Allikas: B. Rea (ed.). Five on Revolutionary Art (Artists International Association, London, 1935), pp. 11-22.

Siinne allikas:Modernart and Modernism: A Critical Anthology. Ed. by. F.Franciscana and Ch.Harrison. Harper and Row, London, The Open University, 1986, pp.123-127

Herbert Read
What is Revolutionary Art? 

[. . .] Revolutionary art should be revolutionary. That surely is a simple statement from which we can begin the discussion. We can at once dismiss the feeble interpretation of such a statement as an injunction to paint pictures of red flags, hammers and sickles, factories and machines, or revolutionary subjects in general [. . .] But such a feeble interpretation does actually persist among Communists, and was in fact responsible for the failure of the first exhibition organised by the Artists' International.
We can best approach the question from the angle of an abstract art like architecture. [. . .] Architecture is a necessary art, and it is intimately bound up with the social reconstruction which must take place under a Communist regime. How do we, as Englishmen, conceive a Communist architecture? As a reversion to Tudor rusticity, or Georgian stateliness, or the bourgeois pomp of the neo-classical style? Surely none of these styles can for a moment be considered in relation to the city of the future. Must we not rather confidently look forward to a development of the new architecture of which Walter Gropius is the foremost exponent; of that architecture which, in his own words, 'bodies itself forth, not in stylistic imitation or ornamental frippery, but in those simple and sharply modelled designs in which every part merges naturally into the comprehensive volume of the whole'. Only in this manner, by following the path clearly indicated by Gropius in his work and writings, can we find 'a concrete expression of the life of our epoch'. [. . .]

Corresponding to the new architecture, to a large extent arising from the same fertile ground of the Bauhaus experiment founded and directed by Gropius, is the art generally known as 'abstract'. The name is admittedly a makeshift, and between an abstract artist like Mondrian or Ben Nicholson at one end of the scale, and an equally so-called 'abstract' artist like Miro or Henry Moore, there is only a remote connection. But for the moment these differences do not matter. Such names represent the modern school in painting and sculpture in its widest and most typical aspect, and these artists, I wish to claim, are the true revolutionary artists, whom every Communist should learn to respect and encourage.

Such an opinion will be met by a formidable opposition, precisely among Communists who are interested in art. Communist artists from Germany will tell you that they have 'been through all that'; that abstract art is dead, and that in any case it is incomprehensible to the proletariat and of no use to the revolutionary movement. Like the simple bourgeois of another generation, they ask for something they can understand, a 'realistic' art above all, something they can use as propaganda.
Actually, I believe that such artists are confessing their failure - as artists. The abstract movement in art is not dead, and not likely to be for many years to come. That it will gradually be transformed not only the dialectical conception of history,
but the slightest acquaintance with the history of art, compels us to admit. But how it will be transformed is more than we can tell. The facts we have to recognise are: that all the artists of any intellectual force belong to this movement; that this movement is contemporary and revolutionary; and that only the apparent independence and isolation of the abstract artist - his refusal to toe the line and become an emotional propagandist - only this fact hinders the Communist from accepting the abstract movement in art as the contemporary revolutionary movement in art.

To describe this attitude in the abstract artist as formalistic, as mere decorative dilettantism, not only betrays a lack of aesthetic sensibility, but an ignorance of the actual ideals and personalities of the artists themselves. Most of the artists in question are more or less openly in sympathy with the Communist movement. Why, then, do they adopt in all its integrity what is called the formalist attitude?
The question cannot be answered without a short digression on the nature of art. Any considerable work of art has two distinct elements: a formal element appealing to our sensibility for reasons which cannot be stated with any clarity, but which are certainly psychological in origin; and an arbitrary or accidental element of more complex appeal which is the outer clothing given to these underlying forms. It is at least arguable that the purely formal element in art does not change; that the same canons of harmony and proportion are present in primitive art, in Greek art, in Gothic art, in Renaissance art and in the art of the present day. 

Such forms, we may-say, are archetypal; due to the physical structure of the world and the psychological structure of man. And it is for this reason that the artist, with some show of reason, can take up an attitude of detachment. It is his sense of the importance of the archetypal which makes him relatively indifferent to the phenomenal. The recognition of such universal formal qualities in art is consistently materialistic. It no more contradicts the materialistic interpretation of the history of art than does a recognition of the relative permanency of the human form, or of the forms of crystals in geology. Certain factors in life are constant; but to that extent they are not a part of history. History is concerned with that part of life which is subject to change; and the Marxian dialectic is an interpretation of history, not a theory of the structure or morphology of life.

Another consideration which mitigates the objection to the formalistic attitude is that, granted the existence of permanent and unchanging elements in art, there is, admittedly, at various periods, a different valuation of such elements. In fact, what is the difference between classical and romantic epochs but a difference in the emphasis given to the formal basis of works of art? We cannot say that a romantic painter like Delacroix lacks form - or that a classical painter like Poussin has too much of it. If we could in any way measure the degree of form in these two artists we should probably find that it was equal. But in the classical artist the form is so important that the subject-matter is almost irrelevant; whilst in the romantic artist the subject-matter is so important that it completely overwhelms the form. It is merely, we might say, a difference of accent. But it is in precisely such a way that a reasonable Marxian would expect art to be inflected. We can, therefore, in any broad historical generalisations, dismiss the underlying formal structure of art, to concentrate on style and mannerism. For it is in style and mannerism that the prevailing ideology of a period is expressed.
If we admit so much, it follows that it is a mere illusion for the artist to imagine that he can for ever maintain an attitude of detachment. I can only see one logical exception - the artist who can so deprive his work of temporary and accidental qualities that what he achieves is in effect pure form. And significantly enough that is the claim of one extreme of the abstract movement, an extreme which includes some of the most talented artists now living. Having no sympathy with any existing ideology, they attempt to escape into a world without ideologies. They shut themselves within the Ivory Tower, and it is just possible that, for the time being (the very special time in which we live) their tactics may be of some advantage to the art of the future. Their position will become clearer as we proceed.                                           

Apart from such a desperate retreat, we have to admit that the artist cannot in any               
effective way avoid the economic conditions of his time; he cannot ignore them, for               
they will not ignore him. Reality, in one guise or another, forces the artist along a determined course, and if the artist does not realise this, it is only because he is in the middle of the stream, where the water is deep and the current strong.                               

As I have said elsewhere, this question of the relation of the individual to the collective society of which he is a member is the fundamental issue, in art as well as in politics. [. . .] Philosophically it is the issue between materialism and idealism. But               the relation between mind and reality, between the individual and the community, is               
not one of precedence; it is more one of action and reaction, a process of tacking against the wind. The current of reality is strong, and troubles the mind; but the mind embraces this contrary force, and is lifted higher, and carried farther, by the very opposition. And so with the individual and the community: complete freedom means inevitable decadence. The mind must feel an opposition - must be tamped with hard realities if it is to have any blasting power.

That by no means exhausts the problem of the relation of the individual to society. [...] Actually, I believe the real justification for intellectual freedom will be found on psychological grounds; the psychology of the individual is correlated dialectically with the psychology of the group, and for that reason the old conception of individuality will not serve for the new order of society.

Let us return to the actualities of modern art. Excluding the great mass of academic bourgeois art, and within the general category of revolutionary art, we have two distinct movements, both professing to be modern, both intentionally revolutionary.
The first of these has no very descriptive label, but it is essentially formalist, in the sense already mentioned. It is sometimes called abstract, sometimes non-figurative, sometimes constructivist, sometimes geometric. It is most typically represented by painters like Mondrian, Helion, Ben Nicholson, Moholy-Nagy; and by sculptors like Brancusi, Gabo and Barbara Hepworth.

The second movement has a distinctive name — Surrealisme or Superrealism, and is represented by painters like Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Miro, Tanguy, and by a sculptor like Arp.

The first movement is plastic, objective and ostensibly non-political.
The second group is literary (even in paint), subjective and actively Communist.
Those distinctions are obvious, on the surface. But I want to suggest that we cannot be satisfied with such superficial distinctions. We cannot accept the surrealistes at their own valuation, and welcome them as the only true revolutionary artists. 

Nevertheless, they are performing a very important revolutionary function, and it must be said on their behalf that they realise the importance of their function with far more clarity than the official Marxians, who have shown them no favour. For official Marxians, concentrating on their economic problems, do not see the relevance of the cultural problem, more particularly the artistic problem. The mind of the artist, they complacently assume, that too will, in Trotsky's phrase, limp after the reality they are creating.

But everywhere the greatest obstacle to the creation of this new social reality is the existence of the cultural heritage of the past - the religion, the philosophy, the literature and the art which makes up the whole complex ideology of the bourgeois mind. The logic of the facts - the economic facts: war, poverty amidst plenty, social injustice - that logic cannot be denied. But so long as the bourgeois mind has its bourgeois ideology, it will deny the facts; it will construct an elaborate rationalisation which effectively ignores them.

The superrealists, who possess very forceful expositors of their point of view -writers like Andre Breton - realise this very clearly, and the object of their movement is therefore to discredit the bourgeois ideology in art, to destroy the academic conception of art. Their whole tendency is negative and destructive. The particular method they adopt, in so far as they have a common method, consists in breaking down the barriers between the conscious reality of life and the unconscious reality of the dream-world - to so mingle fact and fancy that the normal concept of reality no longer has existence. It is a similar tendency which Carl Einstein found in the later work of Braque, and to some extent Braque may be considered as a surrealiste -Picasso too. Surrealistes like Ernst and Dali complete the disintegration of the academic concept of reality begun by Picasso and Braque.

We can see, therefore, the place of surrealisme in the revolutionary movement. What of this other kind of modern art - the art of pure form immured in its Ivory Tower?

That art too, I wish to contend, has its revolutionary function, and in the end it is the most important function of all. Superrealism is a negative art, as I have said, a destructive art; it follows that it has only a temporary role; it is the art of a transitional period. It may lead to a new romanticism, especially in literature, but that lies beyond its immediate function.

But abstract art has a positive function. It keeps inviolate, until such time as society 
will once more be ready to make use of them, the universal qualities of art -those elements which survive all changes and revolutions. It may be said that as such it is merely art in pickle -an activity divorced from reality, of no immediate interest to the revolutionary. But that, I maintain, is a very short view of the situation. And actually such art is not so much in pickle as might be supposed. For in one sphere, in architecture and to some extent in industrial arts, it is already in social action. There we find the essential link between the abstract movement in modern painting and the most advanced movement in modern architecture. It is not merely a similarity of form and intention, but an actual and intimate association of personalities.
This single link points the way to the art of the future - the art of the new classless society. It is impossible to predict all the forms of this art, and it will be many years
before it reaches its maturity. But you cannot build a new society - and you must build such a society, with bricks and mortar, steel and glass - you cannot build such a society without artists. The artists are waiting for their opportunity: abstract artists who are, in this time of transition, perfecting their formal sensibility, and who will be ready, when the time comes, to apply their talents to the great work of reconstruction. That is not a work for romanticists and literary sentimentalists. Communism is realist, scientific, essentially classical. But let us realise that we have romanticists in our midst - tender-minded idealists who would like to blur the precise outlines of our vision with democratic ideals of egalitarianism, Tolstoyan simplicity and naivety, community singing and boy-scoutism. Such people imagine that revolutionary art is a kind of folk-art, peasant pottery, madrigals and ballads. Surely that is not a conception of art worthy of the true Communist. We want something tougher, something more intellectual and 'difficult', something that we can without falsity and self-deception put beside the great epochs of an in the past.

REVOLUTIONARY ART IS CONSTRUCTIVE 
REVOLUTIONARY ART IS INTERNATIONAL 
REVOLUTIONARY ART IS REVOLUTIONARY