57 
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