“[T]he beautiful. . .is neither transmitted nor conferred like the inheritance of a farm; it is the fruit of inspiration’s perseverance, which can only follow stubborn labors; it comes from the gut with pain and thrashing, as with everything destined to live; it charms and consoles men and cannot be the fruit of a passing phase or a banal tradition. Vulgar laurels crown vulgar efforts.”
Wow. Thank you for bringing this essay to our attention.
"Vanishingly few of history’s great visual artists are especially good writers."
I'm not sure what you meant by this claim. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Bonnard, Rothko, Whistler are just a few names that immediately come to mind as excellent writers as well as artists. In fact the 20th century seems to have been awash with painters and sculptors who were eager to express in words their ideas and feelings about art, both their own and that of their contemporaries. Ben Shahn gave a series of lectures at Harvard collected as "The Shape of Content". I think we need to be careful when making sweeping generalizations like this.
In fact personal experience has taught me that some of the most skilled writers I know happen to also be visual artists. It's how they think.
Great selection of illustrations, and matchups of works by different artists. (The pairing of the Murillo with the Small Raphael Cowper, especially.) Alas, I can't say that Ingres's great rival (he who championed the rigor and "probity" of line over color) convinced me of much of anything in this heretofore untranslated essay. Maybe it reads more convincingly in the original French. (Traduire, c'est trahir, as they say.) Very broad brush, word-wise (with much name-dropping of all the right names), much as Delacroix's art itself is an often intoxicating swirl of color and form.
“[T]he beautiful. . .is neither transmitted nor conferred like the inheritance of a farm; it is the fruit of inspiration’s perseverance, which can only follow stubborn labors; it comes from the gut with pain and thrashing, as with everything destined to live; it charms and consoles men and cannot be the fruit of a passing phase or a banal tradition. Vulgar laurels crown vulgar efforts.”
Wow. Thank you for bringing this essay to our attention.
"Vanishingly few of history’s great visual artists are especially good writers."
I'm not sure what you meant by this claim. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Bonnard, Rothko, Whistler are just a few names that immediately come to mind as excellent writers as well as artists. In fact the 20th century seems to have been awash with painters and sculptors who were eager to express in words their ideas and feelings about art, both their own and that of their contemporaries. Ben Shahn gave a series of lectures at Harvard collected as "The Shape of Content". I think we need to be careful when making sweeping generalizations like this.
In fact personal experience has taught me that some of the most skilled writers I know happen to also be visual artists. It's how they think.
Great selection of illustrations, and matchups of works by different artists. (The pairing of the Murillo with the Small Raphael Cowper, especially.) Alas, I can't say that Ingres's great rival (he who championed the rigor and "probity" of line over color) convinced me of much of anything in this heretofore untranslated essay. Maybe it reads more convincingly in the original French. (Traduire, c'est trahir, as they say.) Very broad brush, word-wise (with much name-dropping of all the right names), much as Delacroix's art itself is an often intoxicating swirl of color and form.
Thank you!
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you.