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The Urge to Resist. Sweeney's viewpoint is a healthy reminder that man's natural resistance to new art forms tends to get in the way of appreciation. Sweeney's own enthusiasm for advance-guard painting leads him to argue that it is, in the best sense, conservative. Recognizable objects, he says, are only the surface of painting, mere vocabulary. Abstract composition is the basis of all painting—the syntax. Therefore, the young American pioneers are blazing a trail back to fundamentals. Since grammar is not poetry, that would seem to leave Taylor's basic question of communication up in the air. But Sweeney maintains that the prime function of art is simply "the communication of a sense of ordered parts within an all-embracing unity."
Despite their differences, Sweeney and Taylor agree in looking for both form and content in a work of art. Yet they point up the Form v. Content debate that has split contemporary painting down the middle. The Academy of the Left stands for form alone; the Academy of the Right stands for content alone. The layman can best refresh his eyes by turning to the great masters, who stood for both at once, and hope that art may once again grow meaningful and whole.