"What's bred in the bone" by Robertson Davis
Little side notes. I am just finishing a book by Robertson Davies called What's Bred in the Bone.
There are some quotes that struck me as interesting, of course related to art, so here they are:
(p.227)
""But the moderns don't paint God and all his works. Sometimes I can't make out what they are painting."
"They are painting the inner version, and working very hard at it when they are honest, which by no means all of them are. But they depend only on themselves, unaided by religion or myth, and of course what most of them find within themselves is revelation only into fakery. Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision... [...] They are sick of what they suppose to be God, and they find something in the inner vision that is so personal that to most people it looks like chaos. But it isn't simply chaos. It's raw gobbets of the psyche displayed on canvas. Not very pretty and not communicative, but they have to find their way through that to something that is communicative - though I wonder if it will be pretty."
"It's hell for anyone who thinks of being an artist."
"As you do? Well- you must find your inner vision.""
(p. 237)
""I am not pretending to be clairvoyant. Looking deep into pictures is my profession. It is simple enough to see that this model is a woman of today and the attitude of the artist to his sitter is always apparent in the picture. Every picture is several things; what the artist sees, but also what he thinks about what he sees, and because of that, in a certain sense it is a portrait of himself.""
True that. No matter how hard I try I can't distance myself from the subject I am portraying without adding some of my own feelings and judgement in. It is a strange thing. In a sense I am slave to my own opinion I guess, this often happens subconciously though. If I don't like someone no matter how appealing the comission money is an artist block is almost inevitable.
There are some quotes that struck me as interesting, of course related to art, so here they are:
(p.227)
""But the moderns don't paint God and all his works. Sometimes I can't make out what they are painting."
"They are painting the inner version, and working very hard at it when they are honest, which by no means all of them are. But they depend only on themselves, unaided by religion or myth, and of course what most of them find within themselves is revelation only into fakery. Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision... [...] They are sick of what they suppose to be God, and they find something in the inner vision that is so personal that to most people it looks like chaos. But it isn't simply chaos. It's raw gobbets of the psyche displayed on canvas. Not very pretty and not communicative, but they have to find their way through that to something that is communicative - though I wonder if it will be pretty."
"It's hell for anyone who thinks of being an artist."
"As you do? Well- you must find your inner vision.""
(p. 237)
""I am not pretending to be clairvoyant. Looking deep into pictures is my profession. It is simple enough to see that this model is a woman of today and the attitude of the artist to his sitter is always apparent in the picture. Every picture is several things; what the artist sees, but also what he thinks about what he sees, and because of that, in a certain sense it is a portrait of himself.""
True that. No matter how hard I try I can't distance myself from the subject I am portraying without adding some of my own feelings and judgement in. It is a strange thing. In a sense I am slave to my own opinion I guess, this often happens subconciously though. If I don't like someone no matter how appealing the comission money is an artist block is almost inevitable.
Btw, now that I am leaving tomorrow the lavender is finally blossoming ;). It smells so nice outside of the house. :D
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment