THE ART OF THE FEW
Art and Society. By Herbert Read. (Heinemann. ios. 6d.)
No full or historical understanding of the arts is possible without some comprehension of the relation which exists between the arts and the forms of society which produced them. Mr. Read is therefore in his new book tackling one of the fundamental questions connected with aesthetics, and on a theme of such importance his views must be judged only on the very highest standards. This is my reason for setting forth my doubts about a book which unquestionably contributes a great deal of extremely useful knowledge to the ditcussion of the nature of the arts.
: In the first part of the book Mr. Read deals with different forms of primitive art, and amply shows that this is a theme which can be treated on a purely scientific basis, and not made merely the excuse for an aesthetic excursion. My quarrel with Mr. Read only concerns the second part of the bOok, which deals roughly, with art since the Renaissance. Mr. Read gives a very clear analysis of the artist as.an individual, Who is a member of an intellectual elite, and is in permanent psychological opposition to society at large. The artist wishes to 'express himself; his feelings and his thoughts, whereas society in general_ wants _naturalism and a story. The artist, as a man who wants to express himscif,.wilL dePend more directly on the sub-conscious than other people ; he cannot be in any way dominated by his super-ego, or he will automatically cease to be an artist.
This is a perfectly coherent description of the artist ; blit it seems to be based on a knowledge of only one kind of artist. ' The point seems to come out in a passage in which Mr. Read, after giving his analysis of the artist, adds " We thus have set up a tension or opposition. between the' artist and society which is capable of explaining all the alternations of 'the history of art since the Middle Ages." With certain qualifications this is a perfectly true statement ; but the Auestion still remains : Does this hypothesis explain what took place at other times, in particular during the Middle Ages ? And in my opinion it does not do so. There seems to me to be very little evidence for thinking that the architects of the Gothic cathedrals felt this tension between themselves and society, or that they were conscious of their mission to express their personalities. On the contrary, they seem to have been far more like public servants, performing a practical function for the community at large. The same seems to have been true of the painters and sculptors. It was not till the Renaii- sance was far advanced that the legend of the artist as ail.- inspired and eccentric individual sprang up.
In the same way it seems possible that Freud's theory of the artist is based on the examples of the same types of artist • only. I cannot see that Mr. Read makes out a case for his view that art ceases to be art when it comes under the domin- nation of the super-ego. It could be suggested on the other side that art only becomes socially relevant when it is so dominated, and that though in many ways it springs from ' the sub-conscious, it cannot be usefully apprehensible unleSs it goes through some sort of rationalising process.
Mr. Read's' attitude to the artist goes with his view that the best art is always the art of an Chu His way of expressing this is to say that " The typical art of a period is the art Of-, the elite," and, es:where, that popular art "has never been of any great cultural or aesthetic significance." It is never quite clear on what standards Mr. Read is making this kind of judgement, no:, for that matter, exactly what is meant by popular art. Is Bruegel a popular artist ? Are the sculptures of the smaller mediaeval churches popular ? - And, if so, are these of no great cultural or aesthetic significance ?
The most important application of this aristocratic approach to . art is to the situation at the present time. Mr. Read is of the opinion that the only art really progressive at the- present time is Superrealism. This is certainly consistent. with his general view of the function of the arts, but is it not possible to apply to Superrealism the following passage front a section of Mr. Read's book headed, "The Art of the Elite" " The more closed and exclusive the group within which this pro: cess is taking place, the more refined and esoteric the product becomes until its decadent character can no longer be disguised. By that time the group itself is probably ready to disintegrate, and the art and its social foundations perish together, to be replaced by a new • elite springing from the general mass of the people, and bringing with it a crude but virile art—an art which will in its turn submit to the process of refinement " ? • This seems to be an almost complete account of what :is happening today in the arts, if we substitute some larger unit for " the new elite." What is curious is that Mr. Read refuse§ to recognise the new crude, virile art in the Socialist Realisin' which he so much dislikes.
In this new art the tension which Mr. Read believes to be essential to the relations of the artist with the public vanishes,':: and the artist becomes again the direct representative of 'diet aspirations of a large sectithi-of society, as he was in the Middle Ages, and as certain artists have been in more recent times; such, for instance, aS the great figures of -the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Florence and Rome, or later still mon. hike Hogarth, Daumier or Dalou. It would be possible to' give many more examples of artists who have not felt this tension, and even to argue that its existence happened mainly_ at moments when bourgeois society was in a crisis, so that far from being a good and healthy symptom, it was rather one of 'social decadence.
ArmioxY BLErbtri.:4
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