As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make read more

As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting -- the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.

So-called art restoration is at least as tricky as brain surgery. Most pictures expire under scalpel and sponge.

So-called art restoration is at least as tricky as brain surgery. Most pictures expire under scalpel and sponge.

The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid read more

The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.

Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a read more

Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes.

For half a century photography has been the "art form" of the untalented. Obviously some pictures are more satisfactory than read more

For half a century photography has been the "art form" of the untalented. Obviously some pictures are more satisfactory than others, but where is credit due? to the designer of the camera? To the finger on the button? tso the law of averages?

Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's read more

Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's womb.

All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates read more

All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so read more

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.