retext, for _doing art_ on the side of the
artist, for buying costly things on the side of the public. And behind
this pretext there is absolutely no genuine demand for any definite
object serving any definite use; none of that insistence (which we see
in the past) that the shape, material, and colour should be the very
best for practical purposes; and of that other insistence,
marvellously blended with the requirements of utility, that the shape,
material and colour should also be as beautiful as possible. The
invaluable suggestions of real practical purpose, the organic dignity
of integrated habit and necessity, the safety of tradition, the
spiritual weightiness of genuine message, all these elements of
creative power are lacking. And in default of them we see a great
amount of artistic talent, artificially fed and excited by the
teaching and the example of every possible past or present art,
exhausting itself in attempts to invent, to express, to be something,
anything, so long as it is new. Hence forms gratuitous, without
organic quality or logical cogency, pulled about, altered and
re-altered, carried to senseless finish and then wilfully blurred.
Hence that sickly imitation, in a brand-new piece of work, of the
effects of time, weather, and of every manner of accident or
deterioration: the pottery and enamels reproducing the mere patina of
age or the trickles of bad firing; the relief work in marble or metal
which looks as if it had been rolled for centuries in the sea, or
corroded by acids under ground. And the total effect, increased by all
these methods of wilful blunting and blurring, is an art without
stamina, tired, impotent, short-lived, while produced by an excessive
expense of talent and effort of invention.

For here we have the mischief: all the artistic force is spent by the
art in merely keeping alive; and there is no reserve energy for living
with serenity and depth of feeling. The artist wears himself out, to a
great extent, in wondering what he shall do (there being no practical
reason for doing one thing more than another, or indeed anything at
all), instead of applying his power, with steady, habitual certainty
of purpose and efficiency of execution, to doing it in the very best
way. Hence, despite this outlay of inventive force, or rather in
direct consequence thereof, there is none of that completeness and
measure and congruity, that restrained exuberance of fancy, that more
than adequate carr