MODERN ASPECTS OF LIFE AND THE SENSE OF BEAUTY
THAT modern social and economic conditions tend to destroy beauty in the outward aspects of human life and nature: the thesis, thus stated, would seem almost a self-evident proposition; yet I am by no means sure that sensitiveness to beauty—or to its absence—in our daily surroundings is so very common (or even that there is a common understanding as to the idea of beauty) that it would obtain general assent without further explanation; and as I have undertaken to open the case for the prosecution, if I may so term it, I will try to put before you my reasons and conclusions on the matter.
My first witness shall be London, as London is typical and focusses most of the effects of modern social and economic conditions. Now, we hear a great deal of the beauty of London, but probably those who talk of her beauty are really thinking of certain beauty spots or the picturesqueness of certain favoured localities where the Thames and the parks come in. Vast as London is, most of us really live for the most part in a comparatively small London. Outside our usual haunts lies a vast unknown region, of which indeed occasional glimpses are obtained on being obliged to travel across or through the desert of the multi-county-city.
Those whose London is bounded on the west by Kensington Gardens and on the east by Mayfair, do not figure to themselves Clerkenwell or Ratcliffe Highway, Bethnal Green or Bow, and would not care to embrace the vast new suburbs spreading over the green fields in every direction, or even to notice the comparatively select slums in the shadow of Belgravian mansions. Supposing we approached our metropolis by any of the great railway lines, there is nothing to indicate that we are entering the greatest and wealthiest city in the world. We pass rows and rows of mean dwellings—yellow brick boxes with blue slate lids—crowded close to the railway in many places, with squalid little backyards. We fly over narrow streets, and complex webs and networks of railway lines, and thread our way through telegraph and telephone wires, myriad smoking chimney-pots, steaming, throbbing works of all kinds, sky signs, and the wonders of the parti-coloured poster hoardings—which pursue one into the station itself, flaring on the reluctant and jaded sight with ever-increasing importunity and iteration, until one recalls the philosopher who remarked "Strange that the world should need so much pressing to accept such apparently obvious advantages!"
Inside the station, however large, all sense of architectural proportion is lost by the strident labels of all sorts and sizes, and banal devices on every scale and in every variety of crude colour, stuck, like huge postage stamps, wherever likely to catch the eye.
The same thing meets us in the streets: in the busier commercial quarters, too, it is a common device to hang the name of the firm in gigantic gilt letters all over the windows and upper stories of the shops; while the shops themselves become huge warehouses of goods, protected by sheets of plate glass, upon the edges of which apparently rest vast superstructures of flats and offices, playfully pinned together by telegraph poles, and hung with a black spider's web of wires, as if to catch any soaring ideas of better things that might escape the melée of the street. In the streets a vast crowd of all sorts, sizes and conditions is perpetually hurrying to and fro, presenting the sharpest contrasts in appearance and bearing. Here the spruce and prosperous business man, there the ragged cadger, the club idler, and the out-o'-work; there the lady in her luxurious carriage or motor, in purple and fine linen, and there the wretched seller of matches.
Modern street traffic, too, is of the most mixed and bewildering kind, and the already too perilous London streets have been made much more so by the motor in its various forms of van and 'bus, business or private car. The aspect of a London street during one of the frequent traffic blocks is certainly extraordinary, so variously sorted and sized are the vehicles, wedged in an apparently inextricable jumble, while the railways and tubes burrowed underground only add fresh streams of humanity to the traffic, instead of relieving it.
Yet it has been principally to relieve the congested traffic of London that the great changes have been made which have practically transformed the town, sweeping away historic buildings and relics of the past, and giving a general impression of rapid scene-shifting to our streets.
The most costly and tempting wares are displayed in the shops in clothing, food, and all the necessities of life, as well as fantastic luxuries and superfluities in the greatest profusion—"things that nobody wants made to give to people who have no use for them"—yet, necessities or not, removed only by the thickness of the plate-glass from the famished eyes of penury and want.
The shops, too, are not workshops. The goods appear in the windows as if by magic. Their producers are hidden away in distant factories, working like parts of a machine upon portions of wholes which perhaps they never see complete.
Turning to the residential quarters, we see ostentation and luxury on the one hand, and cheap imitation, pretentiousness, or meanness and squalor on the other. We see the aforesaid brick boxes packed together, which have ruined the aspect of most of our towns: we have the pretentious suburban villa, with its visitors' and servants' bells; we have the stucco-porticoed town "mansion," with its squeezy hall and umbrella stand; or we have the "desirable" flat, nearer to heaven, like the cell of a cliff-dweller, where the modern citizen seeks seclusion in populous caravansaries which throw every street out of scale where they rear their Babel-like heads.
I have not spoken of the gloom of older-fashioned residential quarters, frigid in their respectability, which, whatever centres of light and leading they may conceal, seem outwardly to turn the cold shoulder to ordinary humanity, or peep distrustfully at a wicked world through their fanlights.
Many of the features I have described are found also in most modern cities in different degrees, and are still more evident in the United States, where there is nothing ancient to stem the tide of modern—shall we say progress? It is only fair to note, however, that there is a movement in New York, in which leading architects and artists are joining with municipal reformers, for the preservation of beauty in the better ordering of street improvements, the laying out of public places, and the general recognition of the social importance of harmony and pleasant effect in cities, which has lately found expression in schemes of town-planning and garden cities and suburbs in this country.
Turning from the aspects of their houses to the humans who inhabit them—take modern dress in our search for the beautiful! Well, national if not distinctive costume—except of the working and sporting sort, court dress, collegiate and municipal robes, and uniforms—has practically disappeared, and, apart from working dress in working hours, one type of ceremonial, or full dress is common to the people at large, and that of the plainest kind—with whatever differences and niceties of cut and taste in detail—I mean the type for men, of course.
Among the undisputed rights of women the liberty to dress as she pleases, even under recognized types for set occasions, and with constant variety and change of style, is not a little important, and it is a liberty that has very striking effects upon the aspects of modern life we are considering. It is true, this liberty may be checked by the decrees of eminent modistes, and limited by the opinion of Mrs. Grundy, or the frank criticism of the boy in the street; and it is even more than probable that the exigencies of trade have something to do with it also.
It is, however, too important an element in the ensemble of life to be ignored or undervalued in any way, as women's dress affords one of the few opportunities of indulging in the joy of colour that is left to civilization.
Men suffer the tyranny of the tall silk hat as the outward and visible sign of respectability—surely a far more obvious one nowadays than Carlyle's "gig." "Gigmanity" has become top-hat-manity. The "stove-pipe" is the crown of the modern king—financier—the business man—He "who must be obeyed." I understand it is still as much as a city clerk's place is worth for him to appear in any other head-gear. Ladies, too, encourage it, with the black-frock coat and the rest of the funereally festive attire of modern correct mankind. I suppose the garb is considered to act as an effective foil to the feast of colour indulged in by the ladies, and that it may act as a sort of black framing to fair pictures—black commas, semi-colons, or full-stops, agreeably punctuating passages of delicate colour!
The worst of it is that the beauty of woman's dress, when it happens to follow or revive a fashion with great possibilities of beauty, as at present, seems to be a matter almost of accident, and entirely at the mercy of the mode (or the trade?)—here to-day and gone to-morrow; and, alas, lovely woman, our only hope for variety in colour and form in modern life, in her determination to descend into the industrial and professional arena and compete commercially with men, not unfrequently shows a tendency to take a leaf out of her rival's tailor's pattern-book, and to adopt or adapt more or less of the features of modern man's prosaic, though possibly convenient and durable, but certainly summary and unromantic attire.
Well, I think, on the whole, the pictures which modern life in London or any great capital discloses may be striking in their contrasts, vivid in their suggestions, dramatic or tragic in their aspects—anything or everything, in fact, except beautiful; except, of course, in so far as accidental effects of light and atmosphere are beautiful, mainly, perhaps, because they disguise or transfigure actually unlovely form and substance.
The essential qualities of beauty being harmony, proportion, balance, simplicity, charm of form and colour, can we expect to find much of it in conditions which make life a mere scramble for existence for the greater part of mankind? Bellamy, in his "Looking Backward," gives a striking and succinct image of modern social and economic conditions in his illustration or allegory of the coach and horses. The coach is Capitalism. It carries a minority, but even these struggle for a seat, and to maintain their position, frequently falling off, when they either go under altogether, or must help to pull the coach with the majority toiling in the traces of commercial competition.
However these conditions may, among individuals, be softened by human kindness, or some of their aspects modified by artistic effort, they do not change the cruelty or injustice of the system, or its brutal and ugly aspects in the main.
But if modern civilization is only tolerable in proportion to the number and facility of the means of escape from it, perhaps we may find at least the beauty of the country and of wild nature unimpaired?
Do we? We may escape the town by train or motor—running the risk in either case of a smash—but we cannot escape commercial enterprise. The very trees and houses sprout with business cards, and the landscape along some of our principal railway lines seems owned by the vendors of drugs. Turning away our eyes from such annoyances, commercial enterprise, again, has us in all sorts of alluring announcements of all sorts and sizes in innumerable newspapers and magazines, which, like paper kites, can only maintain their position by extensive tails. The tail—that is, the advertisement sheets—keeps the kite flying—and the serial tale keeps the advertisers going, perhaps, also. Anyhow, the gentle reader is obliged to take his news and views, social or political, sandwiched or flavoured with very various and unsought and unwanted condiments, pictorial or otherwise. Thus, public attention is diverted and—nobody minds! But it is in these insidious ways that that repose or detachment of mind favourable to the sense of beauty is destroyed, and thus, to put it in another way, we are in danger of losing our lives, or the best that life can give, in getting our living—or, well, perhaps it might be true to say in some cases, a substantial percentage on our investments.
In obedience, too, to the requirements of the great god Trade, whole districts of our fair country are blighted and blackened, and whole populations are made dependent upon mechanical, monotonous, and often dangerous toil to support the international commercial race for the precarious world-market.
Under the same desperate compulsion of commercial competition, agriculture declines, and the country side is deserted. The old country life, with its festivals and picturesque customs, has disappeared. Old houses, churches, and cottages have tumbled into ruin, or have suffered worse destruction by a process of smartening up called "restoration." The people have crowded into the overcrowded towns, increasing the competition for employment, the chances of which are lessened by the very industry of the workers themselves, and so our great cities blindly become huger, more dangerous, and generally unlovely, losing, too, by degrees their relics of historic interest and romance they once possessed.
Even in the art-world, and among the very cultivators of beauty we detect the canker of commercialism. The compulsion of the market rules supply and demand, and the dealer becomes more and more dominant. The idea of the shop dominates picture shows, and painters become almost as specialized as men of science, while genius, or even ordinary talent, requires as much puffing as a patent medicine. Everyone must have his trade label, and woe to the artist who experiments, or discovers capacities in himself for other things than his label covers.
Every new and sincere movement in art has been in direct protest and conflict with the prevailing conditions, and has measured its progress by its degree of success in counteracting them, and, in some sense, producing new conditions. The remarkable revival of the handicrafts, or arts and crafts movement, of late years may be quoted as an instance; but it is a world within a world; a minority producing for a minority; although the movement has done valuable work even as a protest, and has raised the banner of handwork and its beauty in an age of machine industry.
Other notable movements of a protesting, protective, or mitigating nature are at work in the form of societies for the protection of ancient buildings, for the preservation of historic spots and the beauty of natural scenery, for the abolition or abatement of the smoke nuisance, for checking the abuses of public advertisement, for the increase of parks and open spaces, and for spreading the love of art among the people.
Indeed, it would seem as if the welfare of humanity and the prospects of a tolerable life under modern conditions were handed over to such societies, since it does not seem to be anybody's business to attend to what should be everybody's business, and we have not even a minister to look after such interests. The very existence of such societies, however, is a proof of the danger and destruction to which beauty is exposed under modern conditions.
Social conditions are the outcome of economic conditions. In all ages it has been the system under which property is held—the ownership of the means of production and exchange—which has decided the forms of social life. The expansion of capital and the power of the financier are essentially modern developments, as also is unrestricted commercial competition, though this seems to lead to monopoly—a heretofore unexpected climax. Modern existence in such circumstances becomes an unequal race or scramble for money, place, power, or mere employment. The social (or rather unsocial) pressure which results really causes those sordid aspects, pretences, aggressions, and brutal contrasts we deplore. Private ownership is constantly opposed to public interest. The habit of regarding everything from the narrow point of view of money value and immediate profit as the determining factors in all transactions obscures larger issues and stultifies collective action for the public good.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury of public opinion, perhaps I have said enough to support the case of beauty against modern social and economic conditions. I do not ask for damages—they are incalculable. She stands before you, a pathetic figure, obscured in shreds and patches, driven from pillar to post, disinherited, a casual, and obliged to beg her bread, who should be a welcome and an honoured guest in every city and country, and in every house, bearing the lamp of art and bringing comfort and joy to all.
A SHORT SURVEY OF THE ART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
WITH SOME NOTES ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
A SHORT SURVEY OF THE ART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY,
CHIEFLY IN ENGLAND,
WITH SOME NOTES ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
AHUNDRED years is but an arbitrary division of time, and yet one cannot help investing the centuries with a sort of personality as they pass, each distinguished by certain characteristics, particular movements, and habits of thought as well as of life and its aspects, and above all by the spirit and forms of the art to which they have given birth.
If we could summon a typical figure with proper accessories to illustrate each epoch we should get a vivid if somewhat symbolical idea of the varying phases of thought and art, and the passing fashions in taste which the past has witnessed.
Few centuries, perhaps, would be more difficult to comprehend in a single figure than the nineteenth, displaying as it does in the course of its history so many diversities—revolutions we might say—in artistic development.
In its early years, inheriting its taste and fashions from the eighteenth century, when handicraft was still the principal means for the production of things of both use and adornment, the nineteenth century has witnessed a complete revolution in commercial and industrial conditions, with the development of the factory system, competition, and the demands of the world-market. It has seen the great machine industries take the place of the former minute subdivision of labour, and in the process of both subdivision of labour and the development of machine industry all forms of production have been affected.
The former local centres of supply have disappeared with self-dependent homesteads and village industries, and with the decline of handicraft traditions of design and construction have been in this country well-nigh completely broken, except in some trades, such as the cartwright's and the wheelwright's and the harness maker's. We still see in our beautiful country wagons the chamfers and ogee forms in the woodwork and the gay painting of mediaeval times, and our noble shire horses are often brave with bright brass ornaments which perpetuate traditional patterns, moulded or pierced; while the descendants of Wayland Smith still ply their trade at the village forge, though mainly limited to horseshoes.
But machine industry and the factory and production for profit rather than for use, having nearly extinguished all sense of art and individual taste in the useful arts which contribute to the comfort and decoration of the home, in the later years of the century, seem to have evoked, by the mere force of reaction and revulsion of feeling, that remarkable revival of decorative design and handicraft which has distinguished its closing years, under the influence of which many beautiful crafts have been successfully recovered and practised with success, while trade itself has not been slow to derive new ideas from the Arts and Crafts movement.
The main principles inspiring the promoters of this movement have been the unity of the arts allied with and controlled by architecture, and the due acknowledgement of the artistic responsibility of the designer and craftsman.
With regard to the architecture of the nineteenth century we may see nearly every past fashion of its history revived in turn, until some of our eclectic architects seem to have evolved something like a characteristic domestic style, at least, characteristically mixed in its constructive and decorative features, but certainly adapted to modern requirements.
The classical forms in building, which attained a certain heaviness and Dutch plainness under the Georges, underwent a transformation with the revival of Greek and Roman taste in the Empire period. From that time onward classical columns and pilasters and classical details of varying proportions became embedded, as it were, in our domestic architecture, and as a consequence the more-or-less-Doric portico still dominates large residential districts of London. Their columned ranks, however, have latterly been greatly broken in some quarters by the cheerful red brick fronts and white sashes of the Queen Anne revival, which have, in some instances, in response to the demand for "residential flats," even got upon stilts and nod at us from the many-gabled top stories of the modern caravansary.
Street architecture in later Victorian days became a masquerade in building materials, since the design of the façade bears little or no relation to the hidden structure of steel framing by which our many-storied piles are held together, while, apparently, when there are shops on the ground floor the whole mass has the effect of playfully reposing upon the edges of great sheets of plate glass.
The use of terra-cotta, or cut-brick enrichments have been a welcome relief from the doleful gentility of the white brick, or the depressing gray stucco which has cast a peculiar gloom over some respectable neighbourhoods.
In church architecture the Gothic revivalists have carried all before them. At one period of the nineteenth century, indeed, when the restoring zeal was at its height and nothing was acceptable but something "early English," there was considerable reason to fear that the architects would leave nothing behind them!
But we have had really distinguished work from men like Butterfield (the architect of All Saints, Margaret Street), William Burges, and J. D. Sedding, while domestic architecture both in town and country has been developed on new lines by Mr. Norman Shaw, Mr. Philip Webb, and their able followers of the younger generation.
In sculpture we may trace an analogous line of development, from the severe, graceful, but somewhat cold classical style of Flaxman and the more dramatic Canova, or the sentiment of Thorvaldsen, freezing into the later classicism of Gibson on the one hand, or breaking out into the realisms and trivialities of the modern Italian School. In England, inspired by the study of nature and cultivation of style chiefly under the influence of the works of Phidias and the Florentine masters of the fifteenth century, a school of considerable distinction and force has arisen. We had one, at least, really great master in Alfred Stevens standing almost alone as a modern expositor of renascence traditions. He has been succeeded by men of taste and refinement like the late Onslow Ford, or the accomplishment, beauty of design, and vigour of expression of the late Harry Bates, not to mention living exponents of sculpture quite as distinguished. Among the younger school the continental influence of Meunier and of Rodin may be noted.
To continue our rapid and necessarily imperfect survey, in the field of painting, again, the course of development through changes of feeling and aim is even more emphatically marked, as might be expected from that most sensitive and impressionable of the arts.
The domination of the older Academic traditions in artistic education and practice was only broken fitfully in the first quarter of the century by such meteoric influences as that of William Blake, who with his vivid and inspired vision of a world of spiritual, imaginative, and symbolic beauty was in open revolt against the classical coldness and the conscious prettinesses and pretences of his time in art, as well as against the prosaic calculating spirit of a commercial epoch.
Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough as well as Hogarth left their mark on the methods in English painting and raised a standard of workmanship in the eighteenth century which has not since been approached in the same direction, though many charming artists in the figure and landscape, such as George Morland, succeeded them; while later we have the anecdotic and incident pictures of David Wilkie which established a characteristic British type.
The remarkable work of J. M. W. Turner is perhaps more characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth century than that of any other English painter. Trained in the restricted and reserved methods of the early landscape school learned from Italy and France, with extraordinary industry and facility as a draughtsman, and a keen sense of composition, his development under different influences, from the classical landscape school of Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin to the romantic feeling of Titian and Salvator Rosa, or the quiet pathos and precision of touch of the Dutch masters, and above all of the close and constant observation of nature in all her varying moods, and in nearly all European countries, may be seen in the unrivalled record of work he has left, and in the splendid collection in the National Gallery.
Turner seems to express the general movement of the half-century's life and moods of thought more completely than any other artist. Classical, romantic, mythological, naturalistic, impressionistic, in turn; from the serene atmosphere, lucent skies, and deep umbrage of classical landscapes, with their nymphs and shepherds, we may follow the course of his mind to the "Rain, Steam, and Speed" of the Great Western Railway.
It is a wide reach, but Turner's art illuminates the smoke and the stir and stress of the industrial and revolutionary nineteenth century, like a rainbow spanning a stormy sky.
And what of its last fifty years? They have seen the rise, formation and decline of the pre-Raphaelite School. That strong and earnest movement emanating from a small group of enthusiastic young painters, seeking sincerity of expression with thoroughness of workmanship and profound study of nature. The names of Holman Hunt, J. E. Millais, D. G. Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown and Frederick Sandys will always be associated with this important epoch in English painting. Their works have exercised a potent influence far beyond their own immediate circle, and have affected many different developments, forming the root and stem as it were of many different branches.
To this source (whether as reactive or related influences) we may trace back the two chief and vital distinctive directions into which modern painting may be broadly divided—impressionism on the one hand and the pursuit of decorative beauty tinged with poetic feeling and romance on the other, this latter being allied with a further important movement concerned with the revival of design and the artistic handicrafts, known as the Arts and Crafts movement.
With this the names of William Morris and Burne-Jones will always be associated, and they both link hands with the original group of the pre-Raphaelites.
Among later influences upon art generally that of the Japanese cannot be left out of account as its effects have been considerable in many directions and may be said to have had an enormous influence upon the art of Whistler. Despite, however, the marvellous skill of Japanese craftsmanship, owing to the fantastic spirit of their design, and the absence of the steadying and controlling influence of stone construction in their architecture, their art has had more effect upon our impressionistic school than upon our arts and craftsmen, and it is rather by the work of the latter type and the movement it represents that the art of the close of the last century is more distinctively characterized.
The study of Japanese art, however, leads us back to its source in the graver and more serious art of China, where its prototypes may be found in nobler forms.
The opening of the twentieth century has brought great changes—changes in the aspects of life, changes in the temper of the nation. Action and reaction which govern the world, also influence the world of thought and of art. The pendulum of taste swings between the classic and the romantic moods and modes. It has of late swung again towards the classical side and manifests itself, as regards decoration, in the vogue of plain white walls, classical columns and pilasters and cornices, and an almost puritan fear of any other kind of ornament. When colour and pattern are indulged in they mostly show a reversion to the fashions of the early Victorian age of French origin or pre-Morrisian types. What was once denounced as hideous has now become old fashioned enough to be found historically interesting.
In painting, what might be termed a cult of the ugly, indeed, seems to have fascinated many of our vigorous artists. This may be the result of a reaction against early Victorian prettiness, and quasi-classical elegance. There has also been a decadent influence at work in our latter-day art. This also manifested itself in that strange decorative disease known as "L'Art Nouveau," which some writers have actually asserted was the offspring of what properly considered was really its antithesis—the Morris school of decoration. Some of the forms of "L'Art Nouveau" may have been the result of the translation into continental modes of some kinds of British, or rather Scottish, design, initiated by certain designers of the Glasgow school, and it is in this direction, I think, that we should be more likely to discover its true genesis. To father it on the Morris school is much as if one were to say that impressionism was a development of the pre-Raphaelite movement, whereas it was a reaction. The followers of both schools, no doubt, sought to restate natural fact or phase, but on totally different principles and in absolutely opposed terms of art.
With the passing of the impressionist masters, again, we see a counter movement in what are called the "post impressionists." Here, again, principles, methods of conception, observation, selection, and execution are totally different. There are many different individualities, and their works are so diverse that it can hardly be considered a concerted movement in painting, though, regarded collectively, it appears to be a reaction against previously accepted canons or standards in art. Yet curiously enough there are suggestions of the influence of early Byzantine work and of Roman mosaic in the work of some of these painters, the mosaic method of producing form and colour by the juxtaposition of small tesserae or cubes, being actually followed as closely as possible in some instances, by laying on paint in small squares or parallelograms. By such means a certain effect of vibrating light is obtained, but it seems rather a misapplication of the method, and would be more satisfactory to work in actual mosaic and for the artist to avail himself of the decorative beauty which the conditions of working in that material would give.
The movement, so far as it is sincere, appears to be a reflex in art of the feeling which is apt to possess members of a civilized community occasionally—the feeling which urges a man to break away from the restraints and formalities, as well as the comforts and luxuries of modern life, and seek a return to nature or the bed-rock of existence in the backwoods, or some primitive country, where a simple life is possible.
It also reflects a view which has a certain influence among educationalists—a desire to realize and to possess the unprejudiced unprepossessed attitude of a child's mind and its outlook and vision of nature and life. There is a charm in the naïveté of primitive art of all kinds which is akin to the charm we often find in children's drawings. In seeking to cultivate artificially such a mental attitude and its expression in art, however, there is the danger of affectation, and even the sincerest efforts in that direction may give the impression of being affected; also, when, as is nearly always the case in our time, the question of art becomes hopelessly mixed up with the question of commercialism, and personal interests, and crossed by waves of fashionable caprice, like the wind blowing where it listeth, it becomes exceedingly difficult to discover the proverbial "hair" which "perhaps divides the false and the true."
Another point to be noted is this, that whereas the trend of impressionism in art has been towards the opposite pole to conscious and formal design, among some of the painters of the newer school there appears to be a feeling towards its recovery to some extent, at least, there is evidence of the desire to regard a picture as a pattern of colour which necessarily involves some sort of arrangement. This may be some indication of a return to sanity and a desire to restore the art of painting as an art of design.
But over and above all these movements and varieties the desire for something antique seems to be dominant. The old masters eclipse the moderns in painting; and in decoration and furniture, if genuine old work is not to be had, the closest imitation is in demand, and the tone of time must, if possible, be anticipated in counterfeit. Mr. Hardcastle, in "She Stoops to Conquer," would be quite in fashion with his old house and everything old in it.
Apart from the trade interests no doubt concerned, this love of antiquity growing side by side with the most rapid development of mechanical invention and the consequent transformation of the aspects and habits of life, is a curious fact and seems to show, so far as it is genuine, the growth of an unsatisfied historic sense or feeling for romance, which at one time seemed threatened with extinction in a utilitarian world.
This taste for antiquity in all things, however, is often very artificial in its manifestations, and does not lead to any keener appreciation of good contemporary art, but rather encourages the simulation of past styles than original invention, which does not seem quite healthy.
Another recent development is the taste for pageantry. This is in itself another indication of the revival of the love of romance and antiquity, perhaps, and may to some extent have also encouraged that revival.
Certainly in pageantry we have a popular and picturesque means of vivifying past history, and encouraging a knowledge of and pride in the story of their own country among our people which could hardly be gained from the study of books or pictures alone. Historic episodes arranged in dramatic form enacted by living men and women, with all the vivid effect of life and movement, and heightened by all the resources of costume and heraldry and accessories proper to each period, the scenes, too, taking place in the open air, with green swards, noble trees, and the wide sky for proscenium leave an ineffaceable impression upon the eyes and minds of the spectators.
But what is wanted is a wider appeal. We might make the pageant a means of centralizing and unifying national life. We should not be content to limit such shows to a means of raising money for charitable objects, or as an expensive amusement for the few; we should aim at making our pageants free public spectacles in which the people themselves should co-operate. Mr. Frank Henson and Mr. Frank Lascelles have done and are doing excellent work in this direction. Every town might have its commemorative processions in celebration of certain important local historic events, especially such as illustrate the growth of the great structure of English Freedom.
If we consider the amount of artistic and archaeological knowledge, the training and discipline involved, the opportunities for personal distinction, and the cultivation of the sense of beauty in the externals of life, we have in the pageant a very important educational factor of far-reaching influence, and a powerful means of unifying public sentiment and public spirit, and fostering the national character.
ART AND THE COMMONWEAL
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT ARMSTRONG
COLLEGE TO THE STUDENTS OF
THE SCHOOL OF ART
ART AND THE COMMONWEAL
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT ARMSTRONG COLLEGE, NEWCASTLE,
TO THE STUDENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF ART
ART in our time is regarded from many different points of view—for instance, (1) as an accessory in general education—generally some way after the fact; or (2) as the servant or slave of commerce and industry; or (3) as a polite amusement for persons of leisure; or (4) as a profession or means of livelihood; (5) as a luxury only for persons of wealth and leisure; or (6) as an investment or speculation; or (7) as a necessity of life and its indispensable accompaniment and means of record and expression.
Art may be, and indeed actually is, each and all of these at the present moment, but, apart from economic and other considerations, the latter is the larger and truer view of the function of art, and it necessarily, too, includes the first, or educational value, which cannot be over estimated.
The education of the eye is second to none in importance if we consider it fully in all its bearings, but this is far from being generally sufficiently realized (or ugliness might come to be considered a crime), and as the first avenue of human intelligence—though the mouth perhaps might make out a case for priority, its interests are singularly neglected. It is true we have the words "unsightly" and "eyesore," which seem to recognize that the eye is capable of being affronted or distressed or even wounded by hideous objects; this perhaps is something, but for all that the eye has to be a very tolerant organ in these days.
The best test of power or accuracy of observation is drawing, and power of drawing is the basis of all art, which might in all its varieties be described as different kinds or degrees of drawing; what is painting but drawing in colour and tone? What is modelling but drawing in relief or in three dimensions? What is weaving pattern but drawing in textile? And so with each artistic craft by means of which beautiful form and colour is created, each after its manner is a method of drawing, and, as a matter of fact, each is actually based on a drawing as a preliminary stage of its existence.
Great, then, is drawing. It has now taken a place in our ordinary educational course as a "compulsory subject" although it must be said that amid the innumerable subjects with which the modern student is expected to be crammed a very small proportion of time is generally allowed for its pursuit—a pursuit indeed which generally ends in catching it like a mouse, by the tail, for it appears that about two hours a week is the time spent in the drawing classes of some colleges. This does not seem to give much chance to either teacher or student of drawing! Nevertheless, as one who has examined the results of such drawing, a certain power of simple definition of form in an abstract way appears to be acquired,—the capacity, varying a good deal, to give in simple bold chalk outline the salient characteristics of some common object, or living form, such as a piece of pottery, a flower, a bird, a fish. Even regarded merely as an aid to the comprehension of an object or subject, drawing is obviously of the greatest practical use. In the newer methods of teaching to read the word is accompanied by the pictured object, for mere brain-puzzling has no place in any national educational system.
It has been said that the worst drawing of an object gives a clearer idea of it than the best verbal description. That seems rather rough on literature! But there is a good deal of truth in it. It is just this definiteness of statement in a drawing which makes it so valuable an exponent of form and detail, whereby its services become indispensable in demonstration and description, and therefore invaluable to all teachers. If anyone can draw an object in ground-plan, in elevation, in longitudinal and transverse section, and give its appearance in silhouette and in light and shade, he will not only learn all about the form, character and construction of the thing, but will be able to impart his knowledge to others.
To begin with, then, from the purely practical point of view and regarded as an aid in education, the chief aim in the study of drawing is to acquire knowledge of form and fact and the power of describing or demonstrating them. We cannot therefore be too definite and need not be afraid of being hard, even from the art-student's point of view. Studies should be studies, thorough and searching. But drawing, pursued as an introduction to the world of art, may lead the student on through a course of practically endless evolution and development, as he perceives that it is indeed a language of a most sensitive and varied kind, of many styles and methods, which, though beginning with simple statements of fact and form, may become in gifted hands an instrument of the most powerful or delicate feeling and an exponent of character and a vehicle of the imagination, having a rhythm and beauty peculiar to itself. Consider the amount of beauty that has been expressed by means of outline alone, from early Egyptian work to the exquisite figures of the Greek vase painter, or to the flowers and birds of Japanese artists. In these instances, as in all the best, drawing is united with design,—only another kind of drawing. We happen to have the words Drawing and Design in our language, and they signify distinct things, because of course there is drawing which may be simply copying or transcript, and there is drawing allied to invention and imagination, drawing with the mind, with ideas as well as with the eye and hand, which becomes design. I heard of an artist endeavouring to define design the other day, and he said. "Well, you make a think, and then you draw a line round it." It is certainly thought that makes the difference.
When we come to composition we perceive that line has a further function and significance, and it becomes an important factor in that harmonizing, unifying process which is involved in making a design of any kind. This is not merely an indulgence in idle or aimless fancy, but is the outcome, over and above its imaginative quality, of meeting certain conditions, such as the object and purpose of the work, its material, and the necessities of its production. There is a certain logic, too, in the language of line which the designer is bound to observe, and he soon sees that in committing himself to a particular form or system of line in his design of composition that form cannot stand alone but has to be counterbalanced, led up to, and allied with corresponding lines and forms, or perhaps emphasized by contrasts.
Now in pictorial composition or anything of that nature, a design is complete in itself, the plain surface-panel canvas, or paper it covers, determines its proportions and definite limits and the only necessary technical considerations resolve themselves into the necessity of unity with itself and suitability to the process employed. But whereas the pictorial artist or picture painter carries his own work through to completion, is designer and craftsman in one; in short, the designer for some industrial purpose, unless he is his own craftsman, must make his design also a working drawing to conform to certain strict technical conditions, such as the nature of the material and the method of reproduction, certain limits of size and number of colours to be used and so forth. His work is not complete in itself, but is a draft for a process of manufacture, and depends for its ultimate success, beyond what beauty it may possess, upon the completeness with which the technical requirements have been met and upon the co-operative labour of perhaps a multitude of craftsmen.
With the establishment of modern competitive capitalistic commerce and industry, the factory system, division of labour, and machinery, designer and craftsman have been widely separated, to the detriment of both. Shops are no longer workshops, but only dépôts for the display of the finished products of industry, so that the public remain largely in ignorance of how and where and under what conditions things are made. Even building, which was said to be the only craft carried on under the public eye, is now largely a mysterious process developed behind hoardings and posters. As to machinery, I do not deny that it has its uses or that wonderful (and sometimes fearful) things have been produced; the commercial output is prodigious, in fact, modern existence has come to depend upon machinery in nearly every direction, but the machines themselves remain as a rule far more wonderful things than the things they produce, and the less machinery has to do with art the better. Machinery has been called "labour-saving," but the immediate result of its introduction has been to throw people out of work—labour-saving in the sense of taking their work from them, or the bread out of their mouths. Profit-making being the real object of modern manufacture, the cheapening of the cost of production becomes more important than human lives. Everything appears to be sacrificed to the Moloch of Trade, which, according to our public men, is the one object of a nation's life. Yet trade on the competitive system is devouring itself—or being devoured by monopoly, which again devours the people. There seems some danger of humanity being considered to exist for trade and not trade for the service of humanity.
The old idea of a self-supporting country producing the necessities of life for its own use seems only appreciated by Socialists.
These thoughts bring one to that aspect of art I spoke of at the outset, as the servant or slave of commerce and industry.
Until the revival of design and handicraft in this country during the last twenty-five or thirty years, decorative design, despite a few distinguished artists, such as Alfred Stevens, might certainly be described as the slave of commerce, and even now the revivers of design and handicraft are not altogether free from the danger of being devoured by commercial methods.
However, a protest has been made, the hand and the brain have asserted themselves; a new standard in the decorative arts has been set up, and since the time of William Morris and his group of pioneers, many English artists and craftsmen have shown that they have successfully revived and can do beautiful work in many forgotten crafts.
In founding the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society we desired to give opportunities of personal distinction for artistic work in design and craftsmanship, to put designers and craftsmen in the same position as other artists, such as painters and sculptors, before the public in this respect by giving the names of all responsible executants of a work. Here, again, trade interests and competitive commerce have been against us, although commerce has not been slow to imitate or adapt some of the ideas in taste and design discovered in our exhibitions.
However, the movement has spread all over the country, Arts and Crafts Societies and Exhibitions flourish everywhere, and the art schools of the country have been largely reorganized and craft classes established in connection with design. After many years' work some of us think that so remarkable a movement might attain something like national recognition, and its progress or permanence not be left to depend upon the efforts of a few hard-working artists, with ever-diminishing opportunities for exhibition, in the absence of a suitable building. Painting and sculpture, and in a lesser degree architecture, are officially recognized and housed rent free at Burlington House. Why should the decorative arts have nowhere to lay their heads?
After all, it is these arts, intimately connected as they are with a people's daily life and well-being, that may be said to be really of more immediate consequence than what are called the Fine Arts. Though, personally, I do not admit the justice of the distinction usually accepted between Fine and Decorative or Industrial Art.
Art is a language—of many dialects it may be, but its greatness must not be measured by inches, or the power or beauty of its thoughts and conceptions determined by the material or method of their expression. The spirit of art, imagination, romance, and the sense of beauty may inspire the smaller accessories of life as they may the larger. It is not a question of size or quantity, it is a question of quality.
As regards the art schools of the country, both state-aided and municipal, whatever their shortcomings, it is only fair to say that they have been from their establishment the only means, outside the efforts of individual artists, of maintaining a standard of artistic taste and accomplishment in decorative art, as distinct from the influences of trade and fashion.
It has often been made a reproach that they have not been in closer touch and association with the industries of the country, but schools of art and technology cannot be turned into factories with the sole object of supplying the immediate demands of ephemeral fashion—often trivial and vulgar. This would only end in the raising of a crop of narrow specialists, incapable of producing more than one sort of thing, to be exploited by commerce, and unemployed when the boom was over. The business of a school of art is to train capable designers and craftsmen, competent both to practise and to teach. The progress, both in taste and accomplishment, shown by the works exhibited every year in the national competition under the auspices, first of the old Science and Art Department and now of the Board of Education at South Kensington, is most remarkable and striking, especially to one who can look back twenty or thirty years. Yet we are still without a proper building in which to show these works, which are generally housed in temporary sheds in an out-of-the-way corner, and consequently attract little public attention.
Turning now to the more theoretical side of art, and regarding its general purport and social influence, it would appear as though every age—one might almost say each generation—demanded a different interpretation of life and nature, being inspired by different ideals; for the forms of art depend upon the aims and ideals in the mind of artists, who are but children of their age and reflect its thought and sentiment. Pictorial art being the most popular because more intimate, direct, and immediately concerned with the aspects of life, is perhaps more sensitive to such changes of thought and sentiment than other forms of art. This accounts in a great measure for the constantly-shifting point of view of the painter in dealing with the aspects of nature, for instance, if we compare the work of one age, or one school with another, or examine the differences of treatment by different individual artists.
Whereas religion, and the beauty and splendour of life have of old largely inspired painters, nowadays it seems as if the interest was centred upon the wonder and dramatic variety of the world, the aspects of life in different countries, vivid and instantaneous presentment, individual impressions, snap-shots of nature. No doubt the photograph has had a great influence both upon painters and the public. The public eye must be largely influenced by the photograph, but the photograph in the hands of some of its professors has lately taken to imitate the effects and methods of artists. So that it is turn and turn about.
The object of painting however is not illusion, otherwise, in the presence of the cinematograph and its marvellous living and moving transcripts from nature, as presented in the fascinating picture theatres, painting would have no chance, for even colour is sometimes given.
But, however wonderful, it is scientific mechanism and not art. The true province of painting is untouched, our national galleries have not lost their attraction, and are not old masters more valuable than ever? The very illusory powers of photography serve to define the true sphere of art, which is a product of the human mind as well as of the eye and hand.
There is another form of pictorial appeal which has, owing to the association of art with commercial enterprise, attained such vast proportions as to count as a popular education of the eye—for good or for evil. I mean the pictorial poster, which might be said to be the most original flourishing and vigorous type of popular art existing, and the only popular form of mural painting. Its too frequent banality and vulgarity are to be deplored, but to a great extent they are inseparable from the conditions of the existence of the poster; but undoubtedly there is a great amount of artistic ability employed in these designs, which often show, too, the great resources of modern colour-printing. It is part of the wastefulness of our system that so much skill, talent, and labour should be spent on such ephemeral purposes and placed in such incongruous positions and injurious juxtapositions, often appearing in the mass as a sort of sticking-plaster of varied colour upon the doleful face of a dingy street. The same ability under different influences and inspired by different ideals might serve to make eloquent the bare walls of our schools and public buildings with painted histories and legends of our country and race, which might foster the public spirit of our future citizens. Every town should have its history painted in its Town Hall—as Manchester has done in that wonderful series of mural pictures by Madox Brown. There might be competitions in schemes of decoration and mural design of this sort among the students of the local art schools. Is this an ideal?
Well, after all, the great thing is to have an ideal, an ideal, too, may be of enormous practical value, for it is capable of inspiring men to accomplish great works which they would never have touched without such a stimulus. Every great work, every great achievement in art, in social service—in all human effort, has been the result of an ideal in the mind, a vision, a lamp, a torch that has lighted the path that has enabled its bearer to clear away often apparently insuperable difficulties and attain the goal.
Nor is the possession of an ideal less necessary to a people—the nation collectively—than it is to the individual if real progress is to be made. From ideals in art we are led to ideals in life and to the greatest art of all—The art of Life. An ideal of national life which would give purpose and impetus and unity to all social efforts at amelioration, something beyond the strife of parties, personal jealousies, and parliamentary manœuvres. Such an ideal may be found in that growing conception of the new age we are entering of a true co-operative commonwealth, when the public good, being the main motive, all things that add to the beauty, health, dignity, and comfort of our cities, would be considered as of the first importance, and when, while our ancient history and monuments should be preserved, natural growth and expansion should not be impeded; a state wherein every citizen, every man and woman would find a useful and congenial sphere of work, and each and all would be prepared to do their part in the service of the community, secure of a place at life's table, when friendly emulation should take the place of cut-throat competition; when every mother and every child would be cared for, and there would be ample provision for old age. Labour being so organized that there would be neither overwork nor unemployment, while there remained abundant leisure for the cultivation of the arts and sciences and the pleasures of life—poverty being unknown, and disease conquered by knowledge and enforcement of the laws of health; death itself faced with calmness or fearlessly met at need in the service or defence of the community.