Herbert Read and the Anarchist Aesthetic

When in his final years Herbert Read came to reflect on the body of writings he had produced, he observed that readers sometimes overlooked the anarchist convictions on which these writings were founded. One of his most influential books, 'Education through Art' (1943), was, as he put it, 'deeply anarchistic in its orientation', and yet, for all the interest it generated, there had been scarcely any public recognition of its political basis. Read traced his conversion to the anarchist cause back to his teenage years, and argued that though he might have displayed a brief interest in other political movements he had always remained true to certain fundamental anarchist ideas.