Crane's life (1845-1915) spans a period of reawakening in British art, when revaluation and questioning of its social purpose were being proposed by Ruskin in theory, and by his disciple, William Morris, in theory and practice. Crane's introduction to William Morris ushered in his Socialist period, productive of some of his best work, a powerful stimulus to the emerging Labour movement, giving him a new crusading zeal expressed not only in fine art but in poems, essays and lectures, though poetry and lectures were not his forte; as Bernard Shaw put it, 'his verse was neither good enough nor bad enough to be memorable', and his lecturing only became tolerable 'when he seized a piece of chalk and drew on the backboard in illustration of his theme'. Art and politics were to blend in Crane's life from the 1880s until he died - he was an activist in the fullest sense of the word, his beliefs consonant with those of the most advanced thinkers and artists of the late nineteenth century.

Personal intimacy with Morris came gradually, after reading Morris's pamphlets denouncing the ugliness of urban living, especially the essay Art and Socialism (1884) - When Morris explicitly entered politics in 1876, Crane was ready to follow and to put his considerable powers to work in support of the vision outlined by agitators like Morris and H. M. Hyndman.

H. M. Hyndman, said of Crane: 'This great artist and charming man.... From the first he has done his very utmost to help us in every possible way ... he has put his best services freely at the disposal of Socialism without the slightest reward beyond the sincere thanks and high appreciation of his comrades and friends'. Hyndman continues: 'Certainly no more valuable recruit ever came to see us ... than when Crane too enlisted in the Socialist army in 1884... I cannot doubt that the fact that Crane is a Socialist is one of the reasons why, keenly appreciated on the continent of Europe, his genius has never been fully recognised in his own country'.

At first, Crane's reading of Shelley and of Liberal thinkers like J. S. Mill had aroused his creative, his artist's enthusiasm for the liberation of the imaginative potential in every person, and this led him to ponder the nature of a society in which such potential could be given full expression. It must surely be a society based on equality and freedom from poverty and exploitation. Henceforth his fondness for allegory and symbolism would be transferred from the past to the present, translated into political messages: winged figures in flowing costume, once derived from myths, would be turned into powerful emblems of the struggle, designed to encourage not only revolutionary change but a new consciousness that art can transform life.

He was the willing servant of the enlightenment, untroubled by faction. In the stormy politics of the 1880s, Crane was able to employ with vivid effect his theory of line as a basic tool in visual education: a drawing for Justice in 1885 became a poster for a mass meeting in Hyde Park in 1886, and in 1887 he produced one of his most potent images, 'Mrs Grundy frightened at her Own Shadow', for Commonweal. 'He was present in Trafalgar Square on "Bloody Sunday" (13 November 1887) when police and Life Guards charged the crowd and John Burns, Hyndman and Cunninghame Graham were arrested, Crane himself narrowly escaping from a mounted policeman. Crane designed a memorial for the Death Song which Morris wrote after the death of Alfred Linnell. who had been injured in another riot a week later'

'. . . the economic position of the modern artist can hardly be considered as at all satisfactory, dependent as he is upon the caprice of the rich or the control of the dealer, and upon the surplus value and unearned increment it might be in the power of individuals to spend upon art'

Bernard Shaw neatly summarised the man and his achievement in his own paradoxical way, in his tribute to Crane: '[He] was stamped as a harmless, kindly, beneficial, delightful artist. All his efforts to impress himself on the British mind as a revolutionary socialist at war with society were as vain as the attempts of his friends to make the public aware that he was a born master of design. Only when his figures were the materials and incidents of a decorative design did they become great.... He never knew his limitations because he could do as well as most people outside them and therefore he was never stopped by an incompetence which was only relative to his consummate mastery of ornamental design'. That points to the essential Crane. A revolutionary socialist - 'Crane had a demon of energy. Few other artists except Morris worked so incessantly, and this apparently without strain or ill health. This energy enabled him to translate his socialist sympathies into the works which he gave so freely to the cause'.

One of his most familiar posters is A Garland for May Day which can be found on our Clarion page and is referred to in the following letter:

The acting editor 'The Clarion' Dear Sir, I wrote a few days ago to Mr Blatchford marking letter 'private', but have since heard , with much regret, he is away ill, & this of course accounts for my not having heard from him. I proposed to him that 'The Clarion' might like to issue a cartoon of mine I have prepared appropriate to the First of May & wish to present to the workers. It represents a female figure holding a large wreath of flowers tied with scrolls of inscribed with socialistic mottoes in the spirit of 'Merrie England'. May I ask if you could let me know if 'The Clarion' would like to issue it for the occasion & if so whether it would undertake the reproduction of the drawing. It would look best on a separate sheet & might be issued with the paper - or sold separately - the proceeds to be devoted to some socialist object upon which we might agree. Kindly send me a line at your earliest convenience. yours faithfully

Foreword to Socialism and Art by Jack C. Squire, published by the Social Democratic Federation in 1907. I do not know the author of this pamphlet, but I consider that he has done good service in putting the case for Art from the Socialist point of view; and I find myself so much in sympathy with what he has written, that I feel constrained to offer a word or two in support of his position. I have often wondered that Socialism, presenting as it does the only living ideal of human existence on this earth, has not more generally won the enthusiasm of artists, who, as our author points out, have suffered so much under the modern commercial capitalistic system. Even what are called successful artists are forced to specialise their talents; and to maintain their repute and commercial value must continue to repeat the particular manner or method of work by which they are known, and so it often happens that having no time for experiment and vitalising effort in new directions, they are apt to become played out. While men of repute become overburdened with work, and have a practical monopoly in certain directions, the struggle for recognition among the young and unknown grows even more severe; and while success can command large fees at one end of the scale, there is a disproportionate drop at the other end, and unrecognised talent often has to do uncongenial work, or work unworthy of its best powers, in order to live. Yet the profits of the most successful artist are as nothing compared to those of the successful dealer in Art. This is an artificial state of things, and it has produced an artificial atmosphere about Art, which has come to be considered- under a system which measures all things by a money standard, and according to their commercial value-as a luxury for the well-to-do, instead of as the common inheritance and joy of humanity. If we consider, however, how largely the question of Art enters into human life-into, indeed, it might almost be said, every sphere of human activity, in some form or another, since there is no labour which does not recognise the exercise of some kind ot mental or manual skill, or both-we may reasonably come to regard Art, in its social bearing, and connected, as it is, with the crafts of common life, as a necessity. Socialists, therefore, who desire to build up a larger and fuller human life, based upon collective ownership of the means of material existence in a co-operative commonwealth, cannot afford to leave Art out of account, as the great source of joy, the harmonising influence of beauty, the spirit of order and proportion, at once creative and adaptive, capable of lifting men's thoughts on to the loftiest plane, and yet, withal, a sweet familiar and domestic spirit, cheering and comforting; and gladdening the eyes with form and colour, as it sheds its refining influence everywhere. It is an open question whether a Socialistic society will be prepared to support artists as a class, but I am inclined to think that Art may and has suffered from professionalism. It may truly be said that it takes a lifetime to produce beautiful work in Art, yet, after all, an artist is, primarily, a man or a woman, and not a specialised function. The more understanding, the more sympathy an artist has in life and labour, surely the better for his art, and a general training as a useful citizen should at least precede specialisation in any branch of Art. With the enormously-increased leisure which would be at the command of any community under Socialism, when labour would be directed not for the increase of profits for the benefit of individual owners, but organised for the service and to supply the wants of the whole people, and supposing that a certain amount of ordinary useful work or service to be required of all able-bodied citizens, each would still have a large margin of spare time which might be spent in the pursuit of Art by any who developed talent and taste in that direction. I think, too, that under Socialism the mass of productions of false art, which is foisted on the market for purely commercial reasons, would have but little chance of existence. When, too, the energies of humanity are concentrated upon perfecting the conditions of human life itself, and on increasing its pleasurable resources, and cultivating the aesthetic faculties, it is quite possible that the community might be prepared to make even considerable sacrifices for the sake of the beauty and joy in works of Art-as indeed they have always done. It is certain, at all events, that Art, as the flower of life, will always be the companion and helpmate of humanity, and must always reflect the character of its own genesis and environment, and be both the imperishable record and true monument of the race and the social state which gave it birth. WALTER CRANE. August, 1907.

For the First Universal Races Congress (July 26 - 29th 1911)

More images by Walter Crane A Little Holiday The Triumph of Labour - May Day 1891 The Workers' Maypole May Day 1894 A Garland for May Day 1895 May Day 1897 May Day centre spread for Justice 1898 May Day centre spread for Justice 1899 Reformers' Yearbook cover 1902 Page header from the Reformers' Yearbook Hammersmith Socialist League membership card Anti Boer war poster Capitalist vampire Socialism defeating Liberalism and Toryism

Other sites featuring Walter Crane political cartoons Marxists' Internet Archive Spartacus SchoolNet