ART AND HANDICRAFT
THE formation of guilds of workers in art, taken with other indications of a very decided movement towards a revival of handicraft and of design as associated with it, is one of the most notable signs of the times.
In the midst of the full tide of mechanical invention and unheard-of ingenuity in the adaptation of machinery, we come back to the hand, as the best piece of machinery after all.
It is a strange commentary upon that industrial commercial progress which has been the subject of so much congratulation. In the full swing of our commercial century, which has witnessed such a wonderful development of mechanical invention and application of steam power to every kind of process of production, involving the specialising of our workman, and his conversion very often into an appendage of the machine, we have discovered that we are losing our sense of beauty, our artistic feeling, and capacity for imaginative design; that our daily work is losing, or has lost, its interest and romance; that we are paying a heavy price for this lob-sided progress of ours in the loss of beauty without and happiness within; and that that very cheapening of commodities, which is often regarded as such a blessing, means the cheapening of human life and labour; and we are apt to forget that the cheapest necessity of life may be dear enough if one has not even the cheap symbol of exchange for it—the uttermost farthing,—and the portion of the human family, of our fellow-citizens in this condition appears to be continually on the increase.
So that the glittering palace of commercial prosperity and individual profit-at-other-people’s-expense casts a terrible shadow of ever-deepening blackness exactly proportional to the luxury, the waste, and the splendour within.
In the blackness of this shadow is involved the blight and desolation of many a fair tract of our green England, as well as the blight and desolation of the lives of her sons and daughters in the grime of overcrowded joyless cities.
And while at one end of the social scale we get the height of degradation which comes of the delegation of all manual labour to another class, with ultra-refinement and softness of living, and an aimless and restless life; at the other end we get depths of degradation which comes not of work but of hopeless toil, or enforced idleness; precarious and penurious living, and all the sordid and narrowing cares it entails,—like the mysterious flakes that Shelley describes in his “Triumph of Life,” falling and falling upon the heads of the throng until the brightness of youth is changed to a sour-visaged old age.
Here, in these two perhaps equally deplorable extremes, we have the white and the black upon our palette for a picture of modern life—a “Bridge of Life” I have not yet painted. These are the two negations. Between them there is a band or bridge of colour very various in hue, fading gradually into the white, or absorbed gradually into the blackness. Here is the artificial bridge of life we have built up with the rigid stones and bricks of an inhuman and unequal economic system, cemented by the lives and hopes of the mass of mankind, who are constrained to bear that bridge from dawn to sunset in order that a privileged few may pass over dry-shod—not unpursued, it is true, by their own Nemesis, if unvexed by the common cares that wear away the lives of those unregarded supporters of the present structure of society—the caryatides of toil turned to stone.
Well, this revival of handicraft, this claim of the workman to have some share of the joy of the artist in his work, instead of, like the blind tools and implements he uses, contributing to a result in which he has no acknowledged part or recognition,—this claim, I say, which is wrapped up in that revival of handicraft of which we see the signs around us, is, in some sort, a protest against the domination of our modern commercial and industrial system of production for profit—the profit of some intervening person other than the actual worker and maker—which has gradually superseded the ancient one of production for use, which has destroyed the old village industries, and is fast obliterating local varieties and characteristics of all kinds as regards the outward life of the people in all countries where our modern civilisation has obtained a footing.
Instead of things useful, each with their own constructive and organic beauty, or decoration arising out of these, being produced at the will and pleasure of the artist or craftsman, with a view to the actual requirements of particular people, things both of use and so-called ornament are now, with few exceptions, with our tremendous machinery, produced wholesale—as many as possible to one pattern—whether hats, or boots, or clothes, or houses, or food and furniture, or furniture for the mind’s unseen house—things intended to stimulate and delight it. Yet all these things, even matters, one would think, of pure art like books and pictures, instead of being the spontaneous outcome of a man’s best thoughts and skill, seem too often made by a species of guess-work, and apparently on the assumption that, being made for no one, or no place, in particular, they will do anywhere, or fit any one, or every one, but sometimes end in suiting no one.
Now in order to facilitate this process of wholesale production for profit (which ultimately depends for its success perhaps as much upon the adroitness of the salesman as upon the actual wants of the big public, at least beyond the bare necessities)—in order to facilitate wholesale production, it becomes an object that all labour that can be done by machine, after almost infinitesimal subdivision has taken place, shall be done by machine, until such workmen as are necessary to wait on the machine become parts of it, and independent craftsmen cease to exist.
There may be a great future for machinery in the real saving of labour—heavy and exhausting labour—the necessary heavy and useful work—lifting weights, pumping, excavating, and carrying us from place to place, and many other useful services—perhaps when communities are masters of their own soil and the materials of life; but at present it is only the cost of labour that is saved. It may be a gain to the owner and to a few individuals, but so long as machinery merely supplants men, and turns them adrift to swell the army of the unemployed, what is gain to individuals is a loss to the people at large.
If the production of the greatest saleable quantity for the greatest purchasing number, without regard to quality or durability, be the object, of course there can be little question that such a system as the present one is well adapted to attain it.
If mere reproduction of works on the same principle, even of works of art, is our object, rather than to encourage the development of the capacity for original invention, and the personal pleasure of fashioning, such a system is again well adapted to the end, as, for instance, in the case of printed books, newspapers, engravings, and all things where any form of press is employed. But for all our advancement and steam power as applied to the printing press, printing as an art has declined, however it may have flourished as a trade, especially as regards the form of type and its arrangement on the page, to say nothing of printers’ ornaments and illustrations from the point of view of their contributing to the unity and decorative effect.
Yet this matter of book and newspaper illustration is considered by many, perhaps most, to be our strongest point. Well, if we limit it strictly to the question of illustration pure and simple, and leave out the question of adaptability to conditions and decorative effect—the art and craft side, in fact—there can be no doubt that, fostered perhaps by the enormous and wonderful development of the photograph, there is an extraordinary display of clever work and graphic power of a kind scattered about among our books, newspapers, and magazines.
In fact, some of our most original and clever work is found in these things, and many of our most original painters first distinguished themselves as illustrators, and owe much of their character and charm as painters to the fact of their having been first craftsmen in black and white.
Yet in contemplating the amount of ability spent on works the very existence of which depends often upon the passing moment, it is impossible not to feel that there is an enormous waste in this direction, both literary and artistic.
It has been said that we grind our potential Shakespeares very small on the mill of the daily press; and in like manner, I suppose, our Michael Angelos may be squandered in magazines and Christmas numbers.
I believe it has been said that in our black and white illustrative work we find our “art of the people.” It may be the modern substitute for it, but I should describe it more as the art of a commercial democracy. It is produced by a special class for special classes, rather than for or by the people, strictly speaking; and, curiously enough, though addressed to a wide public, its existence depends upon its swift conversion into private property. You pay your money and you take your choice.
As art, it is after all questionable compensation for that art of the people which formerly existed in every village, every household, in close connection with every handicraft, however humble; when every carpenter, mason, blacksmith, weaver, or plasterer could give the touch of art to his work; when every gable, every street, had character and beauty of its own, and every church was the shrine of the most beautiful art of the time—common to all who had eyes to see.
What, after all, becomes of this mass of illustrating and printing, hastily conceived and hurriedly carried out—these flying leaves, hot from the press, daily, hourly, weekly, monthly, falling upon a comparatively apathetic public, needing stronger and stronger sensational effects and newer novelties? Their days, indeed, are as grass, for as soon as the breath of popular favour and interest passeth over them they are gone, and the place thereof knoweth them no more.
There being so little beauty and variety or romance in the lives of most of us, and since the mind and the senses must be fed in some way or another, we try to make books and pictures fill the void. The demand increases, and an organised system of supply springs up to meet it, so that our poetry and romance, our sense of art and beauty, is ministered to in the way of business, and made up in large or small parcels, to be had in pounds’ worths or penny-worths across the counter.
All this may be very admirable and convenient, but the most beautiful art is the natural outcome and expression of a rich, varied, heroic, and hopeful contemporary life, its character and beauty depending upon that life, and the unity of its sentiment, just as that of a tree or a flower depends upon the soil from which it springs. By our modern methods we are gradually impoverishing the soil while we are forcing the crops. We are obliterating the beauty of common life, at least in towns, while we are endeavouring to increase and stimulate the production of works of art.
That, surely, is a ruinous system—most uneconomical economics! We shall never make both ends meet.
It is well for those who have leisure and inclination to face the question—whither our post-haste production for profit, whether in art or craft, is carrying us? The world after all is limited in extent, and the ordinary fundamental wants of man are limited also. Sooner or later it may come within the bounds of possibility to calculate almost to a nicety the demands of the world-market. That market is already crowded with competitors, and at the present rate the salesmen, or at least the goods, are too many for the market—too much for the margin of profit ever growing narrower. The result is a glut, a waste, a loss, and incalculable suffering to the producers. Is it possible to contemplate the eternal existence of such a blindfold system? Is it not within the bounds of probability that, when the people—the workers—men and women, really come to their own again, and really govern their own, a system of labour will be organised on a very different basis from that of the present, and on a principle as near as possible to that expressed in the motto: “From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs”?
It is, at least, on such a belief, and a belief founded on the prospects of the inevitable ultimate break-down of the present system of production and exchange by its own failure to fit the conditions of life, that I base my best hopes both for art and humanity.
I have no wish to return to the fourteenth, or any other century, even if wishes were horses and could carry us back. The world moves slowly; the centuries do their work. I fully recognise that our present conditions are the result of a long chain of evolution, and we are still evolving. The peoples of the world are being drawn closer together, and the interdependence of nations brings such an ideal as I have indicated for the first time in history into the region of possibility. All questions lead us on to, and are absorbed in, one great question—the organisation of labour. When that is solved in the interest of the community, instead of for the profit of individuals, we may look forward to a time when, released from the pressing burden of the anxiety for the means of living, each one, while in his own community, taking his share of the necessary work, having leisure and opportunity, may devote his ability, such as lies in him, or as he may develop, to the practice of art or craftsmanship; the results of which would be, being followed for the pleasure of it, and in the pursuit of beauty or for the expression of thought, Art would be entirely unforced; growing naturally out of the use of the materials, and adaptability to the constructive position, directed by creative thought.
When the highest good becomes truly the good of the community and the service of man—the root and basis of all morality—when instead of grudging and partial acknowledgment it becomes the mainspring of action; and when, freed from narrowing and debasing superstitions, man’s place in nature is understood; when living a life which afforded equal opportunities to all, which, being more simple and natural, would favour the development of the artistic sense, is it possible to doubt that we should see great and beautiful public works and monuments, the result of combined and sympathetic labours, expressing not only the joy of individual artists and craftsmen in the beauty of their work, but the collective spirit of the community, whose guiding principles would be equality of condition and individual freedom, controlled only by considerations of the common good and the fraternal relationship of mankind?
Well, that is something, to my mind, worth looking forward to. It may be a mere outline, but details can be filled in as we complete the design. Whether its realisation be far or near, the important thing for every one, it appears to me, is to have an ideal of some kind. It is of the greatest practical value in life, continually stimulating us to fresh effort; producing wholesome discontent with existing conditions, and filling the mind with aspirations for something better, and the determination to work for it, however infinitesimally each may help to attain it.
We know what it is in our work to have an aim—what a difference it makes, if we are carving a piece of wood, or hammering a piece of metal, if we are seeking to express some particular beauty of line or surface, which all the while dwells in our mind; which we strive to satisfy, but which, whether we succeed or fail, continually leads us to higher and better efforts. It is our aim that makes all the difference in the conduct of art as of life.
It is this, too, which finally settles all questions of style or method, of high art or low, over and above the material we work in, which no artist or craftsman can afford to leave out of account. There is a saying attributed to Goethe, I believe, that the true power of an artist is shown when he works under limitations; and most true it is,—applicable to all art, but especially in association with handicraft, for the whole art of the craftsman lies in his power of working under conditions; and he shows his skill in applying design, and expressing it in different materials in such a way as best to bring out the peculiar beauty and adaptability of those materials, and the fitness of the design to them; by no means endeavouring to imitate in one material what can only properly be done in another, or joining in that aimless masquerade in which the arts lose their identity and character together.
In the midst of decay and dissolution there are signs of new life and movement—the awakening of spring among the dead boughs of winter, the budding of the new shoots from among the faded and fallen leaves. These efforts to revive the handicrafts, to unite the scattered and estranged members of the family of the arts, are full of good augury. Not that such movements alone can solve the questions on which I have touched, except, perhaps, for individuals here and there; but the effort to return to better ways in one direction is sure to lead us on to search out juster ways in another; and in our realisation of the unity of art we may discover the secret of the unity of life, if, indeed, the first is possible before the last.
In the meantime the formation of guilds of workers in art and handicraft must tend to foster the sense of fellowship, sympathy, and co-operation, from the loss of which art and artists have suffered so much. We shall discover by our trials and exercises in various handicrafts what real pleasure and interest can be associated with work; how impossible, indeed, is a healthy existence without interesting work of some kind; and even what is called the drudgery of it—those preparatory stages in work, with the ultimate end in view, become interesting, and fall into their place as a proper part and necessary means to the attainment of that end, and even, perhaps, not unwelcome incidents in the day’s work.
I feel sure we can afford to despise no manner of manual labour, skilled or unskilled. The simplest operation requires some kind of intelligence and adaptability. The stone-breaker on the road will tell you that you have to find out “where to hit them,”—not that any man ought to be condemned to stone-breaking all his life, however. The human frame is the most adaptable thing in nature (as well as in design); its beauty is owing to its adaptability, and depends for its freedom of movement and command of limb upon constant exercise. I see no beauty or desirability in the contemplation of a society divided into two parts—brains and hands—even were it possible, for neither can work well without the other. We must overthrow that false, false notion that work is degrading, and that it must be the object and mark of all superior persons to shift the burden of all manual and useful labour on to the shoulders of a class; that it is at all a creditable thing to be “of no occupation,” or that impossible being “an independent gentleman.”
Here is where we have gone wrong, and there will have to be some considerable changes in the ideals as well as in the realities of existing society before things can be got straight again.