Reference code
CL/1/169
Title
Arthur Rackham, Stilegate, Pain's Hill, Limpsfield, Surrey, to Clausen
Date
18 Aug 1939
Level
Item
Extent & medium
1 piece
Content Description
He has been lying in bed for six weeks, his "complaint" keeps appearing to improve, but he then has a haemorrhage which sets him back. In every other way he gets stronger. He continues to work, although he can no longer use models. The times are tragic, he feels for the young, "we late Victorians" thought such times were forever over. He thinks his time in hospital has blinded him to much of what is going on.
The "supremacy of the machine, which is rapidly making robots of humanity" must be challenged. He lays the charge at the Victorians' door, they did not heed the damage wrought by the conquest of nature. Machine should undertake servile taks, liberating humans to creativity.