The Future of Sculpture
Mr. Eric Gill has not only attained eminence as a master of fine lettering, but his recent excursions into other realms of the sculptor’s art have shown very considerable distinction and accomplishment. It is not surprising, therefore, that his lecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum last week drew a crowded audience, anxious to learn his views not only about the position of sculpture in the present, but also in the future. In claiming that the artist was an instrument of the Creator, and his task the revelation, with greater poignancy, of the divine love for mankind, Mr. Gill demanded a loftiness of purpose which many would find it difficult to achieve or subscribe to. It was apparent, also, from a later remark — that “a
good artist was one who apprehended and submitted to the will of God for the work, just as a good man apprehended and submitted to the will of God for the deedˮ — that much of our modern sculpture would fail to pass the test of such a standard, although Mr. Gill asserted that the end of the work was the artist’s chief consideration, while the moralist wanted to consider the result of the work. We do not quite follow how these two things are to be reconciled. Modern art, claiming freedom to select whatever it will of life, frequently chooses for presentation an ugly or noisome aspect of it; and it is a little difficult to see how such choice is to be justified on the basis of religious inspiration which Mr. Gill enjoins with mediæval fervour. Indeed, he would seem to parallel the belief of the Gothic Revivalist that sculpture, like architecture, died when it ceased to be devoted to the service of religion. The Church, according to Mr. Gill, is no longer of paramount importance in human affairs. We may regard it as being down and out as far as we are concerned. It knows nothing of Art, and it buys what is to hand. Our real governors today were the men in commerce, and they buy in the nearest market. Banks and insurance companies decorate their buildings with Corinthian columns, and fat ladies over the doorways, supplied by contractor’s hacks. He welcomed the tendency of architects to eschew the collaboration of sculpture. It was better that they should not continue a pretence. There was no compatibility between a gang of more or less willing slaves to the building contractors. and men who value their work. Architecture has never been dependent on sculpture for its grandeur, so we may be optimistic about the divorce. In view of this pessimistic outlook, it is not surprising that Mr. Gill sees in the museum the immediate home of sculpture, “and you may consider the mantelshelf a private museum. ” The sculptor is now free, swept and garnished. No longer need he turn out carved stories for the sentimental cleric or seek to aggrandise the men of commerce. “He could turn his mind freely to interesting experiments” — and find in his art “the
delight of collaborating with God in creating. ” It is evident, then, that Mr. Gill is in revolt at things as they are; at production under factory conditions, so that one cannot say of any article that any man was responsible for making it; of the present organisation of industry that deprives all but a few artists of any responsibility. The one note of hope in his outlook was a prognostication that, in the far distant future, man would undoubtedly return to his love of Art. It is not an exhilarating picture. Coupled (at the unveiling of the new Tate Gallery mural paintings) with Mr. Bernard Shaw’s dictum — “that an artist could not afford to be a gentleman” — and Professor Tonk’s opinion — that “the proper place for the painter was the servants’ hallˮ — one may rub one’s eyes and wonder what has come over the fine arts. Have they reached their nadir?
If there is a reason for these things, it lies in the
fact that there are too many artists and their work is too expensive. The artist to-day would not, and possibly could not, afford to live on the pittance that the all-powerful mediæval Church enforced on its craft guildsmen. No longer do the powerful patrons of the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries exist to build palaces with fortunes wrung out of half-starved peasantries. There are no princes of the Renaissance with powers of life and death to keep artists in subjection for their favours; and, probably, they had no more real æsthetic interest in the work done for them than their successors of to-day, the multi-millionaires, have in the art collections that, on the word of an expert, they buy for a future rise in value. The artist to-day has to cater for democracy, and he has not proved adaptable to the altered circumstances. For the one customer who can expend £500 for exclusive possession of a work, there are a hundred who can only afford £5 for a reproduction, but the majority of artists refuse to consider the latter demand and disdain the modern methods and processes by which it can be satisfied. Moreover, democracy is easily bored. Our grandfathers bought pictures in pairs to balance on the wall, and endured them for a lifetime because they so rarely looked at them. Their grandchildren soon get tired of looking at pictures, especially when there are so many of them about; they have a difficulty in finding a picture that they really care to live with for any considerable length of time. And so pictures are rapidly disappearing from our homes; and our decorators turn to colour schemes which can be changed fairly frequently and with, comparatively, little expense. The modern decorator will, perhaps, admit one picture in a room, but only if it is keyed to tone with his general colour scheme. That is, no doubt, why flower paintings constitute the best selling line to-day at the Royal Academy. Even the most blase person rarely tires of. looking at flowers, or their painted presentiment. And this seems to raise the whole question of the status quo of the artist. Does he exist merely to please himself? If so, well and good; but he must not be surprised or chagrined if his experiments interest but few other people. If, however, he exists to serve his fellowmen, then it is incumbent upon him to study their desires and fulfil them, as he may do in many directions, without sacrificing either reasonable ideals or his self-respect.
Professional Societies
The Southend and District Society of
Architects
A general meeting of the Society will be held at the School of Arts and Crafts, Southend, on Wednesday, December 14, at 8 o’clock.
The annual dinner will take place on December 15 at the Queen’s Hotel, Westcliff, at 7 o’clock. Mr. Walter Tapper, A. R. A., President of the R. I. B. A., will be the principal guest, supported by the Mayor and Mayoress of Southend, the Mayor of Colchester, and Mr. A. E. Piper, Mayor of that borough in 1926.
Prior to the dinner a meeting of the Executives of the branch societies of Colchester, Chelmsford, Romford and Southend will be held to discuss the constitution of the new Essex Society of Architects and to elect the President and Council of that newlyformed body.
Liverpool Architectural Society
The date by which competitors must submit designs for the Honan Scholarship, 1928, has been extended to Monday, January 16, 1928. Attention is directed to an error in the plan accompanying the conditions of this competition. The dimensions across the site given as 120 feet should read 320 feet. The conditions of the programme otherwise apply.
Mr. Eric Gill has not only attained eminence as a master of fine lettering, but his recent excursions into other realms of the sculptor’s art have shown very considerable distinction and accomplishment. It is not surprising, therefore, that his lecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum last week drew a crowded audience, anxious to learn his views not only about the position of sculpture in the present, but also in the future. In claiming that the artist was an instrument of the Creator, and his task the revelation, with greater poignancy, of the divine love for mankind, Mr. Gill demanded a loftiness of purpose which many would find it difficult to achieve or subscribe to. It was apparent, also, from a later remark — that “a
good artist was one who apprehended and submitted to the will of God for the work, just as a good man apprehended and submitted to the will of God for the deedˮ — that much of our modern sculpture would fail to pass the test of such a standard, although Mr. Gill asserted that the end of the work was the artist’s chief consideration, while the moralist wanted to consider the result of the work. We do not quite follow how these two things are to be reconciled. Modern art, claiming freedom to select whatever it will of life, frequently chooses for presentation an ugly or noisome aspect of it; and it is a little difficult to see how such choice is to be justified on the basis of religious inspiration which Mr. Gill enjoins with mediæval fervour. Indeed, he would seem to parallel the belief of the Gothic Revivalist that sculpture, like architecture, died when it ceased to be devoted to the service of religion. The Church, according to Mr. Gill, is no longer of paramount importance in human affairs. We may regard it as being down and out as far as we are concerned. It knows nothing of Art, and it buys what is to hand. Our real governors today were the men in commerce, and they buy in the nearest market. Banks and insurance companies decorate their buildings with Corinthian columns, and fat ladies over the doorways, supplied by contractor’s hacks. He welcomed the tendency of architects to eschew the collaboration of sculpture. It was better that they should not continue a pretence. There was no compatibility between a gang of more or less willing slaves to the building contractors. and men who value their work. Architecture has never been dependent on sculpture for its grandeur, so we may be optimistic about the divorce. In view of this pessimistic outlook, it is not surprising that Mr. Gill sees in the museum the immediate home of sculpture, “and you may consider the mantelshelf a private museum. ” The sculptor is now free, swept and garnished. No longer need he turn out carved stories for the sentimental cleric or seek to aggrandise the men of commerce. “He could turn his mind freely to interesting experiments” — and find in his art “the
delight of collaborating with God in creating. ” It is evident, then, that Mr. Gill is in revolt at things as they are; at production under factory conditions, so that one cannot say of any article that any man was responsible for making it; of the present organisation of industry that deprives all but a few artists of any responsibility. The one note of hope in his outlook was a prognostication that, in the far distant future, man would undoubtedly return to his love of Art. It is not an exhilarating picture. Coupled (at the unveiling of the new Tate Gallery mural paintings) with Mr. Bernard Shaw’s dictum — “that an artist could not afford to be a gentleman” — and Professor Tonk’s opinion — that “the proper place for the painter was the servants’ hallˮ — one may rub one’s eyes and wonder what has come over the fine arts. Have they reached their nadir?
If there is a reason for these things, it lies in the
fact that there are too many artists and their work is too expensive. The artist to-day would not, and possibly could not, afford to live on the pittance that the all-powerful mediæval Church enforced on its craft guildsmen. No longer do the powerful patrons of the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries exist to build palaces with fortunes wrung out of half-starved peasantries. There are no princes of the Renaissance with powers of life and death to keep artists in subjection for their favours; and, probably, they had no more real æsthetic interest in the work done for them than their successors of to-day, the multi-millionaires, have in the art collections that, on the word of an expert, they buy for a future rise in value. The artist to-day has to cater for democracy, and he has not proved adaptable to the altered circumstances. For the one customer who can expend £500 for exclusive possession of a work, there are a hundred who can only afford £5 for a reproduction, but the majority of artists refuse to consider the latter demand and disdain the modern methods and processes by which it can be satisfied. Moreover, democracy is easily bored. Our grandfathers bought pictures in pairs to balance on the wall, and endured them for a lifetime because they so rarely looked at them. Their grandchildren soon get tired of looking at pictures, especially when there are so many of them about; they have a difficulty in finding a picture that they really care to live with for any considerable length of time. And so pictures are rapidly disappearing from our homes; and our decorators turn to colour schemes which can be changed fairly frequently and with, comparatively, little expense. The modern decorator will, perhaps, admit one picture in a room, but only if it is keyed to tone with his general colour scheme. That is, no doubt, why flower paintings constitute the best selling line to-day at the Royal Academy. Even the most blase person rarely tires of. looking at flowers, or their painted presentiment. And this seems to raise the whole question of the status quo of the artist. Does he exist merely to please himself? If so, well and good; but he must not be surprised or chagrined if his experiments interest but few other people. If, however, he exists to serve his fellowmen, then it is incumbent upon him to study their desires and fulfil them, as he may do in many directions, without sacrificing either reasonable ideals or his self-respect.
Professional Societies
The Southend and District Society of
Architects
A general meeting of the Society will be held at the School of Arts and Crafts, Southend, on Wednesday, December 14, at 8 o’clock.
The annual dinner will take place on December 15 at the Queen’s Hotel, Westcliff, at 7 o’clock. Mr. Walter Tapper, A. R. A., President of the R. I. B. A., will be the principal guest, supported by the Mayor and Mayoress of Southend, the Mayor of Colchester, and Mr. A. E. Piper, Mayor of that borough in 1926.
Prior to the dinner a meeting of the Executives of the branch societies of Colchester, Chelmsford, Romford and Southend will be held to discuss the constitution of the new Essex Society of Architects and to elect the President and Council of that newlyformed body.
Liverpool Architectural Society
The date by which competitors must submit designs for the Honan Scholarship, 1928, has been extended to Monday, January 16, 1928. Attention is directed to an error in the plan accompanying the conditions of this competition. The dimensions across the site given as 120 feet should read 320 feet. The conditions of the programme otherwise apply.