Art and Prudence

Extract

Comparing his own book with M. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism, Mr. Adler says of the latter that it is “for me the best analysis of fine art.” He continues: “The scope of that is more general than this. I am concerned primarily with one problem and, moreover, with that problem as it occurs in the special case made by the cinema as a fine art. The attempt to apply everything that is relevant in the intellectual tradition to this contemporary problem necessarily requires some interpretation and extension of the basic texts I have relied upon. To this extent, and only to this extent, my work has been constructive.” These words of the author fully outline the scope and nature of his work, but not I feel, with the right emphasis.

The book, with its seven hundred pages of texts and notes, may be only “an interpretation and extension of basic texts,” but the result is almost of a different order to the sources of his texts. Without wishing in the least to underestimate the importance of his sources, it would be more accurate to see in this a work of a different kind, and something of equal importance.