Part 6
Now, naturally, there is this characteristic about genuine spontaneous art, that its creation is a pleasurable exercise and excitement. The artist is always anxious to give out what he has--to offer his best to the sight of all men; and so far he is naturally socialistic. Indeed, art itself is essentially a social product, intimately associated with common life, and depending for its vitality upon a co-operation of all workers, upon living traditions and quick and universal sympathies. These are its sunlight and air.
Where the love of art is sincere, given the capacity, all a man would ask would be security of livelihood, with a fair standard of comfort and refinement, and materials to work with. For the rest it would be simply a pleasurable thing to exercise his creative powers for the benefit of the community and the praise he might win.
It would seem, too, that humanity under any system cannot do without art in some form or another, and is always ready to welcome and reward the artist who has the skill to interpret nature, or beautify and refine the life of every day. But no artist, in so far as he is worthy of the name, works consciously for the sake of reward, other than the sympathy and praise of his contemporaries. Modern commercialism does its best to turn him into a man of business, but that was not his natural destiny. Originally one with the constructive workman--the builder, the smith, the carver, the weaver, the potter--he put the touch of art on his work, the refining play of line and pattern, and he saw that it was good, with the pleasure and delight of a craftsman. So use and beauty were one in the old simple days. But we have changed all that. We have put use in one pigeon-hole and beauty in another, and it is only by accident that they get mixed.
Now the severance of the artist and the workman--the craftsman--and the dismemberment, and absorption of the latter to a large extent by machinery, have had results incalculably injurious to art, whatever service they may have been in other ways. As to machinery, it is but a question of adaptation of means to ends, since machinery simply gives extra hands and feet to humanity; useful enough to do heavy and useful drudgery, and works of necessity in a hurry--feed, clothe, and warm, pump and lift weights, for instance--to be the servant and labour-saver of man, in short, but never his master and profit-grinder, as it has become, and certainly never intended to take pleasurable art-work out of his hands, or speciously simulate the workmanship of those hands, and take, with its variety, its interest and beauty away.
It is a curious thing that while every day we are extending our railways and pushing our commerce, making travel easier, and opening up unknown countries to what we are pleased to call the advantages of civilisation,--while we are facilitating methods of getting about on the one hand or the other, we are obliterating those interesting varieties and local distinctions which make travel chiefly interesting; so that while we increase our facilities of travel we remove its inducements as fast as we can--at least from the art point of view.
One of those things the disappearance whereof we deplore is the art 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.
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.