Henry James: Art Lives Upon Discussion

“Art lives upon discussion,” he wrote, “upon experiment, upon curiosity, upon variety of attempt, upon the exchange of views and the comparison of standpoints; and there is a presumption that those times when no one has anything particular to say about it, and has no reason to give for practice or preference, though they may be times of honour, are not times of development— are times, possibly even, a little of dullness.”

Jed Perl quoting novelist Henry James in his excellent book Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts.