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is communicated directly, and without modification to those who look at his work.

But I think that artists ought to recognize this, that there is no moral reason why art ought to go on if it has nothing further to express nor is there any moral or aesthetic reason why the public ought to bend the knee in reverence before the mere fact of art. We might assume that art is important only if it essays to be important. 

If it adopts the manners and outlook and philosophy of a minor expression, then a minor expression it will be. If it aspires to an to an aesthetic of double talk, just that will be its position, nothing more; and life itself will walk around it and let it alone. 

Society needs more than anything else to be reminded that man is, in himself, ultimate value. It needs to be reminded that neither the pressure of events nor the exigencies of diplomacy can warrant the final debasement of man. We needed a resurgence of the humanities, a rebirth of spirit. Art, because it is the innate expression of man, speaks also in final values, tends to reaffirm the individual. Art is neither use, nor appointed task; but given human compulsions, some intellectual stature and great competence, it can perhaps bring man back into focus as being of supreme importance In which case it will have earned an honored place among the humanities.