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17

What, then, is art? The question has been asked for centuries; no two answers have ever agreed. The Greeks, who presumably knew something about art, had no word for are in their language. Therein, again, they showed great wisdom. Phideas would never have been put on this spot. But we have the word art in our language, and we use it all the time. As Director of the Federal Art Project, it seems to me entirely appropriate that I should be required to say, however, dangerous the terrain, what I conceive art to be. I willingly say it, because I believe, first, that what I conceive art to be is not a personal possession of my own, but a view held rather generally in the art world; and, second, because I've a notion that, if it can be held more generally, the propriety of the government's interest in our artists would be more generally conceded. 

The trouble with art is that the candlestick-maker gets it mixed up with his candles. Art, I repeat, isn't candles. No yardstick or scales can, in the very nature of the case, be invented or devised to measure or weigh it. Art in whatever form is the emanation, the externalization, the crystalization of human personality. Art is the record of one's self; craft is the skill to perform the recording. Art is the imprint one is able to make of one's self in the clay, stone, wood, words, paint. Craft is the ability to say what one intends to say, to force the medium to bear the imprint. Whenever there is a great self to express, great craft is necessary for the recording. Great selves are rare; great selves allied with great crafts are rarer. That is why a painting by Titian is valuable. Great selves, allied