We need history--it cranks up
life--but we've got to recognize that after all it is only history, not
life itself--not art.
MR. WENTWORTH
But what _is_ art, if the Louvre _isn't_?
SILVIA
Don't you see, Mr. Wentworth? If you could only get for a moment into the
stream of experience where Joe and the others brought me! A picture is art
as long as it's alive--as long as it can give back the fresh, first-hand
impulses that were put into it. After that--when life has flowed on and
set up new impulses requiring a different expression--then a picture drops
back upon a lower level. What Joe calls _history_.
JOE
Like everything else.
MR. WENTWORTH
But you put art on the same plane as invention. An improved motor car
scraps the old model. But you can't _improve_ art!
JOE
No, certainly not. We don't try to. We just do our best. We _recover_ art.
MR. WENTWORTH
_Recover_ it?
SILVIA
Yes--discover it all over again. It gets lost, lost in hard and fast rules
or sentimentality, then a genius comes along and digs down to the buried
city--creation. Art isn't like invention.
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