QuoteProject
Art always opts for the individual, the concrete; art is not Platonic.
Jorge Luis Borges
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Art focuses on individual experiences and concrete realities rather than abstract ideals.

In this quote, Borges emphasizes that art is rooted in the personal and the tangible, advocating for the significance of individual expression over universal ideals. He suggests that true artistry comes from the unique perspectives and experiences of individuals, rather than conforming to predetermined, abstract concepts of beauty or truth.

Themes

ArtIndividualConcreteExpressionIdentity

In practice

Example use cases

In an art class, discussing how individual experiences shape artistic expression.

More from Jorge Luis Borges

You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
To say good-bye is to deny separation; it is to say Today we play at going our own ways, but we'll see each other tomorrow. Men invented farewells because they somehow knew themselves to be immortal, even while seeing themselves as contingent and ephemeral.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
The execution was set for the 29th of March, at nine in the morning. This delay was due to a desire on the part of the authorities to act slowly and impersonally, in the manner of planets or vegetables.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
This felicitous supposition declared that there is only one Individual, and that this indivisible Individual is every one of the separate beings in the universe, and that these beings are the instruments and masks of divinity itself.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
Let neither tear nor reproach besmirch this declaration of the mastery of God who, with magnificent irony, granted me both the gift of books and the night.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead

Similar quotes

What I wanted to do was to get that sense of being in touch with this lost world while holding onto what draws readers and audiences there in the first place.
Stephen GreenblattRead
The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness.
Yann Arthus-BertrandRead
Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place in all this? Unfortunately we are no longer the interpreters of our culture's myths but the followers of that dubious client, the developer, who has little patience with the art of architecture, the fine detail and obscure promise, which can upset his financial activity.
Arthur EricksonRead
Unlike film and TV, theater is a luxury object, but one that ordinary middle-class people can still afford. Above all, it isn't a mass medium: Live theater is a small-scale, handmade art form. Intimacy is what makes it special.
Terry TeachoutRead
As artists we are here to make you uncomfortable with the complexity of your reality.
Junot DiazRead
In art, as in science, reductionism does not trivialize our perception - of color, light, and perspective - but allows us to see each of these components in a new way.
Eric KandelRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.