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Quote by Milan Kundera

“Someone interrupted him: "Modern art was a movement directed against the bourgeoisie and against its world." "Yes," said Jaromil, "but if it had really been logical in its negation of the contemporary world, it would have had to reckon with its own disappearance. It would have had to know—and it would have had to wish—that the revolution would create a totally new kind of art, an art in its own image." "So you approve," said the woman with the alto voice, "of pulping Baudelaire's poetry, prohibiting all modern literature, and shoving the cubist paintings in the National Gallery into the cellar?" "A revolution is an act of violence," said Jaromil, "that's well known, and surrealism itself knew very well that old-timers have to be brutally kicked off the stage, but it didn't suspect that it was one of them.”

Quote by Milan Kundera

Work

Life is Elsewhere

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Author

Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera is a renowned Czech-French writer known for his profound psychological insights and unique narrative techniques. His works often explore themes of personal freedom, love, morality, and existentialism, with notable titles including 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' and 'The Joke'. more

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“Ich konnte es begreifen, daß ein Chemiker in einem Gemälde von Michelangelo nur den Grund von Mauerkalk und die darauf gestrichene Ölfarbe, in einem Karton von Kaulbach nur Papier und Kreide sah; ich nahm es dem Mathematiker nicht übel, wenn er die Kuppel des römischen Pantheon nur als geometrische Figur betrachtete; ich verstand es, wenn der Physiker bei einer Symphonie von Beethoven an die Zahl der Schwingungen dachte, welche die verschiedenen Töne bemaß und bestimmte, oder wenn er das schöne Farbenspiel der Blumen ausschließlich nach den verschiedenen Strahlenbrechungen des Sonnenlichtes beurteilte. Ich hatte an sich gegen solche wissenschaftliche Betrachtung nichts als das einzuwenden, daß sie die Hauptsache nicht erkläre, daß sie nur untergeordnete Beziehungen aufdecke.”

“Can you not see artistic development— how he renounced the realism of his earlier years, and advanced into abstract, nonrepresentational art?’ He had indeed moved from realism to nonrepresentation to the abstract, yet this was not the artist, but the pathology, advancing—advancing towards a profound visual agnosia, in which all powers of representation and imagery, all sense of the concrete, all sense of reality, were being destroyed. This wall of paintings was a tragic pathological exhibit, which belonged to neurology, not art. And yet, I wondered, was she not partly right? For there is often a struggle, and sometimes, even more interestingly, a collusion between the powers of pathology and creation.”