In the oldest, most primitive societies, art was
an essential element in everything that was made however
humble. Why does it assume the status of a conscious quest, a
luxury, as civilization develops? In every half-savage tribe in
Africa or Polynesia, every archaic city brought back to life by
excavations, even in every peasant community, however "backward,"
the most utilitarian objects —a crude vessel, ordinary
cloth—are striking for their harmonious form, the sureness of
their decorative taste. The beauty of these objects seems
inseparable from their function, and the artisan who produces them
does not distinguish between the two.
Today, by contrast, it requires an effort to
bring the two things together. The inexpensive article is merely
efficient; the addition of beauty or what is claimed to be beauty
increases the price, and transforms the article into a "de luxe"
object: beauty is an optional superfluity. We are presently
witnessing a reaction against this state of affairs, a reaction
aroused by the too- provocative conspicuousness of a distinction
that was formerly inconceivable. The curve of the lowliest ancient
bowl was just as flawless as that of the vase made of the most
precious metal.
As soon as the machine made its appearance on the
modern abstract scene, the object, fabricated according to an
engineering blueprint, and produced by machine-made tools, ceased
to be the product of sensibility, which animated the human hand.
Any aesthetic qualities it possesses are now only a veneer, added
deliberately. Under such circumstances art was inevitably reduced
to passive imitation of accepted models or the application of
formulas that have nothing in common with the irrepressible
spontaneity of former days. Today we have only a "quest" for
beauty; the term is revealing. And yet, as Picasso put it, beauty
is not to be "sought"—it can only be "found."
The social consequences of this are tremendous:
the traditional artisan, in whose work utilitarian fabrication was
indistinguishable from aesthetic creation, is being gradually
eliminated; he has become obsolete. His function is now divided
between the worker, who cannot go beyond the limits of his
machine—at best he is permitted to have some technical
skills—and the artist, who, freed from specific duties,
plunges ever more deeply into pure aesthetics, to the point of
eventually losing contact with society.
Significantly, this division began to be felt
during the Renaissance, when the "civilization of the book" was
born. But for some time the artisan and the artist shared in each
other's interests: the former continued to be concerned with art,
the latter to feel obliged to satisfy the social demand. With the
advent of the machine, however, the artisan's function was reduced
to that of a living mechanism; he became a worker, a proletarian.
As for the artist, he cut himself off from society in order to
pursue, for himself and for a small elite, ever more specialized
aesthetic exploraions.