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Quote by Laura Cumming

“I cannot get enough of Dutch art. You can turn to this other world -- and it is a picture world as no other, a whole society visualised through time and place, seasons and generations, moment by moment -- and live inside it in your thoughts. There is always more of it, and then inexhaustibly more. Every time I think I have seen my last Dutch painting another comes into view, in some old museum or faraway city. I once saw, in a hotel in Algiers, a Dutch still life of redcurrants glinting on a silver dish and was momentarily transported to a long-ago Delft day. Paintings can take you anywhere, but they are also a land in themselves, a society, a place to be.”

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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“And then I saw it. My father's wood: thick by then with twenty years' growth, but still not fully mature. A half-grown wood of oak trees around that little clearing, which, with my new perspective, I could see made the shape of a heart. I stared down at the clearing. The heart was unmistakable; tapered at the base with the strawberry field in the centre; a stand of trees to form the cleft. How long had it taken my father, I thought, to plan the formation, to plant out the trees? How many calculations had he made to create this God's-eye view? I thought of the years I had been at school; the years I had felt his absence. I remembered the contempt I'd felt at his little hobby. And finally I understood what he'd tried to say to me on the night of my wedding. 'Love is the thing that only God sees.' I'd wondered at the time what he meant. My father seldom spoke of love; rarely showed affection. Perhaps that was Tante Anna's influence, or maybe the few words he'd had were all spent on Naomi. But here it was at last, I saw: the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, a silent testament to grief; a last, enduring promise. Love is the thing that only God sees. I suppose you'd say that's because he sees into our hearts. Well, if he ever looks in mine, he'll see no more than I've told you. Confession may be good for the soul. But love is even better. Love redeems us even when we think ourselves irredeemable. I never really loved my wife- not in the way that she deserved. My children and I were never close. Perhaps that was my fault, after all. But Mimi- yes, I loved Mimi. And I loved Rosette Rocher, who was so very like her. One day I hope Rosette will see the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, and know that love surrounds her, whether see can see it or not. And you, Reynaud. I hope one day you can feel what only God sees, but which grows from the hearts of people like us: the flawed; the scarred; the broken. I hope you find it one day, Reynaud. Till then, look after Rosette for me. Make sure she knows my story. Tell her to take care of my wood. And keep picking the strawberries.”

LoveGodMeadowRosette RocherHeartshapedmemoir
Book:The Strawberry Thief
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“This is what I’ve learned: The art is greater than you and your feelings. You have to serve it. It is not you. Some people will never understand that, but you need to surround yourself with people who do understand it. And you need to understand it yourself. Whatever you’re creating may come from within you and your life, but then—almost like a child, it comes out of your body and it grows up and walks away. It walks away and affects other people you don’t know and have never met. That’s the beauty of it, and the reason I keep trying new things. You never know who it will effect.”

ArtYoung AdultQueer
Book:A Scatter of Light
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“This theory of beauty is not developed with respect to artefacts alone, but universally. It is independent of taste, for it is recognized that as Augustine says, there are those who take pleasure in deformities. The word deformity is significant here, because it is precisely a formal beauty that is in question; and we must not forget that "formal" includes the connotation "formative." The recognition of beauty depends on judgment, not on sensation; the beauty of the æsthetic surfaces depending on their information, and not upon themselves, Everything, whether natural or artificial, is beautiful to the extent that it really is what it purports to be, and independently of all comparisons; or ugly to the extent that its own form is not expressed and realized in its tangible actuality. The work of art is beautiful, accordingly, in terms of perfection, or truth and aptitude as defined above; whatever is inept or vague cannot be considered beautiful, however it may be valued by those who "know what they like.”

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Book:Christian & Oriental Philosophy of Art Formerly: "Why Exhibit Works of Art?"
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“The Germans and Carlyle have perverted both thought and phraseology when they made the Artist the term for expressing the highest order of moral and intellectual greatness. The older idea is the truer- that Art, in relation to Truth, is but a language. Philosophy is the proper name for that exercise of the intellect which enucleates the truth to be expressed. The Artist is not the Seer; not he who can detect truth, but he who can clothe a given truth in the most expressive and impressive symbols.”

ArtArtistsThe TruthGermansThomas Carlyle
Book:Collected works of John Stuart Mill
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“Museums of primitive art are filled with masks, figurines, bas-relief sculptures, all looted from all over the world and robbed of their meanings. For those who created them, life resided not in the object itself, but rather in the spirit that inspired it. A corpse, even one artistically entombed, is still a dead body. They are no longer works of art, but simply objects. They are beautiful, whereas they should be alive, From time immemorial, humans have sculpted to magnify their gods. There is a reason why some religions are against any depiction of their gods while others are committed to the practice. There is some form of highly human insolence in recreating the god that created you, and there is a risk of adoring the tangible representation in itself instead of the discarnate deity. That is what sculpture is: both a tribute and a challenge to the gods. Some spiritualities tolerate this ambivalence, others don't. Others yet use representations to further tighten control over their flock and guarantee their submissiveness. They select the artists and dictate the dogma they should represent. Sculpture is both the easiest and the most delicate of art forms. It is more than just hewing a form out of a compact block, or reproducing a model: you have to breathe life into It. That is not something you can learn or improvise. There is always some part of yourself that you infuse into the material. In our modern world, where art is a business like any other, techniques are taught, but the magic, on the other hand, is still a gift, midway between bliss and suffering.”

ArtBritish MuseumAfrican ArtColonial Theft
Book:Days Come and Go
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