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172

Jan 7 -  Maugham on Art 
[[strikethrough]] June 20 [[/strikethrough]]

a value which is its own justification I look askance at such an attitude It seems to me that the philosophers were right [[strikethrough]] twho [[/strikethrough]] who claimed that the value of art lies in its effects & from this drew the corollary that its value lies not in beauty, but in right action. For an effect is idle unless it is effective. If art is no more than a pleasure, no matter how spiritual, it is of no great consequence; & serves no functional purpose. Art, unless it leads to right action, is no more than the opium of an intelligentsia!

'It is not in art then that one may hope to find some assuagement to the pessimism that long ago found immortal expression in the Book of Ecclesiastes. I think there is in the heroic courage with which man confronts the irrationality of the world a beauty greater than the beauty of art.'



173  

Friday, Jan. 7.
[[strikethrough]] June 21 [[/strikethrough]]

Dr. Gerald Alter for lunch - Afternoon. worked on drawings. Evening - Went to Strand Hotel for dinner with Louis, Dorothy, Dr. Alter & Jean-Claude Antonic. From there we drove to a Chinese restaurant for a few more courses.

Made notes for tomorrow's talk on art at Hla Shain's.

Saturday, Jan. 8

AM - Worked on drawing -

PM - Made corrections on notes for Hla Shain. Eve - 6 PM. In garden. Twenty artists had been invited as well as a journalist & Nyo Mya, editor of the Oway Daily, Rangoon. Also a press photographer.

I was glad I had the written material. because Hla Shain took it to have it translated into Burmese. Nyo Mya told me he liked the clarity of the ideas presented & would like to do a story on it with photographs of those present as well as of the