Page:John Collings Squire - Socialism and Art (1907).pdf/18

 to me to be no valid reason why he should not spend three or four hours a day in some socially necessary labour, mental or physical—always giving him a choice of occupation, of course. Our error at present is not in forcing artists to take up other work in order to earn their living, but in giving them so much of this other work, or such distasteful work, that their energies are sapped and their thought deadened.

And as, for the community at large, it seems as clear as daylight to me that better material conditions and a freer life will bring out again all those instincts which in many men are suppressed under Capitalism. Art will give pleasure to work and beauty to the world. And beauty breeds like every other living thing—except the upper classes. The more beautiful the world becomes, the more men's efforts will be centred on making it beautiful. On what lines these efforts will run it were a little rash to attempt to forecast. Men will attempt to abolish ugliness wherever possible; ugliness in social conditions of all sorts, in their dwellings, in their clothes, in their habits, in every single article they use. One can scarcely agree with Ruskin that the destruction of all machinery is desirable. But still, it is highly probable that in a communist society men, as regards certain articles of every-day use, would rather go without machinery, and do a little more work, in order to get the beauty that only handicraft can give. Many ugly things, too, that we see around us to-day would disappear of their own accord, because they are only in existence to satisfy an artificial need created by the capitalists in order to find an investment for a portion of their surplus capital. But, indeed, one cannot draw the line between the man who removes ugliness of any description and the man who is consciously serving Art. If we feed a hungry child, we arc in a certain sense helping the cause of Art. If we pull down a filthy cottage and erect something habitable in its place, we are doing so no less. The ancient identities between Beauty and Good, and between Ugliness and Evil are as true now as ever they were. Every man who is working for human happiness is, whether he knows it or not, following in the footsteps of the great artists of the past and clearing the road for the great artists of the future.