Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [156]
“As nobody employs us nowadays we’ve to invent our own reasons for painting. I admit art is in a bad way. Never mind, we’ve some good films. So much money has been put into the film industry that a few worthwhile talents have got work there.”
The minister said slyly, “I thought artists didn’t work for money.”
Thaw said nothing. The minister said, “I thought they toiled in garrets till they starved or went mad, then their work was discovered and sold for thousands of pounds.”
“There was once a building boom,” said Thaw, growing excited, “In north Italy. The local governments and bankers of three or four towns, towns the size of Paisley, put so much wealth and thought into decorating public buildings that half Europe’s greatest painters were bred there in a single century. These bosses weren’t unselfish men, no, no. They knew they could only win votes and stay popular by giving spare wealth to their neighbours in the form of fine streets, halls, towers and cathedrals. So the towns became beautiful and famous and have been a joy to visit ever since. But today our bosses don’t live among the folk they employ. They invest surplus profits in scientific research. Public buildings have became straight engineering jobs, our cities get uglier and uglier and our best paintings look like screams of pain. No wonder! The few who buy them, buy them like diamonds or rare postage stamps, as a form of non-taxable banking.”
His voice had grown shrill and he gulped rapidly from a glass of water. The minister said, “That sounds rather communistic, but in Russia I believe—”
“Russia,” cried Thaw, “has a more rigid ruling class than ours, so while western art is allowed to be hysterical, eastern art is allowed to be merely dull. No wonder! Strong, lovely, harmonious art has only appeared in small republics, republics where the people and their bosses shared common assemblies and a common—”
He coughed violently.
“Well, well,” said the minister soothingly. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
He began reading again. Thaw stared back at the flowers, but delight and freshness had leaked out of them.
Next morning Thaw sat in the armchair while the minister, hands clasped on chest, lay gazing at the ceiling. He said suddenly, “I’ve been thinking that maybe you should talk to Arthur Smail.”
“Who?”
“He’s our session clerk, a young man, very enterprising and full of modernistic ideas. Would you open the drawer of my locker, please? I’m not supposed to move. Do you see a wallet? Take it out and look inside and you’ll find some snapshots. No, put that one back, that’s my sister. It’s my church I want you to see.”
Thaw looked at two photographs showing the inside and outside of an ordinary Scottish church.
“Cowlairs Parish Church. Not grand maybe, but I’ve been there thirty-two years so I like it. I like it. Since the engine works closed the district has gone sadly downhill, I’m afraid. And the Presbytery have decided that next year our congregation and the congregation of St. Rollox must combine, for there aren’t enough members to justify the upkeep of two establishments. St. Rollox is a church round the corner from us. Do you follow me?”
“Yes.”
“Now the two congregations are nearly equal size, so Arthur Smail thought that if we cleaned and rewired our fabric, the Presbytery would send the congregation of St. Rollox to us instead of we to them. Am I boring you?”
“No.”
“Mr. Smail belongs to a firm of shopfitters and we have Mr. Rennie, a painter and decorator, and two electricians, so we had the necessary skill and any number of willing helpers. The church is cleaner and brighter than I’ve known it for years. Unluckily, however (though quite understandably), St. Rollox have done the same thing and done it better. A member of theirs who did well in Canada sent a donation which let them clean the outside stonework, a thing we can’t afford. So Mr. Smail came up with a new idea…. Have you ever attended a church of Scotland?”
“When I was at school.”
“Then you may have observed that in the last