity and constructive sense may exist in a high
degree, without any corresponding power of drawing in the pictorial
sense; and considerable proficiency in simpler forms of various
handicrafts, such as modelling, wood-carving, and _repoussée_ work, is
possible of attainment by quite young people, whereas the perception of
certain subtleties in pictorial methods of representation, such as the
perspectives, planes, and values, delicacy of modelling, and the highly
selective sense which deals with them, is a matter of matured mental
capacity, as well as technical experience and practical skill. So that
there are natural reasons for a primary training in some forms of
handicraft, which, while affording the same scope for artistic feeling,
present simpler problems in design and workmanship, and give a tangible
foundation from which to start.
In thus giving, in a course of study in art, the first place to
architecture and the allied decorative arts, we are only following
the historic order of their progress and development. When the arts
of the Middle Ages culminated in the work of the great painters of
the Renaissance, their work showed how much more than makers of easel
pictures they were--architects, decorators, jewellers, calligraphers,
embroiderers; so that a picture, apart from its central interest and
purpose, was often an illustrated history of contemporary design in
such things.
Now, my conclusion is that whereas a purely pictorial training or such
a training as is now given with that view, while it often fails to be
of much service in enabling a student to paint a picture, quite unfits
him for other fields of art quite as important, and leaves him before
the simplest problem of design helpless and ignorant; while a training
in applied design, or merely in drawing and colouring with that view,
and all the forethought and ingenuity it calls forth, would be a
good practical education in itself, would be a good preparation for
pictorial studies, should the student ultimately devote himself to them.
I should therefore endeavour to teach relatively--to teach everything
in relation not only to itself, but to surroundings--designating in
relation to its materials and objects--the drawing of form in relation
to other forms.
The ordinary ways of teaching drawing, say from the human figure--the
Alpha and Omega of all study in art--do not show themselves
sufficiently alive to the help that may be gained by comparative
anatomy. Study the figure not only in itself, but in relation
to the forms of other animals, and draw the analogous parts and
structures--bones, joints, muscles--side by side, not only from the
comparative anatomist’s point of view, but the artist’s. Study them in
life and in action also.
We have recently been told that artists have been fools since the world
began in relation to depicting the action of animals; but it was by
a gentleman who did not appear to have distinguished between moments
of arrested action and the action which is the sum of those moments.
Instantaneous photographs of animals in action tell you whereabouts
their legs are at a given moment, but it is only when they are put in
a consecutive series and turned on a wheel before the eye that they
represent action. This is illusion, not art. Now the artist has to
represent or to suggest action without actual movement of any kind, and
he has generally succeeded, not by arresting the action of the moment,
but by giving the sum of consecutive moments, much as the wheel does,
but without the illusory trick. His business is to represent, not to
imitate.
Art, after all, is not science. Until we all go about with photographic
lenses with dry plates in them instead of eyes, we shall, I fear, still
be interested in what artists have to say to us about nature and their
own minds, whether instantaneous impressions or not.
This is only one of the many questions which rise up at every step,
and I know of no system of teaching which adequately deals with them.
No doubt our systems of teaching, or attempting to teach, art want
overhauling like other systems; and when we are overhauling the system
of life itself, it is not wonderful.
I do not, of course, believe in any cast-iron system of education from
any point of view. It must be varied according to the individual. It
must be made personal and interesting, or it is of little good; and no
system, however good, will manufacture artists in anything, any more
than the most brilliant talents will do away with the necessity of
passionate devotion to work, careful thought, close observation, and
constant practice, which produces that rapid and intimate sympathy of
eye and hand, and makes them the responsive and fluent interpreters of
that selective and imaginative impulse which results in art.
[Illustration]
DESIGN IN RELATION TO USE AND MATERIAL
The fundamental importance of design, and its claims to consideration,
will hardly be disputed, particularly at a time when the advancement of
art in its application or relation to industry is so much sought for.
There is not a single thing we use but involves this primal necessity
of design in some degree, which has not demanded some exercise of human
thought, some measure of ingenuity, some kind of plan, to fit it for
its purpose, or to commend itself to our sense of beauty. And here it
may be said, although art in this sense is generally termed “applied
art,” strictly speaking, all forms of art, properly understood, come
under this head, and that there is no such thing as _un_applied
art--or, if there is, we may say then it is not art at all.
The gist of the whole matter lies in this application. Design in
all its forms is governed by the relative spirit. In making a
design, even of the simplest kind, important considerations and
questions immediately arise--questions of _scale_, of _treatment_,
of _material_, of _position_, of _use_, which finally decide its
character; and in the solution of such questions lie at once the
business and the success of the designer and craftsman.
Now the first of these considerations is SCALE. This is determined
by the size of the object or surface we deal with, its use, and its
relation to its surroundings: as the relation of the axe-head to
its handle, the unit of a pattern, the height and proportions of a
chair--what, in short, we may call architectural considerations.
Fitness of scale is of course primarily determined in relation to the
scale and proportions of man himself, who is naturally the standard
and measure by which all work for the use and pleasure of humanity is
finally checked. You would not, for instance, carve colossal heads on
chair backs; or, on the other hand, try to make a chimney-pot look like
a miniature cathedral spire! These, of course, are extreme instances.
There is a certain natural logic and common sense of proportion
which keeps us tolerably straight in these matters, while it allows
a sufficiently indefinite margin for individual taste and variety of
character.
There exist obvious reasons, as well as natural feeling, in favour of
decoration intended to be near the eye, or upon objects to be handled
or used, being small in scale and finely worked; and though, in that
perpetual readjustment and inventive adaptation in the control of the
designer there is always scope for variety, behind all he is conscious
of the pressure of relative considerations--of natural law, in fact.
Then we come to the great question of TREATMENT, in which lies folded,
as it were, like the flower in the bud, the very virtue and essence of
art.
To begin with, the designer, in the application of his art to material
and use, has to put away from him the allurements of imitative
naturalism, except in so far as they can be made to contribute and be
subordinated to the effect and purpose of his work as a whole. He soon
perceives the natural cleavage between nature and art--between the
accidental picturesqueness of confused detail, broken surface-lights,
and shadows, and definite, selected, related, and expressive forms and
lines. He may be likened to a child with a handful of wooden letters
out of which he has to construct words and sentences. Nature and the
history of art is the vast encyclopædia of fact and form and phase out
of which the poet and the artist have to choose the materials for their
work.