DOI Artikel:
Brangwyn, Frank: Introduction
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41877#0035
INTRODUCTION
O catch-penny phrase of modern days has done more harm
to art than “ Art for Art’s sake.” What its inventor meant
no one knows and I doubt if he knew himself. But artists
have foolishly read into it a flattering interpretation which
makes of their work a meaningless abstraction. There is not,
and can never be, such a thing as “ Art for Art’s sake.”
There can be no art unless it be for the service of something other than
itself. When it seeks to serve itself alone it ceases to be art. And it is
because so many of the modern artists have failed to grasp the fundamentals
of their duty as artists that to-day art seems divorced from the common
life. At best it is regarded as a luxury to be enjoyed only by those with
ample means and leisure. At worst it is ignored. The only way in which
art can come to the worker is through the medium of his daily needs. But
does the manufacturer trouble himself about the design of the goods he
makes for the masses ? He rarely employs an artist, and he does not
try to produce for the people simple furniture, fittings and other domestic
necessities suited to the houses they live in and the lives they lead. Instead
he is content to make bad imitations of things originally designed for the
mansion but not for the cottage. The standard of Versailles can never be
the standard of the village. So the artisan does not come into touch with
the artist and both suffer.
But at long last there seems to be a change on the way. The Studio
Year Book shows what is happening. What was a luxury for the few
bids fair to become a necessity for the many, and instead of working only
for a small circle of patrons and connoisseurs the artist is being calledj
upon to satisfy the needs of a big and varied community.
Evidence of this can be found in public places like the theatres, where men
who have won reputation in the more limited field are receiving hearty
recognition from a host of new friends. Such artists as Bakst, Gordon Craig,
Dulac, Sheringham, Norman Wilkinson, etc., are known now to a vastly
greater public by their decorative or illustrative work than they could ever
have reached by their pictures alone.
Even more significant is the new trend in advertising. The hoarding of
to-day is becoming more and more the artists’ opportunity. But the artist
and the advertiser have not yet managed to understand each other sufficiently
to work in complete accord. The result is obvious in the majority of the
posters done by artists. Either they are aesthetically fine but fail to carry
out their main purpose of a definite advertisement of a particular product,
or they fail as works of art because the advertiser, riding rough-shod over
the designer, has imposed his own views upon him. The trouble to-day
is that the mentalities of artist and advertiser are antagonistic, and in the
majority of cases there is no sympathy or understanding between the two.
1
O catch-penny phrase of modern days has done more harm
to art than “ Art for Art’s sake.” What its inventor meant
no one knows and I doubt if he knew himself. But artists
have foolishly read into it a flattering interpretation which
makes of their work a meaningless abstraction. There is not,
and can never be, such a thing as “ Art for Art’s sake.”
There can be no art unless it be for the service of something other than
itself. When it seeks to serve itself alone it ceases to be art. And it is
because so many of the modern artists have failed to grasp the fundamentals
of their duty as artists that to-day art seems divorced from the common
life. At best it is regarded as a luxury to be enjoyed only by those with
ample means and leisure. At worst it is ignored. The only way in which
art can come to the worker is through the medium of his daily needs. But
does the manufacturer trouble himself about the design of the goods he
makes for the masses ? He rarely employs an artist, and he does not
try to produce for the people simple furniture, fittings and other domestic
necessities suited to the houses they live in and the lives they lead. Instead
he is content to make bad imitations of things originally designed for the
mansion but not for the cottage. The standard of Versailles can never be
the standard of the village. So the artisan does not come into touch with
the artist and both suffer.
But at long last there seems to be a change on the way. The Studio
Year Book shows what is happening. What was a luxury for the few
bids fair to become a necessity for the many, and instead of working only
for a small circle of patrons and connoisseurs the artist is being calledj
upon to satisfy the needs of a big and varied community.
Evidence of this can be found in public places like the theatres, where men
who have won reputation in the more limited field are receiving hearty
recognition from a host of new friends. Such artists as Bakst, Gordon Craig,
Dulac, Sheringham, Norman Wilkinson, etc., are known now to a vastly
greater public by their decorative or illustrative work than they could ever
have reached by their pictures alone.
Even more significant is the new trend in advertising. The hoarding of
to-day is becoming more and more the artists’ opportunity. But the artist
and the advertiser have not yet managed to understand each other sufficiently
to work in complete accord. The result is obvious in the majority of the
posters done by artists. Either they are aesthetically fine but fail to carry
out their main purpose of a definite advertisement of a particular product,
or they fail as works of art because the advertiser, riding rough-shod over
the designer, has imposed his own views upon him. The trouble to-day
is that the mentalities of artist and advertiser are antagonistic, and in the
majority of cases there is no sympathy or understanding between the two.
1