“Art depends on the solitude of inspired, talented, or neurotic egotists. In its expression, it may ease their agonies (for half an hour); it may bring delight and consolation to some–those hearing Mahler’s Ninth one night in San Francisco. But Mahler’s Ninth on that occasion did not house one homeless person. Renoir’s La Grande Illusion, unequalled in its antiwar sentiments, was prelude to a fresh war. The moment art finds or claims any utility it is dragged before the court of justification, and that is a forlorn process. I think it is correct to see, and insist, that art demands the single-minded, profitless dedication of time, life, and materials to the quest.”
David Thomson, The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood