Teachers lead round-cheeked children through the galleries, art comissars explained Rembrandt and Titian to farmers who would listen somewhat embarrassedly and raise their eyes timidly under the heavy lids when some detail was pointed out. Here also, like everywhere there was a slight ludicrousness in this honest and well-meant attempt to elevate the “people” overnight from illiteracy to an understanding of Beethoven and Vermeer; but this endeavor, on the one hand to make the highest values intelligible at the first attempt, and, on the other, to understand them, tried the patience of both
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