56 
House & Garden 
HOARDING AND USING 
The Museum Habit As Practised in Private Life Has a 
Devastating Effect Upon Contemporary Art and Artists 
T HE perishableness of things, the frail transience of material 
beauty—these have been among the poets’ favorite themes. 
But changing circumstances can change even a well-estab¬ 
lished commonplace of literature. In a few generations—who 
knows?—the poets may be complaining not of the perishableness 
of material things but of their stubborn and malignant indestruc¬ 
tibility. For, desolated bv the carelessness of our ancestors 
(ruthless, reckless fellows, who never thought twice about destroy¬ 
ing a monument or a document) we now take enormous pains to 
preserve whatever we can. 
Huge museums and libraries all over the world are seeing to 
it that nothing of value shall be destroyed. Hordes of private 
collectors spend all their time and money in putting objects out 
of reach of the natural forces of decay. There is a vast conspiracy 
in the world to-day to prolong the life of mere things. 
Those who come after us will find it completely impossible to 
write the history of this generation, for the good reason that they 
will have infinitely too many documents. 
I N PAST ages accident and the caprice or carelessness of human 
beings saw to it that remarkably few documents survived. They 
sifted, they selected—far more thoroughly and satisfactorily than 
any historian could do—with the result that we can write history, 
we can concoct our splendid theories of progress and decadence, 
on the basis of two manuscripts and a couple of broken statues: 
theories which could never fit the facts, if, by some deplorable 
chance, all the documents of any period had survived. 
Our own methodical carefulness will leave the historians of the 
future no chance. 
But our business in House & Garden is not with the 
historians of the future so much as with the artists and 
craftsmen of the present. It is because it affects these con¬ 
temporaries—not for any altruistic sympathy for our posterity— 
that we take up this subject to-day. For the modern habit of 
hoarding affects the artist in a variety of ways—and affects 
him always to his disadvantage. Let us see precisely how it 
touches him. 
I N THE first place the almost morbid interest in the past 
which characterizes the ordinary cultivated person of to-day 
tends to reduce the demand for any piece of applied art that 
is not old, or an imitation of the antique, or, if modern, conceived 
definitely in some old style. The result of this is to make it 
extremely difficult for any artist-craftsman who desires to work 
along modern and individual lines to exist at all. It is a signifi¬ 
cant and thoroughly deplorable fact that the number of antique 
shops is steadily on the increase. 
The habit of hoarding old things, which started with the rich 
and expert collector, is now infecting a less wealthy and far less 
knowledgeable class of buyer, who is induced to spend the money 
which might encourage contemporary talent on the acquisition of 
dubiously ancient antiques and on mechanical imitations and re¬ 
productions of the antique. 
I N THE second place the careful hoarding, as opposed to 
the frank use of valuable objects, tends actually to diminish 
the demand for good modern work. Someone acquires a 
set, shall we say, of old silver. Instead of using it at his table 
he locks it away in a glass cabinet for show and employs for 
his daily use some inferior modern imitation of the old. More¬ 
over, good modern work, when it does happen to be produced, 
also tends to be jealously hoarded instead of being used. 
The bride who receives a handsome service of porcelain for a 
wedding present buys a cheap set for everyday use and keeps the 
good one in a cupboard, from which it only issues once in a 
twelvemonth. It would be in every way more satisfactory if 
people got rid of this museum habit and frankly made use of the 
good things they possess. Let them use the old silver: its beauty 
while it lasts will give them pleasure three times a day—every time 
they sit down to a meal. Let them dine regularly off their best 
plates and drink their tea every afternoon from their loveliest 
porcelain: in an ideal world every common utensil of daily life 
should be the best and most beautiful possible. 
But, says the timorous hoarder, if you use your silver and 
porcelain, the spoons will soon be worn out, the plates and cups 
broken. Certainly they will. And when they are worn out and 
broken you will look for the contemporary artist who can make you 
something as good and beautiful—in its OAvn modern way—to 
replace them. 
U SE encourages life in contemporary art, and hoarding tends to 
suppress it. The idea that beauty and fine quality are things 
only to be seen in museums and on rare occasions is a product of 
our hoarding age. Beauty and quality ought to be the accompani¬ 
ment of every action in every place, every day of our lives. 
Too many rich men seem to think that the right way to encour¬ 
age art is to endow museums: it is not. It is by making constant 
use of beautiful things, and when they are worn out boldly “asking 
for more,” that we shall encourage a healthy development in 
modern art. 
The third and perhaps most subtle evil of the results of the 
hoarding habit makes itself apparent in the artists themselves. 
They tend to pander to the hoarding habit by producing work 
that is meant to be put away—not used. 
(Continued on page 132) 
