Read-Aloud Plays Part 29

What?

SILVIA

It's our little cottage! I'm so glad! That's where we lived last summer, Mr. Wentworth. I always wanted Joe to paint it. Joe, it's splendid! Don't you think so, Mr. Wentworth?

MR. WENTWORTH

Yes.... Yes. _Very_ interesting....

SILVIA

Don't you love the bright colors and the firm, flowing lines?

MR. WENTWORTH

Of course, it isn't exactly what I have been accustomed to.... I have heard that some of the younger Frenchmen and Russians are painting in a new way, but--

SILVIA

Joe, it's so _alive_! I _feel_ it, every inch of it! You've no idea, Mr.

Wentworth, how Joe's painting has changed me. I used to be such a little New Englander, _afraid_ of life, but now--

JOE

It isn't only what you call the "younger Frenchmen and Russians" who are learning how to paint--the modern movement has spread all over.

MR. WENTWORTH

Of course, I don't pretend to be an artist myself, but I have always studied and loved pictures, and when you say "learning _how_ to paint"--

JOE

That's exactly what it is. Learning _how_ to paint. Learning what art is.

Getting _life_ into it instead of abstract ideas.

MR. WENTWORTH

Art? But art is beauty! Eternal beauty. You can't change art over night, like a fas.h.i.+on!

SILVIA

But that picture's beautiful!

JOE

Art changes as life changes. Art has always changed. If it didn't, why isn't your j.a.panese art just like Greek art? And Greek art like the Italian?

MR. WENTWORTH

Oh, in that way, of course. But all the great masters obey the eternal laws of beauty!

JOE

There aren't any eternal _laws_ of beauty! There's only the eternal impulse to create. Every artist has to express himself in his own way.

What you call the "eternal laws" are merely the particular expressions your own favorite painters happened to work out in their time. If they had lived in another time--

MR. WENTWORTH

A master would always be a master. There's no change possible in the vision of the soul.

SILVIA

You see, Mr. Wentworth, what I have learned these last two years from living among artists is that the painter with an original vision is always opposed by the schools. That is, at first. But when he wins out, then the schools merely take over his technic and use it as a club to put down the next creator. And so it goes.

MR. WENTWORTH

Naturally, the great artist suffers hards.h.i.+p. But if we once admit there are no _laws_, where are we? Anarchy!

JOE

The laws are contained in the impulses themselves. They come _with_ the vision, not before it! If any one thinks this modern art is just an easy way of painting--

SILVIA

Indeed it isn't! Joe works much harder than the students who go to the schools. Of course, he doesn't paint by the clock.

MR. WENTWORTH

But the Louvre! All those beautiful pictures, those priceless treasures!

What about the Louvre?

JOE

The Louvre? It's a _museum_.

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