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ment that in the end their work constituted but another step towards
abstract art, and a further sterilization of the expressive factors.
This has been true, whether the artist was Van Gogh, Picasso or
Klee. All roads led to the same place.
VI.
I find that I have offered no other explanation for the present
superiority of abstract art than its historical justification. So what
I have written has turned out to be an historical apology for ab–
stract art. To argue from any other basis would require more space
than is at my disposal, and would involve an entrance into the
politics of taste-to use Venturi's phrase-from which there is no
exit-on paper. My own experience of art has forced me to accept
most of the standards of taste from which abstract art has derived,
but I do not maintain that they are the only valid standards through
eternity. I find them simply the most valid ones at this given
moment. I have no doubt that they will be replaced in the future
by other standards, which will be perhaps more inclusive than any
possible now. And even now they do not exclude all other possible
criteria. I am still able to enjoy a Rembrandt more for its expres–
sive qualities than for its achievement of abstract values-as rich
as it may be in them.
· It suffices to say that there is nothing in the nature of abstract
art which compels it to be so. The imperative comes from history,
from the age in conjunction with a particular moment reached in
a particular tradition of art. This conjunction holds the artist in
a vise from which at the present moment he can escape only by
surrendering his ambition and returning to a stale past. This is the
difficulty for those who are dissatisfied with abstract art, feeling
that it is too:decorative or too arid and "inhuman," and who desire
a
retu~ t~
representation and literature in plastic art. Abstract art
cannot be disposed of by a simple-minded evasion. Or by nega–
tion. We can only dispose of abstract art by assimilating it, by
fighting our way through it. Where to? I do not know. Yet it
'seems to me that the wish to return to the imitation of nature in
art has been given no more justification than the desire of certain
partisans of abstract art to legislate it into permanency.
