In the oldest, most primitive societies, art was an essential element in everything that was made however humble.  Why does it assume the status of a conscious quest, a luxury, as civilization develops? In every half-savage tribe in Africa or Polynesia, every archaic city brought back to life by excavations, even in every peasant community, however "backward," the most utilitarian objects —a crude vessel, ordinary cloth—are striking for their harmonious form, the sureness of their decorative taste. The beauty of these objects seems inseparable from their function, and the artisan who produces them does not distinguish between the two.

Today, by contrast, it requires an effort to bring the two things together. The inexpensive article is merely efficient; the addition of beauty or what is claimed to be beauty increases the price, and transforms the article into a "de luxe" object: beauty is an optional superfluity. We are presently witnessing a reaction against this state of affairs, a reaction aroused by the too- provocative conspicuousness of a distinction that was formerly inconceivable. The curve of the lowliest ancient bowl was just as flawless as that of the vase made of the most precious metal.

As soon as the machine made its appearance on the modern abstract scene, the object, fabricated according to an engineering blueprint, and produced by machine-made tools, ceased to be the product of sensibility, which animated the human hand. Any aesthetic qualities it possesses are now only a veneer, added deliberately. Under such circumstances art was inevitably reduced to passive imitation of accepted models or the application of formulas that have nothing in common with the irrepressible spontaneity of former days. Today we have only a "quest" for beauty; the term is revealing. And yet, as Picasso put it, beauty is not to be "sought"—it can only be "found."

The social consequences of this are tremendous: the traditional artisan, in whose work utilitarian fabrication was indistinguishable from aesthetic creation, is being gradually eliminated; he has become obsolete. His function is now divided between the worker, who cannot go beyond the limits of his machine—at best he is permitted to have some technical skills—and the artist, who, freed from specific duties, plunges ever more deeply into pure aesthetics, to the point of eventually losing contact with society.

Significantly, this division began to be felt during the Renaissance, when the "civilization of the book" was born. But for some time the artisan and the artist shared in each other's interests: the former continued to be concerned with art, the latter to feel obliged to satisfy the social demand. With the advent of the machine, however, the artisan's function was reduced to that of a living mechanism; he became a worker, a proletarian. As for the artist, he cut himself off from society in order to pursue, for himself and for a small elite, ever more specialized aesthetic exploraions.