Will Bradley
SIR, May I be allowed to say a word in supplement to your paragraph about my opinions on the future of the fine arts? You rather imply that I am a pessimist on this matter. This is not the case; but I am anxious that there should be no illusions as to the future of art. A man in his short life can see but a little way ahead, and even in mine, wonderful and unexpected things have come to pass. I must say that therein lies my hope, rather than in all I see going on round about us. Without disputing that, if the imaginative arts perish, some new thing, at present unguessed of, may be put forward to supply their loss in men’s lives. I cannot feel happy in that prospect, nor can I believe that mankind will endure such a loss forever: but in the meantime the present state of the arts and their dealings with modern life and progress seem to me to point, in appearance at least, to this immediate future; that the world will one day wipe the slate, and be clean rid in her impatience of the whole matter with all this tangle and trouble. But there are some of us who cannot turn their faces to the wall, or sit heedless because hope seems somewhat dim, and, indeed, I think that while the signs of the last decay of the old art with all the evils that must follow in its train are only too obvious about us, so on the other hand there are not wanting signs of the new dawn beyond that possible night of the arts; this sign chiefly, that there are some few at least, who are heartily discontented with things as they are, and crave for something better, or at least some promise of it. People say to me often enough: if you want to make your art succeed and flourish, you must make it the fashion, a phrase which, I confess, annoys me; for they mean by it that I should spend one day over my work to two days in trying to convince rich and supposed influential people that they care very much for what they really do not care in the least. Well, such advisers are right if they are content with the thing lasting a little while; say till you can make a little money – if you don’t get pinched by the door shutting too quickly. Otherwise they are wrong: the people they are thinking of can turn their backs too easily on a thing that fails for it to be safe work trusting to their whims. Is money to be gathered? Cut down the pleasant trees among the houses, pull down ancient and venerable buildings for the money that a few square yards of London dirt will fetch; blacken rivers, hide the sun and poison the air with smoke and worse, and it’s nobody’s business to see to it or mend it; that is all that modern commerce, the counting-house forgetful of the workshop will do for us herein. The only real help for the arts must come from those who work in them; nor must they be led, they must lead. And Science – we have loved her well, and followed her diligently, what will she do? I fear she is so much in the pay of the counting-house, the counting-house and the drill-sergeant, that she is too busy and will for the present do nothing. Yet there are matters which I should have thought easy for her; say, for example teaching Manchester how to consume its own smoke, or Leeds how to get rid of its superfluous black dye without turning it into the river, which would be as much worth her attention as the production of the biggest of useless guns. Anyhow, however it will be done, unless people care about carrying on their business without making the world hideous, how can they care about Art? Unless something or other is done to give all men some pleasure for the eyes and rest for the mind, until the contrast is less disgraceful between the field where beasts live and the streets where men live, I suppose that the practice of the arts must be kept mainly in the hands of a few, who can shut out from their view the everyday squalor that the most of men move in. I believe that art has so much sympathy with cheerful freedom, open-heartedness and reality, so much she sickens under selfishness and luxury, that she will not live thus isolated and exclusive. I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few. Rather than this, I would that the world should indeed sweep away all art for awhile; rather than the wheat should rot in the miser’s granary, I would that the earth had it, that it might yet have a chance to quicken in the dark. I have a sort of faith, though, that this clearing away of all art will not happen, that men will get wiser, as well as more learned. I hope that we shall have leisure from war – war commercial, as well as war of the bullet and the bayonet; leisure above all from the greed of money, and the craving for that overwhelming distinction that money now brings; I believe that as we have even now partly achieved liberty, so we shall one day achieve equality, which, and which only, means fraternity; no one bidden to be any man’s servant, everyone scorning to be any man’s master. It is a dream, you may say, of what has never been and never will be; true, it has never been, and therefore, since the world is alive, and moving yet, my hope is greater that it one day will be: true it is a dream; but dreams have before now come about of things so good and necessary to us, that we scarcely think of them more than of the daylight, though people once had to live without them, without even the hope of them. Anyhow, dream as it is, I pray you to pardon my setting it before you, for it lies at the bottom of all my work in the Arts, nor will it ever be out of my thoughts: and I am here with you tonight to ask you to help me in realising this dream, this hope. (extracted and adapted from William Morris, The Decorative Arts, 1878) Will Bradley Glasgow |
