than in paint, that there never have been such things as artistic
periods; that art is solely individual, and lives and dies with the
artist. And among other interesting facts we learned that, after all,
one thing is as beautiful as another (to a painter) if you only get it
in the right light; that, in short, those striking features of modern
landscape--wharves and factory chimneys--look just as well as antique
towers and palaces when merged in the twilight--that is, when you can
no longer see what they really are, and the imagination is free to
invest them with the romance of a past age.
Now, whatever germs of truth such statements contain, they only throw
us back upon the question, “What is art?” If it is the art only of
the impressionist, the record in paint of the children of the mist,
of factory-smoke even, and London fog; if nature must only be seen
with the eyes half shut, and in the abomination of desolation--the
squalid outskirts and Stygian rivers of modern cities--then, indeed,
former ages were but poorly furnished in the matter of art. What
availeth the clear-cut noble sculpture of ancient Greece, and the work
of her vase painters? What availeth the endless decorative invention
of the Asiatic peoples, and of mediæval and early Renaissance times,
lavished upon all the accessories of life, not to speak of its
culminating glories in painting and sculpture? Could all this beauty
of design and workmanship, in its constant growth and development
through the centuries, have hung upon a thread--upon the lives of one
or two persons of genius, springing, like mushrooms, from universal
indifference, ignorance, and decay?
Such an opinion is, however, only a sign of the times. When every man
fights for his own hand, and every artist has to make his own public,
such an individualistic conception of art is not altogether surprising;
and, were it intended to apply to the art of the present day only,
would be very near the truth. But a little inquiry and consideration
would show that art has deeper roots. The delight in beauty, be it
human or of wild nature, be it of light, colour, form, or sound, is a
common possession and a necessity of life, as in the higher sense it
must always be, so long as the human has any claim to be the higher
animal. And it should be remembered that certain animals and birds
have been proved to be sensitive to certain colours and decorative
effects, which sensibility is indeed wrapped up with the very fact of
the germination and continuity of life itself; and this only convinces
us how far down and deeply rooted is this sense in nature which has
been so highly developed and specialised in man. Differing, it may be,
in degree, but not in kind; cultivated, or uncultivated; modified by
centuries of habit and association; influenced by modes of thought and
conditions of life--wheresoever humanity dwells, in northern snow or
southern sunshine, it flowers and seeds, and springs anew.
Art, in all its forms, is normally but the language of this
universal feeling which, shared more or less by all, consciously or
unconsciously, is fully comprehended, passionately expressed, and
communicated in tangible and eloquent shape by comparatively few. But I
should say that every one whose heart is stirred at the voice of music,
at the music of poetry; every one who feels the magic of beauty and is
touched by its pathos, who is moved by the strangeness of the shifting
drama of life; every one who vibrates, as it were, to the harmonies of
nature, is a potential or latent artist.
As far as we can judge from its history, it would seem that this power
of artistic expression, controlled as it is by countless influences of
soil, climate, and character; constantly intercrossing and blending;
springing from simple beginnings, and passing through various stages of
growth, development, and decline, with the life of nations--this power,
I say, seems to have reached its noblest and most beautiful results
under collective conditions--of the arts, at all events--when all
art was decorative, and all were allied with architecture, depending
technically upon a certain continuity of tradition, and intellectually
on a certain consentaneousness or universality of sentiment, ere it
reached a high perfection among a people, being always at its highest
in public monuments. It is obvious, since these conditions depend
upon a vast number of other conditions, since art is the flowering of
the tree of life in man’s moral nature, the form in which it is cast
must, finally, be the outcome of the social, political, and economic
conditions of society.
We have only to remember the temples and palaces of antiquity, whether
the colossal fragments of the crumbled civilisations of the East, the
sculptured triumphs of Greece and Rome, or the cathedrals and public
halls of the Middle Ages. Art in such buildings touches sublimity.
The effect, for instance, of such a building as that of St. Mark’s at
Venice is like embodied music--rich, mysterious, splendid, harmonious;
storied with the legends and emblems of a faith, and a conception of
the universe then corresponding with the knowledge and aspirations of
mankind, full of solemnity, pathos, and dignity. But one of our own
English cathedrals, where the ruthless hand of the modern restorer is
not too obvious--say our historic Abbey of Westminster--will impress
us in the same kind; and this impressiveness is not due merely to the
effect of antiquity, though it no doubt contributes. We feel it to be
the collective work of artists and craftsmen, as well as of ages, and
we feel it embodies the aspirations, the religious sentiment, even the
humour and satire, of its time, and, speaking through the architect,
the mason, the carver, the glass painter, is heard the voice of a whole
people.
But if one should go into a modern church in search of the ideas of the
time, I am afraid he would only find the ideas of the new curate.
The former dignity and impressiveness of art is usually accounted for
by the fact that it was in the past chiefly devoted to the service of
religion; but that was only because religious ideas had the strongest
hold upon the human mind--because with religion were wrapped up all
other ideas, and the sources of knowledge were in the hands of the
priesthood. Art is bound by its very nature to give expression to
ascendant ideas. But both art and religion have since been broken to
fragments, and these are often so small and so incongruously pieced
together, that they refuse to reflect any ideas at all; or so feebly
and falsely, that men, in distrust of both art and religion, have
turned to nature and science, which in the strongest minds fill the
place of both.
But this, after all, is only like saying that the loss of the eyesight
is compensated for by the increased stimulation of the other senses. It
is a serious loss all the same.
Let us try to find, however, what ideas, even in the fragmentary and
artificial condition to which it is now reduced, art gives us in our
day. The one great distinction and difference which marks it from the
art of ancient times consists in the absence of what is called popular
art--the art of the people, hand in hand with everyday handicraft,
inseparable from life and use--that spontaneous native art of the
potter, the weaver, the carver, the mason, which our economical,
commercial, industrial, competitive, capitalistic system has crushed
out of existence by division of labour, the factory system, and
production for profit; yes, our three-headed Cerberus has devoured the
art, together with the wellbeing and the independence of the people,
and stands unappeased at the smoke-gloomed industrial gate, over which
is written, “All hope abandon ye who enter here.” But this basis of
popular art was the soil in which all art germinated, and from which
the goodly tree grew and branched out, to blossom in the more delicate
kinds of painting and sculpture which, since they have ministered
to the caprices of wealth, fashion, and luxury alone, branded in a
separate class as “fine arts,” have turned their backs upon their
humble relations, the handicrafts, with the result that their house is
left unto them desolate. Cut off, as it were, like flowers from their
natural stem, they presently languish and wither away, or linger on,
fantastic ghosts, shadows, and travesties of their former beauty.
But we are calmly told that “we must recognise, however, that modern
art has no tendency in this latter direction (that of beauty). Beauty
no longer suffices for us.”[6] This is clear and emphatic enough.
It comes from the French, too, who have assumed the position of
dictators of taste, at least in painting, to the world at large. It is
from a book on æsthetics, by Eugene Véron; I quote from the English
translation. The book is an attempt to find a scientific basis and
reasonable position for art under the conditions of modern society, and
while the author fails to recognise the causes of its deterioration in
the quality of beauty, he boldly acknowledges the difference between
past and present aims, and insists on freedom of development. Yet the
writer is possessed by a distinction which he himself sets up between
decorative, and what he calls expressive art, applying this latter
title to the pictorial art of the present day. As if all good art was
not expressive!
In my view, however, all forms of plastic or graphic art, properly so
called, must be dominated by the sense of beauty, as the condition
of their normal existence and the condition of their successful
appeal to the eye. The expression of beauty naturally controls all
other expressions. Otherwise, it seems to me, art is overstepping
the border line which divides it from other operations of the mind;
from scientific analysis, for instance, and from photography, where
the object is totally different, and everything is sacrificed to the
attainment of fact.
Yet this is just what is happening in modern painting--everything is
being sacrificed to the attainment of fact in some form or other, and
painting has almost ceased to be an art of design.
The modern French view is frankly expressed in a passage quoted by
Véron from Fromentin, who says: “The time has come for less thought,
and for less lofty aims. We must now look at things more closely, and
observe better. We must paint as well, though in a different fashion.
We must work for the general public, for the citizen, the man of
business, and the _parvenu_--everything is now for them.” And he goes
on to point out in effect that the painter must do the best he can
under these rather depressing circumstances, copy his model, and take
comfort in the belief that henceforward the greatest genius will be
the man of the least invention. Here, at all events, it is clearly
recognised that painting now exists for a class, which, possessing
the wealth, commands all things that may be commanded by wealth, and
as these things are many, a money standard is set up, which is in
danger of becoming the only standard and test, whether of virtue and
character, or artistic ability.
The results of such a state of things are visible on every side. We
have seen that in all ages it has been natural to art to express the
ascendant characteristics and ideas of its time, as well as to reflect
the material facts of life.
Art is the sensitive plate in the dark camera of history, which records
both the mental and physical features of humanity without prejudice,
when all other sources of light are shut out.
So in an age when commercialism is supreme, and bourgeois ideas are
triumphant, it is only natural that they should make themselves felt in
art.
Accordingly, we see the influence of profit-making principles in the
way in which painters become specialised for certain sorts of work,
and in the rise and progress of the middleman or picture-dealer. As
illustrating this, it is said of Verboeckhoven, the cattle painter,
that the dealers were in the habit of sending orders couched in terms
like the following: “Wanted, by Monday, three pictures of the usual
description--cow, with two sheep.” There is a story told of him, too,
which is very suggestive of the effect of commercial ideas on art. One
day an American entered the studio; he saw a picture which pleased him,
and bought it at the artist’s price--1200 francs. He could not take it
away with him immediately, and when he came for it some time after, the
painter had another, just like it, nearly finished. He was putting in
an extra lambkin, when the American returned. A happy thought struck
the latter; he would take the second picture too; it would form a
pendant to the other. But Verboeckhoven wanted 1300 francs for it. His
customer hesitated. “Well, well!” said he, “the same price, then;” and
dipping a rag in turpentine he wiped out the lamb.
That grand development of the shop, the modern picture exhibition,
is, again, another triumph of commercialism in art, which, faithfully
following the accepted theory of the trader that supply will produce
demand, succeeds in something like real over-production. Consider the
huge annual pictorial displays and their chief product--the child of
competition in art--the “pot-boiler.” Truly the temple of art is the
market, and its high priest the picture-dealer! “Take your choice” (or,
rather, the recommendation of the adroit salesman), “go to so-and-so
for your fish and your salt-water pieces--fresh every year, but all
alike. If your fancy is flesh or fowl, you must go farther. This other
gentleman will give you game pieces--he has a special license. Then
you can finish with flower and fruit,” and so forth. Yes, division
of labour has triumphed even in painting, and to excel a man must
specialise his talents; that is to say, adapt them to the continual
production of the same sort of thing. Thus, and thus only, can he hope
to make either reputation or a living.
Very good; but what becomes of art, unless the whole of art is
comprehended in portraiture? For, in spite of our classification,
our labels for landscape, portrait, genre, historical; under this
specialising, ticketing, commercial system, the tendency is for
painting to become really limited to forms of portraiture. I do not
mean merely the production of portraits, though that is a noticeable
feature, but I apply the term to characterise a certain literal
and prosaic habit of regarding all nature, and literal methods of
representation, whether of persons, scenes, or animal life; while
the conditions of the market, even apart from the tastes of the
ascendant class we have been considering, cut against even honest
and faithful portraiture, but encourage that conscious making-up,
dressing, and forcing of effect to catch the public eye, amid the
further falsification of pictorial values caused by the entire want of
classification and harmonious arrangement in the picture exhibition.
So that in the result, where every inducement is held out in this
fierce pictorial competition to painters to consciously work for forced
effect, and put out their possible neighbour, pretentiousness and
meretriciousness too often win the day.
When the decline in modern art is mentioned, it is usual for the
average man, imbued with the commercial ideas of the age, and with
the all-sufficient standard of money-value in his mind, to point
triumphantly to the enormous sums given for certain pictures in these
days, and to the wealth of certain successful artists. But those
enormous sums only show that pictures are a marketable commodity in
which the chances of large profits are involved, and the fluctuating
values in the market make them objects of speculative investments for
capitalists. Reputations fall and rise, often according to what appears
to be the mere caprice of fashion, though even fashion is controlled
by commercialism. And as to the wealth of successful painters, is
that always in proportion to the excellence of their work, or the
labour bestowed upon it, and is it always the accompaniment of the
highest skill and the loftiest aims? Overwhelmed with commissions, the
fashionable painter has the alternative before him of over-work or
inevitable deterioration. In many cases he becomes the victim of both.
Then, too, for one favourite of fame and fortune, how many unfortunate,
struggling, obscure? Thus at both ends of the scale the influence of
commercialism is only for evil.
Consider, too, the waste of energy and talent in this unequal struggle
for artistic life and recognition--this pictorial lottery, where so
many blanks are drawn. Think of the capacities now swallowed up in the
tasteless contention of exhibitions, which, properly organised and
directed, might co-operate to adorn our streets and public places,
our lecture halls and railway stations, left desolate now to another
and more hideous form of competition in the clamorous posters of
commercialism, which cover our waste walls and hoardings, and crowd
upon the weary eye in all their shameless self-assertion and sordid
language of the market, shouldering one another in the unspeakable
coarseness of colour-bedizenment and graceless superscription.
In spite of our refinement, our care for art, our æstheticism,
forsooth! and the lavishly-decorated private interiors of wealth, to
this complexion must we come out of doors!
And in the meantime we are so inured and hardened to such
disfigurements that we cease to feel their enormity. Nay, we must grow
to like them, for are not advertising and bill-sticking an inseparable
part of our system? There is no escape. So it is, and so it will be,
so long as we allow this selfish, demoralising, and unscrupulous demon
of commercialism to tyrannise over and exploit us, ever with its
continual cry of “Profit, profit, profit!” Every aspiration will be
shouted down as visionary and unpractical; every real attempt to better
our disorganised condition will be opposed by the dead weight of vested
interests.
It is on record that one of the few living artists, properly called
ideal--George Frederick Watts--offered to decorate the hall of the
Euston Station with frescoes without charge, if the Company would
bear the cost of the materials; and the offer was refused. How can
monumental art, which is but decorative art in its highest form, exist
in such apathetic conditions? To grow the flower you must not only have
the seed, but a favourable soil and climate. It will be written of our
age that we squandered the talents of our more original writers and
artists upon the newspaper and periodical press. We preferred to be
amused with a constant succession of brilliant trivialities and passing
sensations, to beholding our best thoughts embodied in enduring and
noble forms of art; and it did not seem to signify how many lives might
be frittered away--how much energy and talent ground to powder in the
process.
But monumental art demands the sympathy of a people bound together by
common feelings, interested in the drama of history, and proud of their
own struggles and sacrifices for freedom; accustomed to dwell with
ennobling thoughts and aspirations, and accustomed to give them free
and forcible expression; sensible both of the joy and the tragedy of
life, delighting in phantasy and invention, and, above all, in beauty
of form and colour. Yet there is nothing in these things but what
naturally belongs to humanity.
Can such art be found where the best energies are engrossed in the
feverish and unequal race for a more or less precarious existence
on the one hand, and on the other made artificial by excess of
wealth?--where the aspect of life, whether public or private, is
neither simple nor dignified, and where cities become unlovely
and inorganic accumulations of bricks and mortar?--where, with
an appearance of zeal for art, education, and refinement, and
the elevation of the masses, we allow mile after mile of mean or
pretentious dwellings to carry the desolation of our unwieldy human
warrens farther and farther into the green country, as the capitalist
and the jerry-builder join house to house and brickfield to brickfield?
So we are thrown back on economic conditions, which, it is impossible
to doubt, are finally responsible for these things, as, indeed,
they have always been responsible for the form in which the art
of a period is cast. How hopeless it is, for instance, to expect
varied and beautiful street architecture with the present system of
house tenure and the contract system in building! Here and there a
dwelling, with some claims to beauty and distinction--or, at least,
individuality--perchance arises from the sordid crowd; but these
are the homes of men of wealth and exceptional taste, who build for
their own delight, and have secured their ground. Here and there a
board-school building relieves the monotony, and seems to point to the
possibilities of better things. But the mass of modern London consists
of the erections of the speculative builder--miles of absolutely
uninteresting house fronts, composed chiefly of the repetition of one
pattern, and that of the meanest and most uninventive kind, crowded
together--the ready-made packing-cases for civilised humanity which
enters in and dwells there. Could these things be were it not for the
powers of commercialism, based upon the individual possession of land
and capital, with the one object of money gain in their disposal?
But all things are in the grasp of commercialism. Let a band of
artists and craftsmen associate together, and, working quietly, make
to themselves and all whom it may concern things of beauty and utility
for the use and adornment of simple homes. Straightway there is a
growing desire for these things as a relief from the dreary monotony
of ugliness, or the pretentious luxury of second empire taste.
Thereupon commercialism, perceiving a demand, brings out what it calls
art-furniture, art-colours, and so forth--the addition of the magic
word being supposed to make all the difference--sucks the brains of
designers, steals their designs, and devotes them to objects for which
they were never intended; deluging the market with strange travesties
and tortured misapplications of ill-digested ornament, which overruns
everything like an irrepressible weed, until, coming down to its lower
forms in the cheap furniture shop, one is tempted to think that, in the
matter of taste, our last state is worse than the first.
Thus are all the channels of production fouled. Does not commercialism
hold the keys of the kingdom of both art and industry? Everything has
to pass through the sieve of profit before it reaches the public; and
to keep the huge and wasteful machinery of competitive production
and distribution going, even at an ordinary jog-trot, it appears to
be necessary in every department of trade to make a vain show of
so-called “novelties” every season, whether they are really new and
better than the old or not.