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Title: Art and the People Author: Elisée Reclus Date: 1904, 1927 Language: en Topics: art Source: http://raforum.info/reclus/spip.php?article371][raforum.info]], snapshot from [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160616163517/http://raforum.info/reclus/spip.php?article371. Notes: From: Ishill, Joseph. (1927). Élisée and Élie Reclus: In Memoriam. Compiled, ed. and printed by Joseph Ishill. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press. Translated from: “L’Art et le Peuple”, in Almanach de la révolution pour 1904. Paris: Temps nouveaux.
At the closing of the Salon, one of my friends, an amateur connoisseur
of beautiful things, came to me quite desolate. He had been ill and had
taken a journey away from Paris. Now he returned too late for the
Exhibition and so he lamented not having been able to see these
multitudes of marbles and paintings which special reviews kept him
conversant with.
The dear comrade may reassure himself. A walk upon forest-paths, on
fallen leaves, or one moment of repose upon the brink of a pure
fountain-if he can find one still fifteen or twenty leagues from the
boulevard-will console him for having missed his visit to the habitual
museum where there is shut up every year temporarily that which is
called the “belles arts”.
Certainly I do not want to decry the fine arts. In my childhood I have
always admired the wonders of the fairs, the beautiful rope-dancers, the
jugglers around whom whirled plates, the tricksters who broke watches
and changed them into bouquets of flowers. At the Salon I continue to
admire in all naivete like a very ninny. There also do I see the artist
prestidigitators who manipulate and mix colours with an incomparable
dexterity, who blend in a thousand ways lights and shadows in a hash
which is entirely unexpected and who succeed in making a stunning light
spring up from the darkest depths. All this seems to be very fine, or
rather surprising, and I applaud the virtuosi of the pencil in all
sincerity.
Nevertheless, I am not at all satisfied. Is it this indeed which is true
art? Do I find therein the consolation of sorrows, the respites from the
weariness of daily life and profound woes which accompany us for all our
lives ? Can all these paintings, sculptures, engraved or embroidered
objects make me forget the sordid misery outside and the presence of the
armed policeman who,-yonder, near the door, or in the room itself, can
crash his weapon upon a peaceful citizen and fracture his skull? No, all
this multi-coloured art that accumulates its incongruous products in
rooms lent by the State can only be a false and lying art, for it is not
the work of a free people.