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I Paint What I See
A Ballad of Artistic Integrity
by E. B. White
First published in the New Yorker
magazine, May 20, 1933
during the controversy of Diego Rivera's mural, Man at the
Crossroads,
in the Rockefeller Center
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'What
do you paint, when you paint on a wall?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Do you paint just anything there at all?
'Will there be any doves, or a tree in fall?
'Or a hunting scene, like an English hall?'
'I paint what I see,' said Rivera.
'What are the colors you use when you paint?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Do you use any red in the beard of a saint?
'If you do, is it terribly red, or faint?
'Do you use any blue? Is it Prussian?'
'I paint what I paint,' said Rivera.
'Whose is that head that I see on the wall?'
Said
John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Is
it anyone's head whom we know, at all?
'A Rensselaer, or a Saltonstall?
'Is
it Franklin D.? Is it Mordaunt Hall?
Or
is it the head of a Russian?
'I
paint what I think,' said Rivera.
'I
paint what I paint, I paint what I see,
'I
paint what I think,' said Rivera,
'And
the thing that is dearest in life to me
'In
a bourgeois hall is Integrity;
'However
. . .
'I'll
take out a couple of people drinkin'
'And
put in a picture of Abraham Lincoln;
'I
could even give you McCormick's reaper
'And
still not make my art much cheaper.
'But
the head of Lenin has got to stay
'Or
my friends will give the bird today,
'The
bird, the bird, forever.'
'It's
not good taste in a man like me,'
Said
John D.'s grandson Nelson,
'To
question an artist's integrity
'Or
mention a practical thing like a fee,
'But
I know what I like to a large degree,
'Though
art I hate to hamper;
'For
twenty-one thousand conservative bucks
'You
painted a radical. I say shucks,
'I
never could rent the offices-----
'The
capitalistic offices.
'For
this, as you know, is a public hall
'And
people want doves, or a tree in fall
'And
though your art I dislike to hamper,
'I
owe a little to God and Gramper,
'And
after all,
'It's
my wall . . .'
'We'll
see if it is,' said Rivera.
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