Aphorisms for Artists by Walter Darby Bannard

Aphorism #43

You don’t have to be a caveman to appreciate Lascaux.

On a panel in Texas some years ago, my Kantian assertion that good art was good for everyone was challenged by a New York critic who declared that a tribesman from New Guinea certainly would not understand abstract painting.

I responded that it was nothing more than a matter of acculturation, and that I would much rather discuss abstract art with a New Guinea tribesman with intelligence and a good eye than a New York critic who had neither.

Good art is good art. It just takes getting used to.

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