improvements" we do not realize what priceless things we lose. We can
only realize it when we live for a time in country or city without
antiquity of any sort. Here in England there are still many places
where one might have the suggestion that we moderns were like children
playing with new toys in front of a rich tapestried background full of
great deeds and romances. In America the idea could not occur, and the
absence of such suggestion is no doubt much felt by the more cultured
and thoughtful, especially after visiting Europe. It may partly
account, too, for the more fantastic character in the architecture of
some of their recent country dwellings, which are full of nooks and
corners and odd gables and stairways, as if their designer wished to
make up by his invention for the absence of old time sentiment.
Some of us appear to be trying to turn England into another
America--for ever scheming railways where they are not wanted, cutting
down trees, and clearing away old dwelling places, and insulting even
the green fields with advertisements. Anything that interferes with
extra percentages is as dust in the balance to such.
In the destruction of beauty of any kind, however, is involved the
destruction of the faculty of its perception and appreciation. The
artistic capacity and sense of beauty must be fed by the contemplation
of beauty or both will in time perish. We cannot really satisfy one
of the senses unless we satisfy them all. It is often said, "you must
sacrifice this or that to comfort and convenience;" but it is quite
possible to have every so-called comfort and convenience, and yet to
be anything but happy or comfortable--especially if the comfort of the
eye is forgotten. Unless the utilitarian succeeds in eliminating the
sense of beauty and art altogether, the natural man will still revolt
against the tyranny of mechanical and artificial conditions. Such
revolts make epochs, and when the human mind is deeply stirred it is
sure sooner or later to find expression in some revival, or new form
of art.
A great intellectual revolution has taken place in the last half
century: a great social and industrial revolution is preparing, or
even now progressing. Whether art will again be able to sum up
and express adequately in monumental form the new life and its
aspirations, as it expressed the heart of ancient life in Greece and
mediaeval Europe, must depend upon its power of appeal, and this again
must depend upon the sensitiveness to form and colour on the part
of the people. In England the domestic sentiment is so strong that
enthusiasm for large public works is rare, and opportunities for
sculptor or painter to express anything like the generic thought
of their time, or to touch the pride or hopes of the nation rarer
still.[4] The art that is capable of illustrating this spirit is what
is called decorative art: but the art which can cover large mural
spaces with a peoples' history and legend in noble and typical forms,
the art which can lift our souls with large thoughts, or enchant them
with a sense of mystery and romance, can also be a familiar friend
at our firesides, and touch each common thing of every day use with
beauty, weaving its golden threads into the joys and sorrows of common
life, and making happy both young and old.
[Footnote 4: It is true we have our frescoes of English
history at the Houses of Parliament, but they cannot be said,
with the exception of the work of Mr. G. F. Watts, to have
been conceived in an epic spirit, but are rather anecdotic or
incidental. Though the new pictures for the House of Lords
by some of our ablest men of the younger school, such as
Mr. Payne and Mr. Cadogan Cowper, show much finer mural and
decorative feeling.]
THE SOCIALIST IDEAL AS A NEW INSPIRATION IN ART
[Illustration]
THE SOCIALIST IDEAL AS A NEW INSPIRATION IN ART
Art as the commentator or the recorder of human life, reflecting not
only its physical aspects but its mental attitude, must necessarily be
influenced by every change which modifies the course and character of
that life. It is the sensitive plate in the camera of the mind of the
age which receives every image, every shadow which passes before the
lens of its vision, and, over and above the fleeting shows of the
hour, registers the prevailing sentiment of its period.
In proof of this we have only to look around us and see how intimately
the life and spirit of our own times are represented in the art of the
day, more especially pictorial art.
In any of our large annual popular mixed picture shows we may see the
effects of the modern commercial principle of individual competition.
Pictures of the utmost diversity of subject and treatment are crowded
together, clamorous for attention, often injured by the juxtaposition
of unsympathetic neighbours, the principal quality telling in such
a conflict being force. Certain dominant, or privileged, individuals
hold front places, but even the marked individual style of some
leading painters is apt to be discounted by numerous more or less
successful imitations.
Painters are said to be extreme individualists as a rule, and while,
no doubt, the economic conditions of the day tend to encourage this,
and to make painting more and more a matter of personal expression or
impression, yet, I think, the individuality of modern artists is more
apparent than real, and that it would not be difficult to classify
them in types, or to trace the main influences in their work to some
well-known artistic source either in the present or the past, or both.
This, however, would be in no way to their discredit, but it shows how
art, even in its most individualistic forms, is essentially a social
product, and that each artist benefits enormously by the work of his
contemporaries and his predecessors.
Our mixed picture exhibition also discloses another prominent
characteristic of our time--the domination of money, and the influence
of the possessing classes and material wealth. This appears in the
preponderance of portraits and the comparative absence of imaginative
works.
We may see the monarch and the political, financial, or commercial
magnate in all their glory; generals and admirals, slayers and
destroyers, in scarlet and blue and gold; the fashionable dame in
purple and fine linen; the motorist in his career; national pride
or imperialism is appealed to by pictures of battle and triumph over
inferior races; and sports and pastimes, especially those involving
the pursuit and death of birds and animals.
Nor is the reverse of the medal unrepresented, for we may see side by
side with brilliant ballroom scenes and banquets in marble halls, as
a picturesque contrast or foil perhaps, various aspects of poverty
and rags, sometimes sincere, sometimes sentimental, and occasionally
flashes of insight reveal the pathos of the toiler's lot in the field,
the factory, or on the treacherous ocean.
The genuine modern love of wild nature and landscape, and the roaming
spirit of travel is generally catered for by our painters; in
these directions, perhaps, may be detected the suppressed sigh of
super-civilized man for primitive freedom and natural conditions of
life, or,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
With such mixed elements we may find some false sentiment, and
also sensationalism, not infrequently connected with Christian
sentimentality, and amid a fair allowance of military exploits, and
flag-waving imperialism, there may be a few well-staged masquerades
of past history, some grim and stark realism, perhaps, or gloomy
pictorial pessimism, and for the rest, decorative or amatory posings,
painted anecdotes and domesticities, flowers, babies, and bric-à-brac.
Thus, in pictorial form, with more or less completeness, the mixed
drama of our age is presented, its very discords even, and the absence
of any prevailing idea or unity of sentiment (except bourgeois) and
artistic aim is characteristic, as the pictures jostle one another in
a competitive crowd, each struggling for a share of attention.
Painters of the Latin and the Teutonic races are more dramatic, and
also more daring in their conceptions, and often appear to strip the
mask (or the fig-leaf) from objects and subjects which the more timid
or prudish Anglo-Saxon would discreetly veil. Grim pictures of the
industrial war not unfrequently appear in Italian and French salons,
and in that of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts I have seen large
and lurid canvases depicting strikers on the march with a background
of factory chimneys looming through the smoke. Apart from their
economic and historical significance, however, such subjects may
fall in with a certain mood of gloom and pessimism which, in violent
reaction from superficial grace and beauty, and classical tradition,
manifests itself in some quarters. Now and again a new sensation is
made by some eccentric genius, as it were, dragging a weird aesthetic
red herring across the fashionable artistic scent, and diverting
attention to side tracks in artistic development, often mixed with
morbidity, or, as a change from the pursuit of superficial and
ephemeral types of beauty, debased and revolting types and loathly
subjects are drawn under the pictorial limelight and analysed.
So, in the pictorial world, the economic system under which we live
makes itself felt by encouraging each artist to fight for his own
hand, and to become a specialist of one sort or another, unless he can
live by exploiting some other artist's discovery and method.
Few, probably, among artists are fully conscious of this compulsion,
or, at least, of its cause, and but few trouble themselves about the
economic system, but mostly, though not without social sympathies,
take the risks, as individuals, of swimming or sinking, with the off
chance of fortune and fame, as in the necessary order (or disorder) of
things.
Yet the economic position of the modern artist can hardly be
considered as at all satisfactory, dependent as he is mainly upon
the caprice of the rich, or the control of the dealer, and upon
the surplus value and unearned increment it may be in the power of
individuals to spend upon art.
Painting, however, though the most individual, popular, vivid, and
intimate of the arts, is not the _only_ art, and the arts, like
humanity, do not flourish under Imperial rule. They are a brotherhood
or a sisterhood (they are traditionally represented as the latter)
though, in neither case are they necessarily celibate; on the
contrary, for it is by the union of art with a human character and
personality that living offspring are produced.
From the point of view of the necessities of the community (and
amongst these necessities I would certainly count beauty of
environment) the constructive arts come first in order.
Man needs shelter and security, and therefore architecture and the
craft of building take the first place, since without roof and walls
it would be difficult to enjoy the other arts which minister to our
comfort, refinement, and pleasure (nor would it be hardly possible
for many of them to exist) unless we could satisfy our aesthetic
predilections by textiles and a tent, or by painting or chiselling the
walls of a cave.
Now architecture or the art of building is essentially a co-operative
art. The planning and general scheme of the design of a building may
indeed emanate from one mind, but its realization needs an army of
skilled artificers and artists--stonemasons, carvers, carpenters,
smiths, tilers and plasterers, and a host of labourers working
harmoniously together. And yet, in order to make the building really
expressive--a work of art, in short--something more than training
and manual skill, something above learned tradition, and beyond even
organized co-operative labour is wanted.
What, then, is this something--this unknown quantity or quality?
What makes the great difference between ancient and modern
architecture, we might ask, for it is in the answer to this question
that we find the answer to our first?
Unity of sentiment--the inspiration of a great ideal, this it was
which enabled the artists and craftsmen of past great periods in art
to work in harmony on great public monuments, but without losing their
character or individuality, as the different parts of the work might
be full of invention and variety, and yet conduce to a harmonious
whole, as in a Gothic cathedral.
Mr. Halsey Ricardo, in an interesting address recently given to the
Architectural Association of London, aptly described the architecture
of Ancient Egypt as "priest's architecture"; that of Ancient Assyria
as "the architecture of kings"; the architecture of Greece he
considered as "sculptor's architecture," and that of the revived
classicism of the Renascence as "the architecture of scholars." Well,
these have all had their day. The turn of the people must come, and
in the architecture of the future, under the inspiration of the
great Socialist Ideal we may realize what may be described as the
architecture of humanity.
And, looking to the probable requirements of a co-operative
commonwealth, this hope seems to be well founded in view of the
likelihood of the construction of collective dwellings (already
projected in the garden city) of noble public halls and schools.
The unifying effect of a great Ideal, a Hope, a Faith, is obviously
wanting generally in modern architecture, wherein the influence most
paramount is too often the limits of the builders' contract.
The golden image (which yet is never, like Nebuchadnezzar's, actually
"set up") is the real god bowed down to, whosesoever the image and
superscription over the porchway, and so modern art is everywhere tied
to the purse strings.
But the money-bag makes a poor device for an escutcheon, and is still
less effective as an inspirer in art. The standard of the man in
possession is "market value," and art under capitalism has become
mostly a kind of personal and often portable property, and as much a
matter for speculative investment as stocks and shares.
As money cannot write history or ancestry, every portable bit of
antiquity is now in danger of being bought up by dealers for the use
of millionaires, and we shall soon have no visible history but in our
museums.
But, above the din of the market and the confusion of political
tongues, a clarion call is heard, and through the darkness breaks a
new dawn.
The Socialist Ideal comes, scattering the clouds of pessimism and
decadence which have lain heavily on the spirit of modern art.
Artists have already been touched by the stress and stir of the
struggle of Labour and the pathos of the life of the toiler, who, as
a patient Atlas, sustains the earthy heaven of wealth and luxury. In
contact with the earth again, and in sympathy with the life of the
people, many painters have found inspiration.
One of the greatest of modern sculptors--Meunier, the Belgian (alas!
now no more) was himself a Socialist, and devoted himself to the study
and realization of types of heroic labour--the labour that takes its
life in its hand in every ordinary day's work--at the furnace mouth
or in the coal mine. A group of his figures and reliefs forms a noble
epic in bronze of the modern toiler.
François Millet may be said to have painted the epic of the French
agricultural labourer, though not, apparently, from any conscious
or revolutionary point of view, but rather as a sympathetic observer
recording its pathos.
Much in the same spirit Joseph Israels in Holland, and Liebermann in
Germany, have painted aspects of the worker's life.
Many of our island painters from a similar standpoint have painted
the English workers--such as George Clausen, H. H. La Thangue, Frank
Brangwyn, Stanhope Forbes, H. S. Tuke, Prof. Frederick Brown, the late
Charles Furse, and the late F. Madox Brown--and shown us the toilers
of the sea and land, and the nameless heroes of the life-boat, and the
tragedies of the fishing village.
The aspects of labour under modern conditions, indeed, have a
deep significance, more, perhaps, than the artist or the labourer,
unconscious of Socialism, is probably aware of.
To the artist it is always invigorating to get down to the roots of
life, and draw fresh inspiration from the simple life of simple people
meeting nature face to face every day of their lives.
The representation of types and aspects of modern labour, however,
may or may not always be an indication of the effect of Socialist
sympathies or the inspiration of the Socialist Ideal, and in any case
it only exhibits one phase of such sympathy. But the Socialist ideal
has undoubtedly had a great influence in another direction, namely,
in what are generally known as the "Arts and Crafts"; and it is not a
little remarkable that the modern revival in Design and Handicraft may
claim manufacturing and individualistic England as its birthplace.
This fact has been freely and generously acknowledged by our
Continental brethren.
The perception of the essentially social character of the arts that
minister to daily life, and the dependence of Design and Handicraft
upon effective and sympathetic co-operation among groups of workers
have drawn craftsmen together, and has led in some sort to a revival
of guilds. Some of these guilds, like the Art Workers' Guild (founded
as long ago as 1884) are for discussion of a demonstration in the
various artistic handicrafts, and for mutual information and help.
The influence of such guilds in the revival of many beautiful crafts
on sound lines, and, above all, in imbuing artists of different crafts
with a sense of the unity of art can hardly be overestimated.
Other guilds, groups of workers, and industrial associations have
been formed in many parts of the country for the practice of the
handicrafts, influenced by the teaching of John Ruskin and William
Morris. Others, again, are hardly more than commercial enterprises,
but all endeavour to meet in one way or another the increasing public
interest in hand-work.
This English movement of the last twenty-five or thirty years or so is
usually traced to the workshop of William Morris, who, with a group of
distinguished artists, represented the advanced school in English art
at that time, founded the firm which still bears his name some time in
the sixties, mainly, at first, to supply artists and people of refined
taste with simple furniture and domestic decoration that they could
live with.
Morris, who became so conspicuous an instance later, of the influence
of the Socialist Ideal, was not then a conscious Socialist, though
he was from the first in constant protest against the false taste and
pretentiousness of modern decorative art, which had sunk to a very
commercial and common-place level under mid-nineteenth century
industrial conditions, controlled by division of labour and the
machine.
The fact that he was a poet and a man of letters as well as an
artist gave additional force to his revolution in English taste,
and increased his influence very much, while his own position as
an employer, and man of business brought him face to face with the
conditions of labour and modern industry. Although in his own work and
the work he controlled he was highly successful, and by the vigour and
beauty of his designs, under mediaeval influence, especially in woven
stuffs and wall coverings, he quite turned the tide of taste, he
abandoned hope that there could be any real or lasting improvement in
the arts under the existing economic and social conditions, and he did
not seem to share in the belief which has animated some of his friends
and followers, that the Arts and Crafts movement itself would prove
a means of revolutionizing methods of production and carrying on an
effective propaganda for Socialism.
The next step forward was made by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society which was founded in 1888 by a group of artists which included
architects, painters, sculptors, as well as designers and craftsmen of
different kinds.
The society arose from the ruins of a sort of secessionist movement
of painters against the Royal Academy and its narrow views of art and
exclusiveness. Among its members were men of very different ideas,
but with these were several fully convinced and conscious Socialists,
strongly imbued with Morris's ideals, though Morris himself did not at
first join us, the present writer being elected as first president
and serving in that office for the first three years of the society's
existence, when Morris was elected to the chair and served till his
death in 1896.
Our main and ostensible purpose was to advance the state of the
decorative arts by uniting design and handicraft, and by acknowledging
the share and artistic responsibility of the individual workmen
who co-operated in the production of a work of art, also to give
opportunities to designers and craftsmen to exhibit their work and
appeal directly to the public, and by holding selected exhibitions
of design and handicraft from time to time to maintain a standard of
taste and workmanship which hitherto there had been no means of doing.
Courses of lectures on the arts by members of the society accompanied
our earlier exhibitions, and these have since been published, and by
such means our propaganda was greatly extended.
If we cannot claim to have solved the Labour question, which, of
course, nothing short of a Socialist system can do, we have asserted
the claims of decorative and industrial art and of the craftsman, and
we have enabled a body of artistic craftsmen to appeal direct to the
public, while many of our members through teaching bodies, such as
the Board of Education and the County Councils have been the means
of inculcating sound traditions of workmanship among large numbers of
young students and apprentices from various trades who go to study in
the evening schools, and so carry back into their ordinary work fresh
ideas and enhanced skill and taste.
The influence of the Arts and Crafts movement has certainly been
socialistic in increasing the respect for workmanship, and in
awakening the sense of the public to the need of humane and healthful
conditions for the workers, over and above the inculcation of the
desire for beauty in common things, and harmonious surroundings of a
refined if simple life.
Its quiet methods still serve indirectly the propaganda of the
Socialist Ideal.
Only recently, for instance, an exhibition was organized in London of
the work of various Guilds of Handicraft, by a lady on the staff of
a well-known Socialist weekly journal, which demonstrated on the one
hand the joy in art and handicraft under happy and fair conditions for
the worker, and on the other showed the conditions of "sweated" labour
by living examples working at their miserably paid trades.
A river gathers volume by the contributions of the small streams which
flow into it, and so with the great movement of Socialism, which,
comprehending as it does, the whole range of human effort and
aspiration, is continually widening and increasing in depth and force,
not only by the direct action of its leaders, and the support of its
conscious followers, but in many indirect ways. The sum of which it
would be difficult to estimate though every influence counts, and even
the very opposition of enemies often has the contrary effect to
that intended by them, and not only so, but as we may observe in the
political arena these are sometimes driven to defend their position
by borrowing palliative weapons from the armoury of those they profess
bitterly to oppose.