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Page 48
MR. WENTWORTH
What do you mean by "it's a _museum_"?
JOE
I mean that it's the place to put pictures in when they are dead.
MR. WENTWORTH
_Dead?_ A great masterpiece _dead_?
JOE
Of course. No man lives forever. Nobody that was ever born was useful
enough to live forever. The bigger a man is the longer his influence is
creative, in art and everything else, but the time always comes when his
value is spent. When the world needs a new influence.
SILVIA
It's really wonderful, Mr. Wentworth, how knowing the truth about art
shows one the truth about other things. When I remember what I used to
believe!
MR. WENTWORTH
But see here, young man, you wouldn't do away with the _Louvre_, would
you? Why, what would happen if these ideas were carried out....
JOE
No, I wouldn't do away with it. Why should I? If to burn it down would
wake people up to _life_, I'd do it in a minute. But it wouldn't. They
would only sanctify the superstition and make it immortal. No, leave the
Louvre as it is. It's really quite useful.
MR. WENTWORTH
But good gracious! _Useful?_
JOE
Yes. Like history. To do away with the Louvre would be to destroy a part
of history. There's no good doing that. 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
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