“When art seems to be empty of meaning, as no doubt some of the abstract painting of our own day actually does seem, what the painting says, indeed what the artist is shrieking at the top of his voice, is that life has become empty of all rational content and coherence, and that, in times like these, is far from a meaningless statement.” DoeArtSeemsArtistVoiceDoubtPaintingEmptyStatementsRationalAbstractNo DoubtMeaninglessCoherenceAbstract PaintingTimes Like These Book:Art and Technics Source: Art and Technics
“Each religion is a brave guess at the authorship of Hamlet. Yet, as far as the play goes, does it make any difference whether Shakespeare or Bacon wrote it? Would it make any difference to the actors if their parts happened out of nothingness, if they found themselves acting on the stage because of some gross and unpardonable accident? Would it make any difference if the playwright gave them the lines or whether they composed them themselves, so long as the lines were properly spoken? Would it make any difference to the characters if 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was really a dream?” IfsLongDoePlayCharacterGodDreamNightActorsFoundDifferencesLinesActingHappenedStageBraveAccidentsNothingnessGrossPlaywrightAuthorshipMidsummerMidsummer Night's Dream Author:Lewis Mumford
“Adventure is humdrum and routine unless one assimilates it, unless one relates it to a central core which grows within and gives it contour and significance. Raw experience is empty, just as empty as the forecastle of a whaler as in a chamber of a counting house; for it is not what one does, but in a manifold sense, what one realizes that keeps existence from being vain and trivial.” GivingDoeHouseGrowsRealizingExistenceAdventureEmptyCoreRelateVainSignificanceRoutineChamberCountingManifoldHumdrum Author:Lewis Mumford
“Organic planning does not begin with a preconceived goal; it moves from need to need, from opportunity to opportunity, in a series of adaptations that themselves become increasingly coherent and purposeful, so that they generate a complex final design, hardly less unified than a pre-formed geometric pattern.” NeedsDoeMovingOpportunityGoalDesignSeriesComplexesFinalsPatternsPlanningAdaptationUnifiedGeometric Book:THE CITY IN HISTORY Source: THE CITY IN HISTORY
“The artist does not illustrate science; ... [but] he frequently responds to the same interests that a scientist does, and expresses by a visual synthesis what the scientist converts into analytical formulae or experimental demonstrations.” DoeScienceArtistInterestExpressionScientistExperimentsVisualsDemonstrationSynthesis Author:Lewis Mumford
“Chaos, if it does not harden into a pattern of disorder, may be more fruitful than a regularity too easily accepted and a success too easily achieved.” IfsMayDoeChaosPatternsAcceptedDisorderRegularity Author:Lewis Mumford
“Do you want to know what I most regret about my youth? That I didn't dream more boldly and demand of myself more impossible things; for all one does in maturity is to carve in granite or porphyry the soap bubble one blew in youth! Oh to have dreamed harder!” KnowsWantDoeDreamImpossibleYouthRegretDemandHarderMaturityBubblesSoapImpossible ThingsGraniteSoap Bubbles Book:Findings and keepings: analects for an autobiography Source: Findings and keepings: analects for an autobiography
