Quotessence
Home / Authors / Lincoln Kirstein Books
Lincoln Kirstein

Lincoln Kirstein Books

Writer

Related Quotes

“While photography to Cartier-Bresson is constantly an intuitive process, it is never purely instinctive. It is founded on continuous intellection, on ceaseless consideration during all moments previous to, or preparatory for, the pressing. It does not only operate in the blinding flash of a moment seized; it works all the time. The snatched picture merely cuts across the vein of observable incident or accident which is always beating, whether or not the fingers actually press.”

DoeMomentsProcessCuttingPhotographyPressesFingersAccidentsConsiderationFlashVeinsIntuitiveIncidentsCartier
Author:Lincoln Kirstein
Create image

“If one had to define one essential gift with which a dancer needs to be endowed, there might be a rush of answers. A beautiful body, grace of line, graciousness of spirit, joy in the work, ability to please, unswerving integrity, relentless ambition towards some abstract perfection. Certainly all these factors determine a dancer's character, and every element exists in some combination within the performing artist's presence.”

IfsNeedsCharacterBodyMightBeautifulJoySpiritArtistLinesAbilityAnswersGraceIntegrityPleaseEssentialsElementsAmbitionPerfectionDanceDetermineFactorsCombinationPerformingAbstractDancerBalletRelentlessGraciousnessPerforming ArtsBeautiful BodyPerforming Artist
Author:Lincoln Kirstein
Create image

“Ballet dancers are a self-chosen elite. To survive and surmount years of disciplinary preparation and seasons of even more arduous performance requires rigid determination and almost mindless self-abnegation. One other factor is difficult to predetermine: without a certain admixture of hysteria - sometimes masking as self-obsession, sometimes even counterfeiting incipient madness - performers, at once acrobats, artists, and animals, make little public impression.”

YearsLittlesSelfSometimesArtistCertainDifficultAnimalDeterminationPerformancesSeasonsMadnessDanceImpressionChosenObsessionFactorsPreparationDancerPerformersBalletElitesHysteriaMindlessBallet DancerSelf ObsessionAbnegation
Book:Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks
Create image

“In liberal democracy and anxious anarchy, the traditional classic dance, compact of aristocratic authority and absolute freedom in a necessity of order, has never been so promising as an independent expression as it is today.”

TodayOrderDemocracyExpressionAuthorityAbsolutesIndependentTraditionalClassicAnarchyAnxiousFreedom Of ExpressionCompactAbsolute FreedomAristocraticLiberal Democracy
Book:The Classic Ballet, Basic Technique and Terminology
Create image