Page:John Collings Squire - Socialism and Art (1907).pdf/4

 If we consider, however, how largely the question of Art enters into human life—into, indeed, it might almost be said, every sphere of human activity, in some form or another, since there is no labour which does not recognise the exercise of some kind of mental or manual skill, or both—we may reasonably come to regard Art, in its social bearing, and connected, as it is, with the crafts of common life, as a necessity.

Socialists, therefore, who desire to build up a larger and fuller human life, based upon collective ownership of the means of material existence in a co-operative commonwealth, cannot afford to leave Art out of account, as the great source of joy, the harmonising influence of beauty, the spirit of order and proportion, at once creative and adaptive, capable of lifting men’s thoughts on to the loftiest plane, and yet, withal, a sweet familiar and domestic spirit, cheering and comforting, and gladdening the eyes with form and colour, as it sheds its refining influence everywhere.

It is an open question whether a Socialistic society will be prepared to support artists as a class, but I am inclined to think that Art may and has suffered from professionalism. It may truly be said that it takes a lifetime to produce beautiful work in Art, yet, after all, an artist is, primarily, a man or a woman, and not a specialised function. The more understanding, the more sympathy an artist has in life and labour, surely the better for his art, and a general training as a useful citizen should at least precede specialisation in any branch of Art. With the enormously-increased leisure which would be at the command of any community under Socialism, when labour would be directed not for the increase of profits for the benefit of individual owners, but organised for the service and to supply the wants of the whole people, and supposing that a certain amount of ordinary useful work or service to be required of all able-bodied citizens, each would still have a large margin of spare time which might be spent in the pursuit of Art by any who developed talent and taste in that direction.

I think, too, that under Socialism the mass of productions of false art, which is foisted on the market for purely commercial reasons, would have but little chance of existence.