time, broadly speaking, art was supposed to mean good
art; advertisement was supposed to mean inferior art.
The head of a black man, painted to advertise somebody’s
blacking, could be a rough symbol, like an inn sign.
The black man had only to be black enough.
An artist exhibiting the picture of a negro was expected
to know that a black man is not so black as he is painted.
He was expected to render a thousand tints of grey
and brown and violet: for there is no such thing
as a black man just as there is no such thing as a
white man. A fairly clear line separated advertisement
from art.
I should say the first effect of the triumph of the
capitalist (if we allow him to triumph) will be that
that line of demarcation will entirely disappear.
There will be no art that might not just as well be
advertisement. I do not necessarily mean that
there will be no good art; much of it might be, much
of it already is, very good art. You may put
it, if you please, in the form that there has been
a vast improvement in advertisements. Certainly
there would be nothing surprising if the head of a
negro advertising Somebody’s Blacking now adays
were finished with as careful and subtle colours as
one of the old and superstitious painters would have
wasted on the negro king who brought gifts to Christ.
But the improvement of advertisements is the degradation
of artists. It is their degradation for this
clear and vital reason: that the artist will work,
not only to please the rich, but only to increase their
riches; which is a considerable step lower.
After all, it was as a human being that a pope took
pleasure in a cartoon of Raphael or a prince took pleasure
in a statuette of Cellini. The prince paid for
the statuette; but he did not expect the statuette
to pay him. It is my impression that no cake
of soap can be found anywhere in the cartoons which
the Pope ordered of Raphael. And no one who knows
the small-minded cynicism of our plutocracy, its secrecy,
its gambling spirit, its contempt of conscience, can
doubt that the artist-advertiser will often be assisting
enterprises over which he will have no moral control,
and of which he could feel no moral approval.
He will be working to spread quack medicines, queer
investments; and will work for Marconi instead of
Medici. And to this base ingenuity he will have
to bend the proudest and purest of the virtues of the
intellect, the power to attract his brethren, and
the noble duty of praise. For that picture by
Millais is a very allegorical picture. It is
almost a prophecy of what uses are awaiting the beauty
of the child unborn. The praise will be of a
kind that may correctly be called soap; and the enterprises
of a kind that may truly be described as Bubbles.
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