“So that in all there will be in Europe, say,
one hundred and twenty thousand painters; and there are probably as many
musicians and as many literary artists. If these three hundred
and sixty thousand individuals produce three works a year each (and many of
them produce ten or more), then each year yields over a million so-called works
of art. How many, then, must have been produced in the last ten years,
and how many in the whole time since upper-class art broke off from the art of
the whole people? Evidently millions. Yet who of all
the connoisseurs of art has received impressions from all these pseudo works of
art? Not to mention all the laboring classes who have no conception of these
productions, even people of the upper classes cannot know one in a thousand of
them all, and cannot remember those they have known. These works all appear
under the guise of art, produce no impression on anyone (except when they serve
as pastimes for the idle crowd of rich people), and vanish utterly.”