Rudolf Arnheim Quote

It would be most wholesome if for at least twenty years art historians were forbidden to refer to any derivations. If they were not allowed to account for a work of art mainly by tracing where it comes from, they would have to deal with it in and by itself--which is what they are most needed for.

Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest (ed. Univ of California Press, 1990) - ISBN: 9780520909052