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Pearls from artists* 564
Indus River, Ladakh, India
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
To travel through the peaks and valleys of Himalayan Buddhism is to become a collector of fragmented images and a teasing array of sense impressions, many of them bound to counter the stereotypes of simplicity and serenity that we expect to define a Buddhist universe. At the end of the journey, the traveler assembles these sense fragments into an individualistic understanding of what has been seen and experienced. Maybe that’s the way it should be, since Buddhism itself teaches us that each person must seek his own way to knowledge and enlightenment in this life or some other.
Barbara Crossette in So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas
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Pearls from artists* # 563
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
[John] Graham defined art as a “process of abstracting” thought and emotion by the use of paint or metal or stone. Because art was therefore intrinsically abstract, the duty of the artist would be to push abstraction “fearlessly to its logical end instead of evading it under the disguises of charm or being ‘true to nature.’” The artist created for society, he said, but if that society didn’t like what he or she had produced, the artist”does not trade his ideals for success. Martyrs and saints love luxury and success just as much as ordinary people, only they love something else even more.” Graham said, if the artist is a true genius, he can expect to be misunderstood and alone. “The beauty of genius is frightful to behold, few can envisage it. Others find subterfuge in scepticism.” The abstract artist, he said, would be repeatedly challenged by such skeptics asking, “‘What does it mean?’… Is it a sky, a house, a horse?’” To which they should respond with confidence and honesty, “‘No, it is a painting.’”
Mary Gabriel in Ninth Street Women
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Pearls from artists* # 536
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Whatever his apparent subject matter, it is always himself that the artist paints. Subject matter exalts his inner feeling.
The Journal of Eugene Delacroix edited by Hubert Wellington
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barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 