It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that true artistry requires struggle and intensity, reflecting the chaotic nature of modern existence.
Ezra Pound asserts that the essence of being a modern artist lies in embracing conflict and turmoil. He argues that the most compelling artistry stems from genuine struggle, indicating that artists who avoid depicting this inner strife create work that lacks depth and interest. In this perspective, art becomes a battlefield for emotions and ideas, driven by the powerful forces that shape human experience.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the role of turmoil in culture, this quote can illustrate the necessity of conflict in authentic artistic expression.
More from Ezra Pound
All quotes →The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.
Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.
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Saving Italy is an astonishing account of a little known American effort to save Italy’s vast store of priceless monuments and art during World War II. While American warriors were fighting the length of the country, other Americans were courageously working alongside to preserve the irreplaceable best of Italy’s culture. Read it and be proud of those who were on their own front lines of a cruel war.
I always had a lot of fun in America, with much more freedom than if I had tried to cook in France. I wouldn't have the same motivation or inspiration, and I wouldn't have cooked for the same kind of people in France, so it wouldn't have given me this edge I had in America.
I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business so that's literally 70 years.
Colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.
The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.