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only to a section of it).  If the artist's work is to have any integrity, any intrinsic worth whatsoever, he must follow his ideal wherever it leads him.  And the more successful he is in achieving original work the smaller his audience is likely to be.

I think that the art student considering a "career" should not be encouraged to harbor any illusions: the way is hard.  In spite of the largest "art public" in history, in spite of all the institutions which exist to foster the arts, there is not enough patronage to go around, for there is also a greater number of working artists than ever before.  Few are those who receive even the satisfaction of recognition, fewer still make anything like a living from the sale of their work.  The artist's only certain reward is his joy in creation.  The truly creative artist lives in a rich world, subjectively speaking; his objective existence is likely to be difficult.

HL

"Painting is a very difficult thing.  It absorbs the whole man, body and soul.  Thus I have passed blindly many things which belong to real and political life..."  MAX BECKMAN

"Of what importance is art to society?  All civilization and culture are the results of the creative imagination or artist quality in man.  The artist is the man who makes life more interesting or beautiful, more understandable or mysterious, or probably, in the best sense, more wonderful.  His trade is to deal with illimitable experience."  GEORGE BELLOWS

"It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious - to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least to preserve his own innocence of personality - he must once more sink himself in solitude.  There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are made, like stock-market prices, by the competition of people eager for profit........All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgement"  DEGAS

"In its limited sense modern art would seem to concern itself only with the technical innovations of the period.  In its larger and to me irrevocable sense it is the art of all time; of definite personalities that remain forever modern by the fundamental truth that is in them." HOPPER