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Art and the State
- University of Michigan Press
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Art and the State ,, _ _ _ ~hThe recently appointed Commission of Fine Arts, which is the new name for the Committee ofTaste for the nation, will doubtless adopt as a motto de gustibus non disputandum. They will be well advised to do so. Any discussion of their fitness for the task would be so likely to have unpleasant results for them. It is much better, they will doubtless consider, that they should simply lay down the law as to what the nation is to admire and approve. Some of the members of this august body have given us already proofs ofwhat we must expect. We may yet live to see a monument similar to the Nurse Cavell in every square in London, and every public building tricked out with the borrowed, and rather ill-borrowed, finery ofthe Victoria and Albert Museum, even ifwe should be spared the full splendours of Birmingham University, where reminiscences of half a dozen celebrated buildings of antiquity jostle one another in a bewildering confusion of periods and styles. It would be absurd to labour the point; to every one whose opinion has been formed by any serious attention to matters of art the Committee of Taste would be merely a bad joke were it not such a senous menace. It is a serious menace only because we, as a nation, do not really think that art matters. There are doubtless many excuses for this point of view. The mere existence of the Nurse Cavell monument is just the kind of excuse which people make for sparing themselves the trouble of making an effort to avoid its repetition. But for whatever reason, it is impossible to doubt that the nation is indifferent. We shall be told that it is only the highbrows that are indignant. Well, so be it. The dramatic critic of the Times, who dispenses such admirable sense while dexterously pretending that he is only talking the same kind of nonsense as a reputable journalist, has shown us recently the true meaning of"highbrow" by treating it as the From Transformations: Critical and Speculative Essays on Art (Chatta and Windus, 1926). Originally published in Nation. February 23, March 1 and 22, '924. Art and the State I95 opposite of "commercial." One may be thankful that it is not an English word. Only a people for whom the love ofmoney is the root ofall romance could have coined it as a term of abuse wherewith to overwhelm all who refuse to bow down and worship the golden image. The highbrows then are in revolt, and precisely because they recognise in the Committee of Taste the supreme symbol of the tyranny of the commercial artists and their great Trade Union, the Royal Academy. So unqualified a demonstration of the power of this group to impose themselves as representing the artistic effort ofthe nation may, after all, do good. It may bring to a head the whole question ofthe relation ofthe State to Art. The State has gradually drifted into its present position in relation to art without at anyone moment having occasion to pause and consider what it was about. It originally considered art as a private matter lying outside its sphere of action. Gradually it found itself saddled with some of the Royal collections of pictures, until little by little, and without being brought to the point of formulating a policy, it finds itself spending annually very large sums of money on the upkeep of museums, on the teaching of art, and the employment of artists in public works. However troublesome it is for the ordinary man, and perhaps even more so for the average politician, to have dealings with those odd and incalculable beings who call themselves artists, it has become by now a matter ofsheer common sense and good economy to consider first whether we need spend all this money on art, and, ifso, whether we are spending it wisely and getting full value for it. What is wanted is some clear understanding ofwhat the policy of the State with regard to art should be. It is a most difficult and intricate question, and has never been properly threshed out. I am far from being able to give an answer as to what that policy should be, nor do I believe any one is capable of doing so until all the relevant facts are elicited by inquiry into the workings of the existing administrative customs. I say customs since no definite and...