“Yes, the highest things are beyond words. That is probably why all art aspires to the condition of wordlessness. When literature works on you, it does so in silence, in your dreams, in your wordless moments. Good words enter you and become moods, become the quiet fabric of your being. Like music, like painting, literature too wants to transcend its primary condition and become something higher. Art wants to move into silence, into the emotional and spiritual conditions of the world. Statues become melodies, melodies become yearnings, yearnings become actions.” WorldWantDoeArtMomentsDreamActionSpiritualMovingLiteratureSilenceConditionsEmotionalPaintingHigherQuietHighestMoodPrimariesYour DreamsMelodyYearningFabricAspireStatuesGood Words Author:Ben Okri
“Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space. I know of no sculpture, painting or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters. At first the colossal aspect may dominate; then we perceive and respond to the delicate and persuasive complex of nature.” KnowsFirstsMayLightSpiritualFallWaterSpaceWonderRocksPaintingShapesAspectStonesGreenComplexesForestsCommandGoldenPerceiveValleysDelicateCompellingSunriseSoarSculptureThunderCliffsExceedWhisperingGlitterPersuasiveColossalEdificeDomesGraniteYosemiteFlowing Water Author:Ansel Adams
“Painting expresses the depth and insight, the spiritual quality of the artist. If art is about life, then, while the depth to which the artist has drunk from the well of life may not guarantee success, it must surely improve the quality of his/her work.” IfsWellsMayArtSpiritualArtistQualityPaintingArt IsDepthInsightDrunkGuarantees Author:Millard Sheets
“My art in the last period has all been in small format, but my paintings have become even deeper and more spiritual, speaking truly through colour. Feeling that because of my illness I would not be able to paint very much longer, I worked like a man obsessed on these little 'Meditations' (a long series of small paintings he made during the last years of his life, with as main motif the schema of a face, ed.). And now I leave these small but, to me, important works to the future and to people who love art.” PeopleMenYearsLittlesLongArtMadeImportantFeelingsAbleLastsFacesSpiritualMeditationPaintingPeriodsSeriesPaintIllnessDeeperObsessedColourLast YearFormatMotifsImportant WorkSchemas Author:Alexej von Jawlensky
“One is conscious of no brave and noble earnestness in it, of no generalized passion for intellectual and spiritual adventure, of no organized determination to think things out. What is there is a highly self-conscious and insipid correctness, a bloodless respectability submergence of matter in manner--in brief, what is there is the feeble, uninspiring quality of German painting and English music.” ThinkingSelfMatterSpiritualPassionLiteratureQualityPaintingAdventureIntellectualConsciousDeterminationBraveNobleOrganizedSelf ConsciousCorrectnessRespectabilityAmerican LiteratureEarnestnessInsipidUninspiringEnglish Music Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series Source: H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
“A culture that gave the world the spiritual creations of the Classical Music of Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Schubert, the paintings of Michelangelo, and Raphael, Da Vinci and Rembrandt, does not need lessons from societies whose idea of spirituality is a heaven peopled with female virgins for the use of men, whose idea of heaven resembles a cosmic brothel.” MenWorldNeedsDoeIdeasUseSpiritualCultureSpiritualityHeavenCreationPaintingLessonsFemaleCosmicVirginsClassical MusicWagnerRaphaelBrothelsSchubert Book:Virgins? What Virgins?: And Other Essays Source: Virgins? What Virgins?: And Other Essays
“I had grown up among engineers, and I could remember the engineers of the twenties very well indeed: their open, shining intellects, their free and gentle humor, their agility and breadth of thought, the ease with which they shifted from one engineering field to another, and, for that matter, from technology to social concerns and art. Then, too, they personified good manners and delicacy of taste; well-bred speech that flowed evenly and was free of uncultured words; one of them might play a musical instrument, another dabble in painting; and their faces always bore a spiritual imprint.” WellsArtMatterPlayMightRememberFacesSpiritualSocialTechnologyFieldsPaintingTasteSpeechConcernTwentiesInstrumentsShiningMusicalIntellectMannersEaseGentleGood ManEngineeringEngineersBoresDelicacyGood MannersBreadthAgilityMusical Instruments Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn