The massive lady began with some hesitation. Her confidence had not deserted her but she seemed to be searching for precise words.
Well, she said, that picture is the kind of picture that gives pleasure to the kind of people who like that kind of picture. The arrangement of planes and colours is very satisfying. Perhaps I could explain it to you in terms of music. Do you understand the terminology of music?
Not at all, snapped the little woman with the eye-glasses.
The massive lady seemed gratified and continued, In that case, you may have difficulty in following me, but if you take the first and second themes of a sonata, their statement, the development or working-out section, the recapitulation, the coda.... It has some relation to the sonata form certainly, but.... The artist is in the room, the artist who painted the picture. Won't you explain the picture, Mr. Dasburg?
Andrew, very much amused, did not take the trouble to rise.
The picture is there, he said. You can look at it. Then, after a pause, he added, Henry James says, Woe, in the æsthetic line, to any example that requires the escort of precept. It is like a guest arriving to dine accompanied by constables.
Then, said the little lady, solemnly, I say, Woe to that picture, woe to it, for it certainly requires the escort of precept. Moreover, I don't think any one here knows anything, not a thing! she cried, her voice rising to a shrill intensity, not a blessed thing. It's just like the last chapter of Alice. If I shouted, Why, you're only a pack of cards, you'd all fly up in the air, a lot of flat paste-boards with kings, queens, aces, and deuces painted on your faces! I shall never ask another question about modern art. My private impression is that it's just so much junk.
Very indignant now, she wrapped an ice-wool shawl around her bony shoulders and made her way out of the room.
There wasn't an instant's pause and her departure caused no comment. A new speaker began,
The world, it may be stated, for the purposes of classification, is divided into four groups: the proletariat, the aristocrats, the middle class, and the artist class. The artist class may be called by any other name, bohemians, anarchists, revolutionists, what you will. It includes those who think and act freely, without traditions or inhibitions, and not all people who write or paint belong to this class at all. The artist class lives the way it wants to live. The proletariat and the aristocrats live the way they have to live. The middle class is composed of members of the proletariat trying to live like the aristocrats....