‘WE OUGHT INDEED TO CHERISH THE ARTS’
Speech to the Royal Academy banquet, Burlington House, London, 30 April 1938
I am heartily glad to be called upon to discharge this task this year, because I think it is particularly a time when this great gathering should give its support in no perfunctory mood to the Royal Academy. I have noticed several things that have happened lately, and I propose to express my opinion about them with all that freedom which distinguishes artistic circles. Some eminent painters, among whom I have several friends, remind me of high-mettled palfreys prancing and pawing, sniffing, snorting, foaming, and occasionally kicking, and shying at every puddle they see. Of course, this is only a picture which arises in my imagination, but I think we ought to get Mr Munnings to execute it in reality one of these days. I assure him it would have a very good chance of being hung. It is very remarkable that, while our politicians get tamer and tamer – I mean, of course, in the best sense – our artists seem to get fiercer and fiercer. Some of them find a remedy for every difficulty in resignation. The slightest difference, not of morals, or doctrine, or policy, but merely a question of taste, is sufficient to make an eminent artist send in his cap and jacket.
We are very glad that the Prime Minister, amid his many anxieties, has found time and vitality to come here tonight. I was rather afraid, when I read some of these happenings to which I have referred, that he would have felt he would have to carry the policy of ‘Keep out’ into another sphere. I am sure of this – that he never would have been able to come here if the same intense standards prevailed at Downing Street as at Burlington House. Fancy what his life would be if, for instance, two or three of his leading Cabinet colleagues tendered their resignations because I presented some oratorical work at Westminster and he was alleged to have received it with inadequate appreciation.
On the whole I find myself on the side of the disciplinarians. Of course one may go too far, but no large organization can long continue without a strong element of authority and respect for authority. There must be in any really healthy, effective body – here, perhaps, I touch on delicate ground in the presence of so many ministers of the Crown – yet I will risk it – a sense of collective security. It is a broad question whether any measure of regimentation is compatible with art. In another country – which certainly shall be nameless – an artist would be sent to a concentration camp for putting too much green in his sky, or too much blue in his trees. Even more grievous penalties would be reserved for him if he should be suspected of preferring vermilion to madder brown. We should all agree that such rigour is excessive over here, but surely there is a happy medium which preserves order and regulates traffic without hampering wayfarers.
The arts are essential to any complete national life. The state owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them. The country possesses in the Royal Academy an institution of wealth and power for the purpose of encouraging the arts of painting and sculpture. It would be disastrous if the control of this machine fell into the hands of any particular school of artistic thought which, like a dog in a manger, would have little pleasure itself, but would exclude all others. The function of such an institution as the Royal Academy is to hold a middle course between tradition and innovation. Without tradition art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation it is a corpse. Innovation, of course, involves experiment. Experiments may or may not be fruitful. Certainly it is not the function of the Royal Academy to run wildly after novelty. There are many opportunities and many places for experimental artists to try their wings – and it is not until the results of their experiments have won a certain measure of acceptance from the general agreement of qualified judges that the Royal Academy can be expected to give them its countenance.
The Royal Academy in recent years has given evidence of its wish, its will, to proceed in the direction of embracing the novel. It has enlisted the services of more than one artist whose work runs counter to its normal predilections, but which at the same time has won the esteem of independent opinion in spite of the cleansing hydrants of criticism. Some of those artists then have been given ample opportunity of influencing the policy of the Royal Academy. We must ask, have they used their opportunity? May it not be said that some of them have seized upon comparatively small occasions to demonstrate their independence and squander their chance of guiding the artistic conscience of the nation into new paths?
I strike this somewhat serious note because of the indispensable service which the Royal Academy renders to British art. Never was it more needed than at present. Many facilities that existed for a long time are now lacking. The Grosvenor Gallery is finished; the Grafton Gallery and the New Gallery are closed; the New English Art Club struggles bravely on; but the Royal Academy is the one great supreme place that is left nowadays where anyone from dustman to duke – though I am not sure that either class is represented on these walls tonight – can send in what he likes, free, gratis and for nothing, and be assured that he has a broad tolerance and fair play. Here, then, is a strong, precious, and enduring aid which can be given to British painting and sculpture.
In this hard material age of brutal force we ought indeed to cherish the arts. The Prime Minister, who spoke with so much feeling and thought on this subject, has reminded us of the old saying that it is by art man gets nearest to the angels and farthest from the animals. Indeed it is a pregnant thought. Here you have a man with a brush and palette. With a dozen blobs of pigment he makes a certain pattern on one or two square yards of canvas, and something is created which carries its shining message of inspiration not only to all who are living with him on the world, but across hundreds of years to generations unborn. It lights the path and links the thought of one generation with another, and in the realm of price holds its own in intrinsic value with an ingot of gold. Evidently we are in the presence of a mystery which strikes down to the deepest foundations of human genius and of human glory. Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the reverence and delight which are their due.