We don't love qualities; we love a person; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as their qualities.
Jacques MaritainRead
Since art is a virtue of the intellect, it demands to communicate with the entire universe of the intellect. Hence it is that the normal climate of art is intelligence and knowledge: its normal soil, the civilized heritage of a consistent and integrated system of beliefs and values; its normal horizon , the infinity of human experience enlighted by the passionate insight of anguish or the intellectual virtues of a contemplative mind.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art represents our intellect and must connect with the broader human experience and knowledge.
Jacques Maritain emphasizes that art is not just a product of creativity but a profound expression of intellect that engages with the entirety of human experience. It thrives in an environment enriched by intelligence, knowledge, and a coherent set of values, allowing artists to communicate deeply with others and reflect the complexities of life through both anguish and contemplation.
Themes
ArtIntellectCommunicationExperienceKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of art education in schools.
More from Jacques Maritain
All quotes →God does not ask for 'religious' art or 'Catholic' art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth
Jacques MaritainRead
We do not need a truth to serve us, we need a truth that we can serve
Jacques MaritainRead
Every work of art reaches man in his inner powers. It reaches him more profoundly and insidiously than any rational proposition, either cogent demonstration or sophistry. For it strikes him with two terrible weapons, Intuition and Beauty, and at the single root in him of all his energies... Art and Poetry awaken the dreams of man, and his longings, and reveal to him some of the abysses he has in himself.
Jacques MaritainRead
The aim of education is to guide young persons in the process _x000D_ through which they shape themselves as human persons-armed with knowledge, strength of judgment, and moral virtues-while at the same time conveying to them the spiritual heritage of the nation and the civilization in which they are involved.
Jacques MaritainRead
The poet knows himself only on the condition that things resound in him, and that in him, at a single awakening, they and he come forth together out of sleep.
Jacques MaritainRead
Similar quotes
Black artists are encouraged to explore their identity but are then pigeonholed according to their ethnicity. We may have seen the decline of old racism, but we are witnessing a new kind of racialising.
Munira MirzaRead
A piece of sculpture can have a hole through it and not be weakened if the hole is of a studied size, shape, and direction.
Henry MooreRead
What art seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.
Oscar WildeRead
Compose with utter freedom and edit with utter discipline.
Erica JongRead
Stories have a special way of putting us inside the people, inside the boots of the soldiers. You're absorbed in a way a documentary or nonfiction can't do for you.
Tim O'BrienRead
The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.
Joan BaezRead