We pour our fullest Heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated Art.²
The aim of an Artist is to represent
Not the outward appearance of thing—
But its inward Significance.³
Artists are often only half-alive—
Their Creations so irrefutably Alive!⁴
We and Art are made for each other—
And where that bond fails, human Life Fails.⁵
The Artist creates proudly out of the freedom
And power of their soul a Living thing,
New and Soaring and Beautiful,
Impalpable, Imperishable …⁶
Art is the affirmation of Life and
Life, or its Eternal evidence, is everywhere:⁷
The Artist’s work is to reveal & celebrate the
Eternal, Purposeless background of human life.⁸
What is Art—but Life upon the larger scale!⁹
To affect the Quality of Day:
This is the highest of arts.¹⁰
¹ Denise Levertov, Misnomer
² Percy Bysshe Shelley, To a Skylark
³ Will Durant, paraphrasing Aristotle in The Story of Philosophy
⁴ Hermann Hesse tr. Hilda Rosner, The Journey to the East
⁵ Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince
⁶ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
⁷ Alfred Stieglitz
⁸ Alan Watts, This Is It
⁹ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
¹⁰ Henry David Thoreau, Walden