useless when brought face to face with
a machine. And the man who can handle the machine will only be
concerned with quantity and utility in the first instance. Only
gradually do the claims of beauty come to be recognized. Compare the
modern motor car with the first of its species, or even, since the
same law seems to operate in nature, the prehistoric animal with its
modern descendant. The same relation exists between them as between
man and the ape, or the horse and the hipparion. The movement of life
seems to be towards ever greater delicacy and complexity, and man
carries it forward in the articles that he makes and the society that
he develops. Industry is a new tool, difficult to handle, but it will
produce just as beautiful objects as did the mediaeval builder and
craftsman, though not until it has been in being for a long time and
belongs to tradition.

One may expect, therefore, that while the crafts in Russia will lose
in artistic value, the drama, sculpture and painting and all those
arts which have nothing to do with the machine and depend entirely
upon mental and spiritual inspiration will receive an impetus from the
Communist faith. Whether the flowering period will be long or short
depends partly on the political situation, but chiefly on the rapidity
of industrial development. It may be that the machine will ultimately
conquer the Communist faith and grind out the human impulses, and
Russia become during this transition period as inartistic and soulless
as was America until quite recent years. One would like to hope that
mechanical progress will be swift and social idealism sufficiently
strong to retain control. But the practical difficulties are almost
insuperable.

Such signs of the progress of art as it is possible to notice at this
early stage would seem to bear out the above argument. For instance,
an attempt is being made to foster the continuation of peasant
embroidery, carving, &c., in the towns. It is done by people who have
evidently lost the tradition already. They are taught to copy the
models which are placed in the Peasant Museum, but there is no
comparison between the live little wooden lady who smiles beneath the
glass case, and the soulless staring-eyed creature who is offered for
sale, nor between the quite ordinary carved fowl one may buy and the
amusing life-like figure one may merely gaze at.

But when one comes to art directly inspired by Communism it is a
different story. Apar