ART AND SCIENCE
In the education of the American public toward greater art
appreciation, propaganda plays an important part. When art galleries
seek to launch the canvases of an artist they should create public
acceptance for his works. To increase public appreciation a deliberate
propagandizing effort must be made.
In art as in politics the minority rules, but it can rule only by going
out to meet the public on its own ground, by understanding the anatomy
of public opinion and utilizing it.
In applied and commercial art, propaganda makes greater opportunities
for the artist than ever before. This arises from the fact that mass
production reaches an impasse when it competes on a price basis
only. It must, therefore, in a large number of fields create a field
of competition based on esthetic values. Business of many types
capitalizes the esthetic sense to increase markets and profits. Which
is only another way of saying that the artist has the opportunity of
collaborating with industry in such a way as to improve the public
taste, injecting beautiful instead of ugly motifs into the articles
of common use, and, furthermore, securing recognition and money for
himself.
Propaganda can play a part in pointing out what is and what is not
beautiful, and business can definitely help in this way to raise the
level of American culture. In this process propaganda will naturally
make use of the authority of group leaders whose taste and opinion are
recognized.
The public must be interested by means of associational values and
dramatic incidents. New inspiration, which to the artist may be a very
technical and abstract kind of beauty, must be made vital to the public
by association with values which it recognizes and responds to.
For instance, in the manufacture of American silk, markets are
developed by going to Paris for inspiration. Paris can give American
silk a stamp of authority which will aid it to achieve definite
position in the United States. The French Minister of Fine Arts may be
induced to lend his authority to the process.
The following clipping from the New York _Times_ of February 16, 1925,
tells the story:
“Copyright, 1925, by THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY—Special Cable to THE
NEW YORK TIMES.
“PARIS, Feb. 15.—For the first time in history, American art materials
are to be exhibited in the Decorative Arts Section of the Louvre
Museum.
“The exposition opening on May 26th with the Minister of Fine Arts,
Paul Léon, acting as patron, will include silks from Cheney Brothers,
South Manchester and New York, the designs of which were based on the
inspiration of Edgar Brandt, famous French iron worker, the modern
Bellini, who makes wonderful art works from iron.
“M. Brandt designed and made the monumental iron doors of the Verdun
war memorial. He has been asked to assist and participate in this
exposition, which will show France the accomplishments of American
industrial art.
“Thirty designs inspired by Edgar Brandt’s work are embodied in 2,500
yards of printed silks, tinsels and cut velvets in a hundred colors....
“These ‘prints ferronnières’ are the first textiles to show the
influence of the modern master, M. Brandt. The silken fabrics possess
a striking composition, showing characteristic Brandt motifs which
were embodied in the tracery of large designs by the Cheney artists
who succeeded in translating the iron into silk, a task which might
appear almost impossible. The strength and brilliancy of the original
design is enhanced by the beauty and warmth of color.”
The result of this ceremony was that prominent department stores in
New York, Chicago and other cities asked to have this exhibition.
They tried to mold the public taste in conformity with the idea which
had the approval of Paris. The silks of Cheney Brothers—a commercial
product produced in quantity—gained a place in public esteem by being
associated with the work of a recognized artist and with a great art
museum.
The same can be said of almost any commercial product susceptible
of beautiful design. There are few products in daily use, whether
furniture, clothes, lamps, posters, commercial labels, book jackets,
pocketbooks or bathtubs which are not subject to the laws of good taste.
In America, whole departments of production are being changed through
propaganda to fill an economic as well as an esthetic need. Manufacture
is being modified to conform to the economic need to satisfy the public
demand for more beauty. A piano manufacturer recently engaged artists
to design modernist pianos. This was not done because there existed
a widespread demand for modernist pianos. Indeed, the manufacturer
probably expected to sell few. But in order to draw attention to pianos
one must have something more than a piano. People at tea parties will
not talk about pianos; but they may talk about the new modernist piano.
When Secretary Hoover, three years ago, was asked to appoint a
commission to the Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts, he did so.
As Associate Commissioner I assisted in the organizing of the group
of important business leaders in the industrial art field who went
to Paris as delegates to visit and report on the Exposition. The
propaganda carried on for the aims and purposes of the Commission
undoubtedly had a widespread effect on the attitude of Americans
towards art in industry; it was only a few years later that the modern
art movement penetrated all fields of industry.
Department stores took it up. R. H. Macy & Company held an
Art-in-Trades Exposition, in which the Metropolitan Museum of Art
collaborated as adviser. Lord & Taylor sponsored a Modern Arts
Exposition, with foreign exhibitors. These stores, coming closely in
touch with the life of the people, performed a propagandizing function
in bringing to the people the best in art as it related to these
industries. The Museum at the same time was alive to the importance of
making contact with the public mind, by utilizing the department store
to increase art appreciation.
Of all art institutions the museum suffers most from the lack of
effective propaganda. Most present-day museums have the reputation
of being morgues or sanctuaries, whereas they should be leaders and
teachers in the esthetic life of the community. They have little vital
relation to life.
The treasures of beauty in a museum need to be interpreted to the
public, and this requires a propagandist. The housewife in a Bronx
apartment doubtless feels little interest in an ancient Greek vase in
the Metropolitan Museum. Yet an artist working with a pottery firm
may adapt the design of this vase to a set of china and this china,
priced low through quantity production, may find its way to that Bronx
apartment, developing unconsciously, through its fine line and color,
an appreciation of beauty.
Some American museums feel this responsibility. The Metropolitan Museum
of Art of New York rightly prides itself on its million and a quarter
of Visitors in the year 1926; on its efforts to dramatize and make
visual the civilizations which its various departments reveal; on its
special lectures, its story hours, its loan collections of prints and
photographs and lantern slides, its facilities offered to commercial
firms in the field of applied art, on the outside lecturers who are
invited to lecture in its auditorium and on the lectures given by
its staff to outside organizations; and on the free chamber concerts
given in the museum under the direction of David Mannes, which tend to
dramatize the museum as a home of beauty. Yet that is not the whole of
the problem.
It is not merely a question of making people come to the museum. It is
also a question of making the museum, and the beauty which it houses,
go to the people.
The museum’s accomplishments should not be evaluated merely in terms of
the number of visitors. Its function is not merely to receive visitors,
but to project itself and what it stands for in the community which it
serves.
The museum can stand in its community for a definite esthetic standard
which can, by the help of intelligent propaganda, permeate the daily
lives of all its neighbors. Why should not a museum establish a
museum council of art, to establish standards in home decoration, in
architecture, and in commercial production? or a research board for
applied arts? Why should not the museum, instead of merely preserving
the art treasures which it possesses, quicken their meaning in terms
which the general public understands?
A recent annual report of an art museum in one of the large cities of
the United States, says:
“An underlying characteristic of an Art Museum like ours must be its
attitude of conservatism, for after all its first duty is to treasure
the great achievements of men in the arts and sciences.”
Is that true? Is not another important duty to interpret the models of
beauty which it possesses?
If the duty of the museum is to be active it must study how best to
make its message intelligible to the community which it serves. It
must boldly assume esthetic leadership.
As in art, so in science, both pure and applied. Pure science was once
guarded and fostered by learned societies and scientific associations.
Now pure science finds support and encouragement also in industry. Many
of the laboratories in which abstract research is being pursued are now
connected with some large corporation, which is quite willing to devote
hundreds of thousands of dollars to scientific study, for the sake of
one golden invention or discovery which may emerge from it.
Big business of course gains heavily when the invention emerges.
But at that very moment it assumes the responsibility of placing
the new invention at the service of the public. It assumes also the
responsibility of interpreting its meaning to the public.
The industrial interests can furnish to the schools, the colleges and
the postgraduate university courses the exact truth concerning the
scientific progress of our age. They not only can do so; they are
under obligation to do so. Propaganda as an instrument of commercial
competition has opened opportunities to the inventor and given great
stimulus to the research scientist. In the last five or ten years, the
successes of some of the larger corporations have been so outstanding
that the whole field of science has received a tremendous impetus.
The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the Western Electric
Company, the General Electric Company, the Westinghouse Electric
Company and others have realized the importance of scientific research.
They have also understood that their ideas must be made intelligible
to the public to be fully successful. Television, broadcasting, loud
speakers are utilized as propaganda aids.
Propaganda assists in marketing new inventions. Propaganda, by
repeatedly interpreting new scientific ideas and inventions to the
public, has made the public more receptive. Propaganda is accustoming
the public to change and progress.