But if you want to know what kind of art the folly of
kings will impose on a country look at the decorative art of France
under the GRAND MONARQUE, under Louis the Fourteenth; the gaudy
gilt furniture writhing under a sense of its own horror and
ugliness, with a nymph smirking at every angle and a dragon
mouthing on every claw. Unreal and monstrous art this, and fit
only for such periwigged pomposities as the nobility of France at
that time, but not at all fit for you or me. We do not want the
rich to possess more beautiful things but the poor to create more
beautiful things; for ever man is poor who cannot create. Nor
shall the art which you and I need be merely a purple robe woven by
a slave and thrown over the whitened body of some leprous king to
adorn or to conceal the sin of his luxury, but rather shall it be
the noble and beautiful expression of a people's noble and
beautiful life. Art shall be again the most glorious of all the
chords through which the spirit of a great nation finds its noblest
utterance.
All around you, I said, lie the conditions for a great artistic
movement for every great art. Let us think of one of them; a
sculptor, for instance.
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