Art Must Communicate

A late season sand castle in Cherry Grove

“We are against art which cannot and does not have any human content and desires to be merely a mechanical demonstration and a cerebral puzzle...A logical chain binds the past and the future – the romanticism of yesterday will again be the romanticism of tomorrow.”

- Part of a document issued by Ottorino Respighi and nine other Italian musicians in 1932

Is this too severe? Does abstract art or music communicate or is it no more than a mechanical demonstration or a cerebral puzzle?

I tend to come down on the side of romanticism.

Jim