Where Art Comes From
- By Steve Harris
- •
- 08 Feb, 2019
- •
Poems and thoughts about art, for refuge and inspiration.
"...If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: "
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: "
—Rudyard Kipling
Excerpt from "If"
Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.
- Rene Magritte
Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
- Thomas Merton
The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.
- Pablo Picasso
All art is but imitation of nature.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.
- Edgar Degas
Art is the signature of civilizations.
- Jean Sibelius
Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them.
- Leo Tolstoy
A friend recently prodded me to do a blog. "You've got a lot to say I bet", she said. This encouragement I tucked under my heart, ...well, maybe...
Redesigning my professional website becomes personal here, although it's all personal to me. Selecting pages to add, BLOG pops up, and you think to yourself: 'How can I be truly inspiring, encouraging, and interesting?' I really hope I can keep this interesting, for my sake as well as yours. I do have a lot to say, and possibly the courage to say it, so here and now is as good a time as any, I guess. Reader beware and please have patience with me as I get my bearings. And thanks for being here.