The masterpieces in the Louvre _still_
give out impulses--beautiful impulses--to many of us, thank heaven!
SILVIA
But that's just it! The impulses you mean aren't those of art at all.
They--
JOE
Those pictures don't give out impulses to the _artist_. The impulses they
do give out are only the emotions that satisfy the student who has learned
some rules and then sees the rules worked out. The artist produced the
rules as a side issue, but you are trying to make the rules produce the
artist. That's the difficulty when people as a whole lose the creative
sense. They are satisfied with things at second-hand. Second-hand
expressions of life, and second-hand philosophies to justify the
expressions. It's a kind of conspiracy in which everybody works against
everybody else. Only the few real artists in any generation break through
it into the light.
SILVIA
The light of the sun!
MR. WENTWORTH
I fear we are hopelessly at odds in this question. Well, as the Romans
said, there's no disputing about tastes. Every one to his own taste.
JOE
No!
MR. WENTWORTH
What do you mean?
JOE
I mean that it's a disgrace that Americans only study and only buy old
masters.
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