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cst manner possible and in my modest way to throw a little light upon this curious,
troubling mental state of the majority of human beings.
I hope that a day will come when everyone will finally see this clearly, the
revolutionary day which will be the end of ninety-nine out of every hundred
professional artists, the day which I, a professional artist, shall welcome: the
so-called artistic production is so mediocre, the percentage of beauty so rare
among professionals that the average in the useful production of the artisan is
superior.
Among a hundred pictures are two beautiful? Among a hundred manufac
tured objects, thirty are beautiful and meet the demand of art, beauty and utility
at the same time.
As for myself, my choice is made, I salute and await the event.
The artisan will regain his place which he should always have kept, for he is
the true creator, he it is who daily, modestly, unconsciously, creates and invents
these handsome objects, these beautiful machines which make us live. His un
consciousness saves him. The immense majority of professional artists have
become hateful because of their pride and their self consciousness; they are a
blight.
It is always in decadent periods that is seen the hideous hypertrophy of the
individual among the false great artists. (The Renaissance).
Go to one of the exhibitions of machines, for the machine has its annual salons
quite in the manner of the artists, go to the automobile, the aviation show, the
Paris Fair, they are the most beautiful spectacles in the world. Look at our
street shows, “look well at labour,” every time you find the work of an artisan
it is good, every time that it is violated by a professional it is bad.
The manufacturers must never leave their own field and turn to professional
artists, only evil would result. They believe, these fine fellows, that above them
is a group of demi-gods who make admirable things much more beautiful than
theirs, who annually exhibit these immortal masterpieces in the National Salon
or elsewhere. They go there on opening days in frock coats and go into raptures
before these imbeciles who are not worthy to tie their shoe laces. If they could
strangle this stupid prejudice, if they could but realize that theirs are the most
beautiful annual exhibitions of plastic art, they would have confidence in the
admirable men who surround them, the artisans, and they would not go seeking
elsewhere the pretentious incapables who massacre their work. What conclusion
shall we draw from all this? That the artisan is everything, no indeed, beautiful
as their production is I do not wish to make a hierarchy in my turn and I know
that there are works of artists which are superior but they are rare. I know that
these men—few as they are—are capable of rising in their plastic concept to a
height which dominates this first plane of Beauty. These men must be able to
consider the work of the artisan and of nature as first material, must know how
to arrange it, to absorb it, to hold in perfect equilibrium the conscious and sub
conscious, the objective and subjective.
They must impose upon the world work so dazzling and so sure that it will
dominate the generations to come. Therefore a union between the artisan and
the true artist is much to be desired. To avoid immense waste they should live