Part 3

Co-operation in this matter involves the organization of Societies. These may be quite small, e.g. Chamber-music groups, each of whose members performs, dramatic reading-circles only large enough to provide the casts--or on a large scale, e.g. the important Folk or Community Theatres, the larger Music Clubs. The size of the Society would determine the kind of work to be done, and would depend largely upon local conditions. However big or small it may be, it would nevertheless find suitable and desirable activities within its compass. Neither need--nor in fact very often should--these Societies be “performing” Societies, but, instead, “enjoying” Societies. By a performing Society I mean one where the play or the music is performed by members of the group, with the result that the practical or personal side is apt to become more important than any other. The Music Clubs (of which there are several, and should be more) on the other hand employ professional players--the only real differences so far as the audience (of members) is concerned between their own and ordinary commercial concerts are that they receive better value for their money, can hear works which would not otherwise be performed, and have some voice in the selection of programmes. If the best results are to be attained, co-operative art must make full use of the professional. Amateur art has its limitations, and in any case demands the expenditure on practical matters of energy which could be better spent in other directions. Furthermore, the resources of any amateur group are limited. Thus, an Orchestral Society which gave a monthly concert would be an exception, and one orchestral concert per month is not sufficient to satisfy a genuine music-loving community. The co-operative organizations would, with probable advantage, eliminate much that was not absolutely essential, e.g. their staging of plays would be as simple as possible: otherwise there is no reason why their standard of production should be below that of the commercial enterprise. In fact, it would probably show more all-round excellence and better balance and ensemble.

Probably the genuine artist-professionals would sooner work for such Societies than for ordinary managers. They would, with a sufficiency of Societies, earn as good a living and be more secure. They would have more scope for developing their finer talents, a wider range of art to interpret, and more intelligent, more enthusiastic, audiences.

The possibilities of the other form of co-operation noticed before, though great, will probably not be so fruitful. The State and Local Government groups are very largely co-operative undertakings, their function being to provide services which could not be given either at all or so cheaply or efficiently without official organization. Some of these services could, theoretically if not practically, be rendered as well by private combinations. The extent of the activities of the State is decided by the wishes of the majority, and, if the majority desired that the State should engage in the dissemination of art, there is no reason why it should not do so. In fact, it does by maintaining art-galleries, museums, and libraries (in England) and by subsidizing theatres, opera-houses, and conservatoires (in other countries). There are some who would see the artistic activities of the State extended.

There is much to be said both for and against this idea. On the one side, it is arguable that State activities would be largely educational and that it is just as desirable that people should be helped to enjoy life as to succeed in other directions. This is perfectly true, and, so long as the educational ideal is kept in sight, State assistance is thoroughly justified. On the other hand, though the majority of taxpayers agree that education is desirable, they do not all agree that the finest art should be promoted at their expense. In other words, non-essentially educational activities would not be justifiable unless they were provided for, and at the request of, the majority; and, well, we have seen that the majority do _not_ seek the best. Therefore I feel that those who urge the subsidizing of theatres and the like would be better advised to turn their attention to the other type of co-operative enterprise. They might otherwise antagonize the average man and do harm to the educational possibilities of the State organizations.

The museum is, of course, largely educational and not entirely or even largely artistic in its aims. It and the art-gallery are also in a very different position from such activities as the subsidized theatre because they are devoted to the unique object--the specimen or the picture--which _must_ be in the hands of the State if it is to be available to all. There is no alternative to the public ownership of museums and art-galleries. The public library, though it does not deal with the unique, is in another way in a different category, since it, alone of all State provisions, can give something to all men. Those who do not desire good literature can obtain some other service--books on business, science, sport, etc., recreative reading, and so on _ad infinitum_--in return for their contribution towards its upkeep. The public library, by appealing to all men, brings together a multitude of interests and provides unlimited opportunities for the awakening of new ideas. At the library alone is the good made as easily accessible as the indifferent, and the very fact that they are to be found in the same place is an educational factor of great significance. The man who does not want good pictures or good plays has no need to come into contact with them, and remains outside their influence. On the shelves of a library books of all degrees of excellence and worthlessness (within limits) are side by side so that even mere luck or too hasty selection may lead to better tastes or fresh interests being acquired. Therefore the library is an institution to be encouraged.

Frankly I believe the remedy to lie in the hands of those who want good art. None of these now can get as much of it as they desire; most enjoy only a small portion. If people set to work to provide for themselves so that, instead, a large part of their artistic desires was satisfied, they would so do a great deal to improve the average tastes of the community, since the membership of a healthy organization always increases. Of course they must avoid the insidious desire, which has wrecked many repertory enterprises, to attract outsiders, and must never forget that the function of the Societies is the quite selfish one of supplying their own needs. They, too, must be prepared to cut their cloth accordingly. It is the desire to do more than the means of the actual membership permits that leads to attempts to curry popular favour “to help to balance things”. By so doing they put themselves on the same footing as the commercial man, must take the same risks, and suffer the same failures--and these are liable to be more disastrous since Societies lack what little knowledge of popular tastes the commercial man possesses.

With sufficient organization and the co-operation of co-operative units there is no reason why in time they should not be able to undertake any feasible artistic enterprise. The music-lovers in at least six towns in England could to-day with proper co-operation maintain a permanent orchestra and the theatre-goers an intelligent adequate playhouse, and all towns by grouping could do the same--so far as the orchestra is concerned, at least.

These things have been tried and failed, I will be told. To this, if it be true, there are only two answers--the world has progressed only by successive trials and failures; if the first failure had effectually damped the ardour of our ancestors we should still be savages--and, if these enterprises fail really from lack of desire for them and not because of indifference, which can in time be removed, the artistic level of the day must be much lower than even a semi-pessimist like the writer dares to imagine.

IX

We cannot close even a brief essay without some reference to the effect of some other mechanical devices, such as the gramophone, the piano-player, and wireless, and a note on that all important subject, commercial art.

The appreciation of no art shows such great possibilities of expansion in the near future as music. During the last few years it has been released from its most irksome bonds and is now just beginning to stretch its limbs. For technique has been the curse of music, and now it is becoming possible to gain enjoyment without exercising one’s executive and interpretive powers.

Musicians are of two classes--executive and appreciative--those who perform and those who listen. True enjoyment of music belongs to the latter, just as true enjoyment of books, of pictures, of plays is the reward of the reader and the spectator--not of the writer, the painter, the actor, or the composer. _Their_ joy is of another order--it is the joy of creation.

Without the assistance of modern mechanical aids the music-lover had either to listen to the music-making of his friends or of players at a concert, or he had to attempt to interpret for himself. The first was inconvenient and unsatisfactory. The selection of music was not his own but that of others; the time and place were not of his choosing. The alternative was even worse, since his appreciation was limited by his interpretive powers and marred by his deficiencies. The owner of a modern player-piano has the whole world of piano-music and a wealth of arrangements at his command. Even the lover of orchestral, instrumental, or vocal music has access, through the gramophone and the wireless, to a passable substitute for the real thing.

What effect will this have upon pianoforte music? In the first place, we shall gradually rid ourselves of misplaced pride in the amateur’s very limited technical powers. We shall no longer praise So and So for being able to play Chopin’s _Studies_ after a fashion, but shall consider him either a fool for wasting his time trying when he could much more easily enjoy Cortot’s performance of them, or sympathize with the poverty that prevents his purchasing this mechanical aid. Secondly, we shall not waste time and kill natural love of music by the dreary routine of “teaching the piano.” Instead, we shall teach appreciation. If all the energy spent in acquiring a very inadequate technique were diverted to the real business of appreciation, we should be a more musical nation. Thirdly, we shall cease to tolerate the incompetent player now so often foisted upon us or even sought for want of any better, and the ostentatious “virtuoso” executant.

Before very long the piano-player will cost no more than an ordinary piano; in fact the ordinary instrument will no longer be manufactured. In our schools “piano-playing” will be erased from the curriculum and classes in appreciation substituted.

But what about non-pianoforte music? There is a big difference. While the piano-player produces exactly the same kind of musical tone as the hand-played instrument, the gramophone, or the wireless, does not reproduce at all exactly the timbre, quality or volume of the instruments recorded. It provides not the real thing but a substitute, which, though excellent, can never be entirely satisfactory. We do not care to assert dogmatically what science will or will not make possible in the future; at least, however, it is extremely doubtful that a mechanical violin as adequate as the mechanical piano will ever be invented. Wind instruments depend less upon human manipulation--the organ, for instance, is nothing but an imperfect essay in this direction. This is but idle speculation, however. As a practical proposition we may say that the perfect mechanical reproduction of music will be confined to the pianoforte.

So we are left with these problems. Shall we be tempted to seek the shadow and lose the substance--listen in often, but never attend an orchestral or chamber concert or a violin or vocal recital? The chances are that we shall, unless opportunities to enjoy the latter are greater than at present. Considerable loss would result. The ears of the next generation would become attuned to a diminished variety of tonal experiences, for one thing. For another, the psychological, even physical effects of large gradations in the volume of tone, such as can be experienced only in the concert-room, should not willingly be relinquished. And, again, it is not by any means the same thing to listen to music in the company of others, in the atmosphere of the concert-room, as it is to enjoy music in solitude. We may sometimes prefer the latter, but that fact does not remove the difference.

The second problem is that, though there is little physical or moral good to be found in solo instrumental playing, such good _does_ result from singing and partaking in concerted music. There is no good reason why we should play the piano--rather than listen to it; but there are many reasons why we should sing or play in chamber or orchestral music. By all means let us listen to more music of all kinds; increased facilities for listening should not, however, decrease our desire to perform when performance can benefit us.

Taking all these considerations together we may assume:

(1) that pianoforte _playing_ will decline though much more pianoforte music will be enjoyed.

(2) that much of the practical energy now devoted to the pianoforte will be directed to the study of other instruments.

(3) that, unless our musical life is to increase in volume but diminish in quality, more and not less concert-going and concerted instrumental playing and choral singing must be provided.

Books, music, pictures, sculpture, however, minister to only a small part of the artistic needs of the community. By far the most widespread, though not necessarily the most valuable, art-products are those which we may describe as commercial, or industrial, or, better, “applied” art. Only a minority, even in this age, concern themselves with the first-named, but we all wear clothes, use furniture, live, work, play, and worship in buildings, eat and drink out of vessels, and so on, through every one of our daily occupations. Into each of these art can, does, and must enter. We may wear clothes to keep us warm, but they must be either ugly or otherwise--their existence implies artistic properties, negative or positive. If they are ugly, we cannot avoid their ugliness, though it may dull our appreciative faculties. Of course this is true of all things. Every object, every occurrence almost, has its artistic aspect. With every manufactured article, every human production, however, this artistic quality is within our control. When we make a cup, a hat, or a church, we can make it as beautiful or as ugly as we like, subject to certain limitations, some of them real, some imaginary. But we must be sufficiently interested in its artistic value. It will seldom exist spontaneously, without conscious effort.

That is, of course, the first and most powerful limitation. _Often we don’t care._ And so long as we don’t care we shall receive only according to our deserts. For the second limitation is that manufactured goods are intended primarily for utility, and the incentive for their production is profit. So long as we are content to take the ugly but useful, so long as our artistic discrimination does not give added commercial value to the beautiful, we can have no right to expect the manufacturer to bother. He is not an apostle of art, but a business-man. If we show him, as a business-man, that we desire a well-proportioned jug and will refuse to buy a clumsy one, he will, acting on business principles, supply the saleable article. So far the remedy is in our own hands. Thirdly, many manufacturers have an unjustifiably low opinion of public taste, and honestly believe that the majority like tawdry things when, in truth, they accept them for want of anything better or because they are cheaper.

Fourthly, however, _when_ there is sufficient desire for the beautiful it need not cost any more, but _until_ there is, it _will_, since, it will be produced in response to a minority demand. This is a much more serious limitation than it should be, for several reasons.

(1) Popular taste has, since the initiation of the industrial era, steadily improved, but the artistic standard of manufacturers is at least a stage behind. There are at least two causes for this: (_a_) the manufacturer can judge popular taste only by experiment, and this is, on the average, bound to involve expense, and (_b_) when the machinery and processes of manufacture are well established and smoothly running, changes must entail extra costs and reorganization, ranging from the installation of fresh plant to the employment of new designs. For this reason alone the more artistic article must cost more, excepting in those industries (such as the manufacture of dress-material) where change and fashion are normal conditions. In other industries where the product is less subject to variation (e.g. pottery--a firm could produce and sell exactly the same cups and saucers for an unlimited period), the extra cost is necessarily more to be expected.

(2) The manufacturer may, and alas too often does, appreciate the commercial value of beauty and _trades_ upon it. That is to say, he manufactures ugly wall-paper and pleasant wall-paper, at practically the same cost. He _could_ be content to make the normal profit from both, but he realizes that many people don’t want to disfigure their walls and will pay more for a pleasing design. He makes them do so, since this behaviour is profitable to him. In this he cannot be censured--rather should we praise him for not doing it more often. Nevertheless, such action will be a drag upon artistic progress, and if it can be prevented at all even the manufacturer in the long run will benefit. Let all who can afford the more beautiful production purchase it, but let them pay the extra price under protest. The manufacturer must be made to realize that it is anti-social to make a profit out of beauty, when by so doing he condemns the less fortunate man to suffer the ugly. As the business-man is at heart as much interested as any other person in the welfare of his fellow-men, this might have some influence. And an independent inquiry (conducted by, say, a group of art-students or a University) might achieve a little. They would try to show us--if they could--why a fabric which is disfigured by a vile design can be cheaper than a plain unprinted cloth, why there is truth in the saying we all hear frequently, “Oh, yes, you all admire the plain, simple costume or frock, but it’s so much more expensive, you know,” and the like.

Fifthly, industrial designers have not received due recognition and are not well organized in relation to the industries. The designer is not always as well acquainted with the special qualities and limitations of the material to which his designs are to be applied as he might be; the manufacturer does not often enough realize the importance of the designer; and the young artist is apt to despise design--naturally, because personal public recognition is never awarded to the designer--and the best men prefer more pretentious if more precarious fields. These shortcomings would, however, be removed as a matter of course were the other limitations to be removed.

Great improvements in industrial art cannot, however, be expected until the general education and artistic appreciation of the public has developed. Applied art will always move more slowly than fine art, since the utility-factor will ever bring about a conflict of expediency versus ideals.

Architecture presents special difficulties, because it is at once aggressive and unavoidable, and because it depends upon environment. In other words, though we may, if we can afford, eschew the ugly pot, tawdry furniture, and (so far at least as our indoor life is concerned) garish clothing, we cannot avoid buildings. They form a large part of our environment and influence our mental and bodily health. Those who live in dirty, flat-fronted, unbroken streets have to resist actively their environment if they would avoid dirty, drab, monotonous lives. Those who daily traverse roads consisting of disorderly jumbles of architectural misfits lose the sense of serenity, order, and fitness they might gain in happier surroundings. The second of the points mentioned before is that no building can be judged apart from its surroundings. An essential of every work of art is that its parts shall form a well-balanced whole, each detail being subordinated to the general effect, which must convey a sense of completeness. Now, until recently we have (with occasional exceptions) failed to realize that the unit of architecture, so far as outward appearance is concerned, is not the individual building but the whole street, everything, in fact, which is in view from any one point. No one would suggest that the wall of a picture-gallery was artistic because the individual pictures were good, and yet, although much more care and artistry is devoted to hanging pictures than is spent in arranging the contiguity of buildings, we seem to be quite satisfied with haphazard town-planning. Yet all who sorrow at the wilful waste and destruction of the beautiful must lament when they see, as they must often do, noble and beautiful edifices or the simple but refined works of architects, who as a rule devote more love and receive less incentive than any other art workers, ruined by their surroundings.

But how, one may ask, can this be avoided? Adjoining plots of land may belong to different owners, contiguous buildings are built for different purposes, by those with much or little to spend, designed by different architects--how can one expect them to conform to one artistic scheme? Perhaps that is too much to expect. Can we even ask that they should not be violently opposed to one another, not mutually destructive? Yes. But this can be secured in only one way. Local authorities must be given, or must take upon themselves, the duty of controlling building operations in all public places. They would not, and could not, be arbitrary: they would need to consider many difficulties, and they could not rightly impose any restrictions which would make the construction of suitable premises impossible within the reasonable means of those for whom they were being built. All they could undertake would be to co-ordinate proposed work, to advise, and to prohibit flagrant affronts to public good taste. Let a local committee composed of the best architects and the hardest-headed business-men in the town, with a disinterested man of taste--a parson, a farmer, a writer--as chairman, be formed. Much good could be done in this way.

In domestic architecture we cannot expect much attention to be given to artistic matters in these days when it is difficult to obtain a sufficiency of houses of any kind. Nevertheless, there is one suggestion with great practical possibilities. It is that of the novelist Mr. J. J. Connington, who proposes that instead of standardization of design small parts capable of being erected in a large number of ways should be standardized. The readers who are interested are referred to _Nordenholt’s Million_ for further particulars of this most interesting idea.

X