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PARTISAN REVIEW
2.
It is not right for artists to ' 'overprofessionalize " or "overamateurize"
their profession in the practice or teaching of it. An artist who thinks that a
good social conscience will fix up a bad artistic conscience , or who believes that
what helps " Business Buy American Art" helps him , or that" Art is Educa–
tion and Communication for Everybody, " should be taken into custody and
booked for suspicion.
3. It is not right for artists to palm off their brush -stroke marks for grass as
"a feeling for Nature " or to keep alive the idiotic idea that they see some
, 'structure underlying the surface appearances of reality . " Artists who think
that art is not a hothouse product but an outhouse by-product , and who
participate in "New Nature" or " Nature in Abstraction " ideas , should be
sentenced to a term of hard labor in the fields.
4.
It
is not right for artists to act as if" abstraction " and " representation"
do not make any difference . Artists who do not remember Clive Bell's
sentence , forty-seven years ago, that" every sacrifice made to representation is
something stolen from art, " and who paint ' 'abstract-expressionist " flames ,
girders , grasses, and sunsets, should be apprehended for fencing hot mer–
chandise . Artists who portray naked old ladies , young undressed boys,
beauties (Marilyn Monroe) and beasts (' 'New Images ofMan "), should be put
into solitary.
5.
It
is not right for artists to mix their art up with other arts , with the idea
that the arts augment each other, or to claim that their paintings beautify
architecture , or that their church and synagogue decorations are an "integra–
tion of art and religion ." Artists who consort with poets and musicians should
be accused of contributing to the delinquency of minor arts .
6 .
It
is not right for artists to plug their paintings as a valuable report or
record of World Wars and Peace, or to pass themselves off as visionaries of
cosmic orders or seismographs of universal disorders. Artists who claim they
symbolized' 'Victory " in the Pepsi-Cola forties or the' 'Voice of America" in
the post-Pepsi-Cola period or' 'the Atomic Age," should be found guilty of
having given aid and comfort to the enemy .
7.
It
is not right for an artist to make his bag of tricks a matter of life and
death. Artists who send chills , however delicious , up curators' spines with
warnings like , " Let no man undervalue the implications of this work, or its
power for life , or for death , if it is misused ," should be charged with arson and
false alarm.
8.
It
is not right for artists to make themselves out ' 'characters ," bump–
kins , or "ordinary chaps ," and to instill in young and old followers the faith
