Home / Quotes / Quote by Robert Louis Stevenson

Quote by Robert Louis Stevenson

“A work of art is first cloudily conceived in the mind; during the period of gestation it stands more clearly forward from these swaddling mists, puts on expressive lineaments, and becomes at length that most faultless, but also, alas! that incommunicable product of the human mind, a perfected design. On the approach to execution all is changed. The artist must now step down, don his working clothes, and become the artisan. He now resolutely commits his airy conception, his delicate Ariel, to the touch of matter; he must decide, almost in a breath, the scale, the style, the spirit, and the particularity of execution of his whole design.”

Book:R.L. Stevenson on Fiction: An Anthology of Literary and Critical Essays

Work

R.L. Stevenson on Fiction: An Anthology of Literary and Critical Essays

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was a 19th-century Scottish novelist, poet, travel writer, and essayist. His works are characterized by adventure and romance, with his most famous novels being 'Treasure Island' and 'The Adventure of the Treasure Island'. Stevenson's works have been beloved by readers and have had a profound impact on literature. more

“If you’re looking for fine art or literature, you might want to read some stuff written by the Greeks. Because to create true fine art, slaves are a necessity. That’s how the ancient Greeks felt, with slaves working the fields, cooking their meals, rowing their ships, all the while their citizens, under the Mediterranean Sun, indulged in poetry writing and grappled with mathematics. That was their idea of fine art.”

Art Poetry Mathematics Slavery Greek Literature

Book:Hear the Wind Sing

Source: Hear the Wind Sing

“It would be far better, in my opinion, to participate in our times, since our age is clamoring for us to do so, and quite loudly, by calmly accepting that the era of cherished masters, artists with camellias in their lapels and armchair geniuses, is over. To create today means to create dangerously. Every publication is a deliberate act, and that act makes us vulnerable to the passions of a century that forgives nothing. And so, the question is not to know whether taking action is or is not damaging to art. The question, to everyone who cannot live without art and all it signifies, is simply to know—given the strict controls of countless ideologies (so many cults, such solitude!)—how the enigmatic freedom of creation remains possible.”

Art

Book:Create Dangerously

Source: Create Dangerously

“Every now and then, a new world emerges, a world that is different from our everyday world, yet the same, unique but universal, full of innocent insecurity, born for a brief moment thanks to the strength and dissatisfaction of the genius. It is something and yet it is not something—the world is nothing and the world is everything. Such is the dual, tireless cry of all true artists, the cry that keeps them standing, eyes wide open, and that, from time to time, awakens in everyone, deep within the heart of this sleepy world, the insistent yet fleeting image of a reality that we recognize without having ever experienced it.”

Art

Book:Create Dangerously

Source: Create Dangerously