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Quote by Laura Cumming

“We see pictures in time and place. We cannot see them otherwise. They are fragments of our lives, moments of existence that may be as unremarkable as rain or as startling as a clap of thunder. Whatever we are that day, whatever is going on behind our eyes, or in the forests of our lives, is present in what we see. We see with everything that we are.”

Quote by Laura Cumming

Book:Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death
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Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death

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Laura Cumming

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“Nor is it only as a sign of greater gentleness or refinement of mind, but as a proof of the best possible direction of this refinement, that the tendency of the Gothic to the expression of vegetative life is to be admired. That sentence of Genesis, 'I have given thee every green herb for meat,' like all the rest of the book, has a profound symbolical as well as literal meaning. It is not merely the nourishment of the body, but the food of the soul, that is intended. The green herb is, of all nature, that which is most essential to the healthy spiritual life of man. Most of us do not need fine scenery; the precipice and the mountain peak are not intended to be seen by all men, — perhaps their power is greatest. over those who are unaccustomed to them. But trees and fields and flowers were made for all, and are necessary for all. God has connected the labour which is essential to the bodily sustenance with the pleasures which are healthiest for the heart; and while He made the ground stubborn, He made its herbage fragrant, and its blossoms fair. The proudest architecture that man can build has no higher honour than to bear the image and recall the memory of that grass of the field which is, at once, the type and the support of his existence; the goodly building is then most glorious when it is sculptured into the likeness of the leaves of Paradise; and the great Gothic spirit, as we showed it to be noble in its disquietude, is also noble in its hold of nature; it is, indeed, like the dove of Noah, in that she found no rest upon the face of the waters, — but like her in this also, 'Lo, in her mouth was an olive branch, plucked off.”

ArtArtistNatureBeautyEnglandArchitectureTreesAestheticsGothicArt History
Book:On Art and Life
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“Therefore, I present to you this book—a tribute to light, the sense of sight, and the vision it gives, outside in. This work is none other than an invitation to see and experience life in all its unadulterated fullness, both outward, and above all, inward. I hope that it can offer you a new way of looking at the world.”

ArtBookLife LessonsVisionAwarenessPerspectivePhotographyAuthorOfferingOutside In
Book:In Search for Meaning
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“Kant noted that we typically apply labels or concepts to the world to classify sensory inputs that suit a purpose. ... Beautiful objects do not serve ordinary human purposes, as plates and spoons do. A beautiful rose pleases us, but not because we necessarily want to eat it or even pick it for a flower arrangement. Kant’s way of recognizing this was to say that something beautiful has purposiveness without a purpose’.”

ArtPhilosophyBeautyKantArt Theory
Book:Art Theory: A Very Short Introduction
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“Hume emphasized education and experience: men of taste acquire certain abilities that lead to agreement about which authors and artworks are the best. Such people, he felt, eventually will reach consensus, and in doing so, they set a ‘standard of taste’ which is universal. … Hume said men of taste must ‘preserve minds free from prejudice’, but thought no one should enjoy immoral attitudes or ‘vicious manners’ in art … Kant too spoke about judgements of taste but he was more concerned with explaining judgements of Beauty. He aimed to show that good judgements in aesthetics are grounded in features of artworks themselves, not just in us and our preferences. Kant tried to describe our human abilities to perceive and categorize the world around us. There is a complex interplay among our mental faculties including perception, imagination, and intellect or judgement. Kant held that in order to function in the world to achieve our human purposes, we label much of what we sense, often in fairly unconscious ways.”

ArtPhilosophyKantDavid HumeArt TheoryArt Philosophy
Book:Art Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Cynthia Freeland, Oxford University Press
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