A fairly clear line separated advertisement from art.
The First Effect
I should say the first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we
allow him to triumph) will be that that line of demarcation will entirely
disappear. There will be no art that might not just as well be
advertisement. I do not necessarily mean that there will be no good art;
much of it might be, much of it already is, very good art. You may put it,
if you please, in the form that there has been a vast improvement in
advertisements. Certainly there would be nothing surprising if the head
of a negro advertising Somebody's Blacking now adays were finished with as
careful and subtle colours as one of the old and superstitious painters
would have wasted on the negro king who brought gifts to Christ. But the
improvement of advertisements is the degradation of artists. It is their
degradation for this clear and vital reason: that the artist will work,
not only to please the rich, but only to increase their riches; which is a
considerable step lower. After all, it was as a human being that a pope
took pleasure in a cartoon of Raphael or a prince took pleasure in a
statuette of Cellini. The prince paid for the statuette; but he did not
expect the statuette to pay him. It is my impression that no cake of soap
can be found anywhere in the cartoons which the Pope ordered of Raphael.
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