“The Sovereign,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58″ x 38″

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

I try to remember that painting at its best is a form of communication, that it is constantly reaching out to find response from an ideal and sympathetic audience.  This I know is not accomplished by pictorial rhetoric nor by the manipulation of seductive paint surfaces.  Nor is a good picture concocted out of theatrical props, beautiful subjects, or memories of other paintings.  All these might astound but they will never communicate the emotional content or exaltation of life, which I believe an artist, by definition, has to accept as his task.

Julian Levi:  Before Paris and After in The Creative Process, edited by Brewster Ghiselin

Comments are welcome!