The Broken Lily
By Rodin
Bourdelle laughed. “You are blinded by love of your profession.”
“Not at all, for my opinion rests on very sound reasons, which I will tell you. But first have some of this wine which the patron recommends. It will put you in a better frame of mind to listen to me.” When he had poured it out for us, he resumed: “To begin with—have you reflected that in modern society artists, I mean true artists, are about the only men who take any pleasure in their work?”
“It is certain that work is all our joy, all our life,” Bourdelle cried, “but that does not mean that—”
“Wait! It seems to me that what is most lacking in our contemporaries is love of their profession. They only accomplish their tasks grudgingly. They would willingly strike. It is so from the top to the bottom of the social ladder. The politician sees in his office only the material advantages which he can gain from it, and he does not seem to know the pride which the old statesmen felt in the skilful direction of the affairs of their country.
“The manufacturer, instead of upholding the honor of his brand, strives only to make as much money as he can by adulterating his products. The workman, feeling a more or less legitimate hostility for his employer, slights his work. Almost all the men of our day seem to regard work as a frightful necessity, as a cursed drudgery, while it ought to be considered as our happiness and our excuse for living.
“You must not think that it has always been so. Most of the objects which remain to us from the old days, furniture, utensils, stuffs, show a great conscientiousness in those who made them.
“Man likes to work well, quite as much as to work badly. I even believe that it is more agreeable to him, more natural to him, that he prefers to work well. But he listens sometimes to good, sometimes to bad advice, and gives preference to the bad.
“And yet, how much happier humanity would be if work, instead of a means to existence, were its end! But, in order that this marvellous change may come about, all mankind must follow the example of the artist, or, better yet, become artists themselves; for the word artist, in its widest acceptation, means to me the man who takes pleasure in what he does. So it would be desirable were there artists in all trades—artist carpenters, happy in skilfully raising beam and mortice—artist masons, spreading the plaster with pleasure—artist carters, proud of caring for their horses and of not running over those in the street. Is it not true that that would constitute an admirable society?
“You see, then, that artists set an example to the rest of the world which might be marvellously fruitful.”