DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41193#0012
Lecture IL since the beginning of history, and, as I said, is
Art and the held to this day, whether from the force of habit
Beauty of or otherwise*
the Earth* N evertheless, so different is the position of art in
our daily lives from what it used to be that it
seems to me, (and I am not alone in my thought),
that the world is hesitating as to whether it shall
take art home to it or cast it out*
I feel that I am bound to explain what may seem
a very startling as it is assuredly a very serious
statement* I will do so in as few words as I can* I
do not know whether a sense of the great change
which has befallen the arts in modern times has
come home to most, or indeed to many, of you; a
change which has only culminated in quite recent
times within the lives of many of you present* It
may seem to you that there has been no break in
the chain of art, at all events since it began to
straggle out of the confusion & barbarism of the
early middle ages; you may think that there has
been gradual change in it, growth, improvement
(not always perhaps readily recognized at first,
that latter), but that all this has taken place with/
out violence or breakdown, & that the growth &
improvement are still going on*
And this seems a very reasonable view to take of
it, 8C is analogous beyond doubt to what has hap/
pened on other sides of human progress; nay, it
is on this ground that your pleasure in art is
founded, Sc your hopes for its future* That foun/
4
Art and the held to this day, whether from the force of habit
Beauty of or otherwise*
the Earth* N evertheless, so different is the position of art in
our daily lives from what it used to be that it
seems to me, (and I am not alone in my thought),
that the world is hesitating as to whether it shall
take art home to it or cast it out*
I feel that I am bound to explain what may seem
a very startling as it is assuredly a very serious
statement* I will do so in as few words as I can* I
do not know whether a sense of the great change
which has befallen the arts in modern times has
come home to most, or indeed to many, of you; a
change which has only culminated in quite recent
times within the lives of many of you present* It
may seem to you that there has been no break in
the chain of art, at all events since it began to
straggle out of the confusion & barbarism of the
early middle ages; you may think that there has
been gradual change in it, growth, improvement
(not always perhaps readily recognized at first,
that latter), but that all this has taken place with/
out violence or breakdown, & that the growth &
improvement are still going on*
And this seems a very reasonable view to take of
it, 8C is analogous beyond doubt to what has hap/
pened on other sides of human progress; nay, it
is on this ground that your pleasure in art is
founded, Sc your hopes for its future* That foun/
4