Unity of sentiment—the inspiration of a great ideal, this it was which enabled the artists and craftsmen of past great periods in art to work in harmony on great public monuments, but without losing their character or individuality, as the different parts of the work might be full of invention and variety, and yet conduce to a harmonious whole, as in a Gothic cathedral.
Mr. Halsey Ricardo, in an interesting address recently given to the Architectural Association of London, aptly described the architecture of Ancient Egypt as "priest's architecture"; that of Ancient Assyria as "the architecture of kings"; the architecture of Greece he considered as "sculptor's architecture," and that of the revived classicism of the Renascence as "the architecture of scholars." Well, these have all had their day. The turn of the people must come, and in the architecture of the future, under the inspiration of the great Socialist Ideal we may realize what may be described as the architecture of humanity.
And, looking to the probable requirements of a co-operative commonwealth, this hope seems to be well founded in view of the likelihood of the construction of collective dwellings (already projected in the garden city) of noble public halls and schools.
The unifying effect of a great Ideal, a Hope, a Faith, is obviously wanting generally in modern architecture, wherein the influence most paramount is too often the limits of the builders' contract.
The golden image (which yet is never, like Nebuchadnezzar's, actually "set up") is the real god bowed down to, whosesoever the image and superscription over the porchway, and so modern art is everywhere tied to the purse strings.
But the money-bag makes a poor device for an escutcheon, and is still less effective as an inspirer in art. The standard of the man in possession is "market value," and art under capitalism has become mostly a kind of personal and often portable property, and as much a matter for speculative investment as stocks and shares.
As money cannot write history or ancestry, every portable bit of antiquity is now in danger of being bought up by dealers for the use of millionaires, and we shall soon have no visible history but in our museums.
But, above the din of the market and the confusion of political tongues, a clarion call is heard, and through the darkness breaks a new dawn.
The Socialist Ideal comes, scattering the clouds of pessimism and decadence which have lain heavily on the spirit of modern art.