What is real for me are the illusions I create with my paintings. Everything else is quicksand.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the subjective nature of reality, suggesting that personal creations hold more value than the external world's uncertainties.
Eugene Delacroix expresses the idea that reality is shaped by personal experiences and perceptions, particularly through the lens of art. He implies that the illusions crafted in his paintings are more substantial and meaningful to him than the transient and unstable nature of the external world, which he likens to quicksand. This reflects a deep commitment to creativity and an understanding of how art can provide a sense of stability and truth amidst life's uncertainties.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire artists during workshops about personal expression.
The outcome of my days is always the same; an infinite desire for what one never gets; a void one cannot fill; an utter yearning to produce in all ways, to battle as much as possible against time that drags us along, and the distractions that throw a veil over our soul.
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who can't attain it in anything.
A picture is nothing but a bridge between the soul of the artist and that of the spectator.
Experience has two things to teach. The first is that we must correct a great deal and the second, that we must not correct too much.
The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently.
Glory to that Homer of painting, to that father of warmth and enthusiasm... he really paints men.
When we don't have all the details about our characters, we have to make it up to fill in all the details. So, for me, writing and acting go hand in hand.
Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.
Our easiest approach to a definition of any aspect of fiction is always by considering the sort of demand it makes on the reader. Curiosity for the story, human feelings and a sense of value for the characters, intelligence and memory for the plot. What does fantasy ask of us? It asks us to pay something extra.
I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.
But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.
Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.