A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.
Paul GauguinRead
A bit of advice, don't copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction; as you dream amid nature, extrapolate art from it, and concentrate on what you will create as a result.
Interpretation
Art should draw inspiration from nature but not imitate it directly. Instead, it should be an abstraction that comes from personal creativity.
In this quote, Paul Gauguin emphasizes that while nature is a source of inspiration for artists, true art should not attempt to replicate nature in a literal sense. Instead, artists should engage with the natural world to cultivate their own unique interpretations and ideas, allowing their creativity to flow as they create something original that reflects their individual vision.
In practice
In an art class discussing the influence of nature on creativity.
A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.
A hint - don't paint too much direct from nature. Art is an abstraction! study nature then brood on it and treasure the creation which will result, which is the only way to ascend towards God - to create like our Divine Master.
Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them.
The flat sound of my wooden clogs on the cobblestones, deep, hollow and powerful, is the note I seek in my painting.
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty?
Once in awhile, there's stuff that makes me say, That's what theatre's about. It has to be a human event on the stage, and that doesn't happen very often.
I consider space to be a material. The articulation of space has come to take precedence over other concerns. I attempt to use sculptural form to make space distinct.
A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even... without any hope of doing it well.
Girls, there are poets who learn from you to say, what you, in your aloneness, are; and they learn through you to live distantness, as the evenings through the great stars become accustomed to eternity.
I am the eggman They are the eggmen! I am the walrus!
I don't try to sanction other people's joy in monsters. I mean, I think the fact is, humor, fantasy - you know, like fear, desire or laughter - create genres of their own: comedy, melodrama, or erotic films or horror films... The boundaries cannot be defined. It's to each his own.
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