ame a
painter or sculptor, merely because those were the most difficult
crafts. Now it is the gentleman with artistic faculty who becomes a
painter; the poor man, however much of that faculty he possesses,
remains a workman without any artistic prestige and without any
temptation to consider the quality of his work or to take any pleasure
in it. This is a commonplace, no doubt; but it remains a fact, however
often it may have been repeated, and a social fact with a constant evil
effect upon all the arts. Because the painter is supposed to be an
artist and nothing else and the craftsman a tradesman and nothing else,
we do not expect the virtues of the craftsman from the painter nor the
virtues of the artist from the craftsman. For us there is nothing but
mystery in the work of the artist and no mystery at all in the work of
the craftsman. The painter can be as silly as he likes, and we do not
laugh at him, if we are persons of culture, because his art is a sacred
mystery. But, as for the craftsman, there is nothing sacred about his
work. It is sold in a shop and made to be sold; and all we expect of it
is that it shall be in the fashion, which means that it shall be what
the commercial traveller thinks he can sell. There are, of course, a few
craftsman who are thought of as artists, and their work at once becomes
a sacred mystery, like pictures. They too have a right to be as silly as
they like; and some people will buy their work, however silly it may be,
as they would buy pictures--that is to say, for the good of their souls
and not because they like it.

How are we to get rid of this distinction we have made between the
artist and the tradesman? How are we to recover for the artist the
virtues of the craftsman and for the craftsman the virtues of the
artist? At present we get from neither what we really like. Art remains
to us a painful mystery; most of us would define it, if we were honest,
as that which human beings buy because they do not like it. While, as
for objects of use, they are bought mainly because they are sold; they
are forced upon us as a conjurer forces a card. We think we like them
while they remain the fashion; but soon they are like women's clothes of
two years ago, if they last long enough to be outmoded. It is vain for
us to reproach either the artist or the tradesman. The fault is in
ourselves; we have as a whole society yielded to the most subtle
temptation of Satan. We have lost the power of kn