No More Learning

The many have come now. He is still the same. He's an
incomparable novelist.

With the decorative arts it is not different. The public clung with
really pathetic tenacity to what I believe were the direct traditions of
the Great Exhibition of international vulgarity, traditions that were so
appalling that the houses in which people lived were only fit for blind
people to live in. Beautiful things began to be made, beautiful colours
came from the dyer's hand, beautiful patterns from the artist's brain,
and the use of beautiful things and their value and importance were set
forth. The public were really very indignant. They lost their temper.
They said silly things. No one minded. No one was a whit the worse. No
one accepted the authority of public opinion. And now it is almost
impossible to enter any modern house without seeing some recognition of
good taste, some recognition of the value of lovely surroundings, some
sign of appreciation of beauty. In fact, people's houses are, as a rule,
quite charming nowadays. People have been to a very great extent
civilised.
It is only fair to state, however, that the extraordinary
success of the revolution in house-decoration and furniture and the like
has not really been due to the majority of the public developing a very
fine taste in such matters. It has been chiefly due to the fact that the
craftsmen of things so appreciated the pleasure of making what was
beautiful, and woke to such a vivid consciousness of the hideousness and
vulgarity of what the public had previously wanted, that they simply
starved the public out. It would be quite impossible at the present
moment to furnish a room as rooms were furnished a few years ago,
without going for everything to an auction of second-hand furniture from
some third-rate lodging-house. The things are no longer made. However
they may object to it, people must nowadays have something charming in
their surroundings. Fortunately for them, their assumption of authority
in these art-matters came to entire grief.

It is evident, then, that all authority in such things is bad. People
sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist
to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of
government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.
Authority over him and his art is ridiculous. It has been stated that
under despotisms artists have produced lovely work. This is not quite
so. Artists have visited despots, not as subjects to be tyrannised over,
but as wandering wonder-makers, as fascinating vagrant personalities, to
be entertained and charmed and suffered to be at peace, and allowed to
create. There is this to be said in favour of the despot, that he, being
an individual, may have culture, while the mob, being a monster, has
none. One who is an Emperor and King may stoop down to pick up a brush
for a painter, but when the democracy stoops down it is merely to throw
mud.