ART AND COMMERCE
VU ete Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bruges, Vancouver—what

do these names connote? Do you think of them as noisy,

bustling commercial cities? Does Venice suggest to you the
colorful days when the merchant princes of the Republic sent their
argosies to trade with all the world, or do you think of Titian, of
Tintoretto, of Veronese? Is Antwerp merely a busy seaport on the
Scheldt or do you visualise its fine cathedral, its Rubens and its Van
Dyck? Amsterdam and Bruges—what do these names mean to you;
rich merchant guilds eager and able to buy and sell, the great and
lonely Rembrandt, or the ascetic Van Eyck brothers?
Apply the same question to any or all big commercial cities past or
present—the Madrid of Velasquez, the Florence of Leonardo da
Vinci, of Raphael, of Michael Angelo—and it will be found that
wherever and whenever a big commercial city arose, there also will be
found evidence of the designer and the artist.
Do you see Vancouver only as a busy port, the grain outlet of West-
ern Canada, a great centre of commerce, or does the vision include
designers and artists ministering to the utilitarian and cultural needs
of a city which is growing faster than did any of the aforementioned
older cities?
Happily Vancouver is beginning to be aware that Art is a necessity
of Life, and that with the increase of commerce comes the designer
and the artist. A school for art education is already in being—a civic
gallery for the exhibition of works of art is very near.
It would be strange if this growth of Commerce and Art were not
concurrent; to be otherwise would be contrary to the history of all
great cities.
What is the connection between Art and Commerce? It lies in the
realization on the part of the manufacturers that in order to compete
in the markets of the world an article has to be designed not alone to
fulfil its function but to appeal aesthetically also. Behind the textile,

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