Book Description

Excerpt from The Importance of Art in War-Time: Being a Few Notes for an Address Given at the Watford Labour Church, March 11th, 1917 When our good friend, Fred Gorle, suggested to me that I should give an address here one Sunday, he replied to my enquiry as to choice of subject, Anything you like, and in a spirit of ribaldry I answered, How about The Importance of Art in War-time? I had spoken lightly, with - a chuckle of frivolous cynicism - for to consider seriously the activities of artists, writers, thinkers, in the midst of this mad orgy of slaughter, seemed, on the face of it, merely to recognise a futile waste of energies which might well be devoted to more immediately practical purposes. I say advisedly, on the face of it, for, like most issues which we hurriedly assess at their face values - this surface view is a very shallow and insufficient one - and, when once I began to analyse and consider what was comprehended in that loose phrase, more immediately practical purposes, a sudden doubt awoke in my mind as to whether The Importance of Art in War-time did not assuredly contribute very largely to it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.