Questions about the role and direction of the arts have become issues of keen and often heated discussion today. For it has come to be realised that art is part of the very fabric of life itself not a luxury for the few, but a necessity for human beings. This original, lively and provocative book discusses these questions in the context of contemporary experience in both capitalist and socialist countries. Is there a Marxist approach to art and what is it? Does the concept of the artist social responsibility contradict artistic freedom? Is censorship ever justified? What is happening to the arts under capitalism? Is there a future for socialist art? These and similar themes are treated here with a wealth of illustration, including chapters on the work of three communist artists, Hgh Macdiarmid, Picasso and Brecht.