I have come across the most amazing book. Found it in my library, can’t remember buying it. The author is artist Robert Henri (google him) and the book is The Art Spirit. Published in 1923, it could have been written yesterday. As for instance the following quote from pages 93-94:
“In these times there is a powerful demarcation between the surface and the deep currents of human development.
“Events and upheavals, which seem more profound than they really are, are happening on the surface.
“But there is another and deeper change in progress. It is of long, steady persistent growth, very little affected and not at all disturbed by surface conditions.
“The artist of today should be alive to this deeper evolution on which all growth depends, has depended and will depend.
“On the surface there is the battle of institutions, the illustration of events, the strife between peoples. On the surface there is propaganda and there is the attempt to force opinions.
“The deeper current carries no propaganda. The shock of the surface upheaval does not deflect it from its course.”
Time is money (surface) vs Time is Art (deeper current).