Art is the fatal net which catches these strange moments on the wing like mysterious butterflies, fleeing the innocence and distraction of common men.
Interpretation
Art captures fleeting moments that escape the ordinary, preserving their beauty.
This quote by Giorgio De Chirico suggests that art has the unique power to seize ephemeral moments that might otherwise be lost in the mundane distractions of everyday life. By likening these moments to 'mysterious butterflies', the quote emphasizes the delicate and transient nature of beauty, and how art serves as a 'fatal net' that preserves them for contemplation and appreciation.
In practice
During an art exhibition, I quoted this to emphasize the importance of capturing fleeting beauty through creativity.
There were details like clothing, hair styles and the fragile objects that hardly ever survive for the archaeologist-musical instruments, bows and arrows, and body ornaments depicted as they were worn... No amounts of stone and bone could yield the kinds of information that the paintings gave so freely
There's an old saying: 'No piece of writing is ever finished, it's just abandoned.' But my own rule is: No piece of work is done until you want to kill everyone involved in the publishing process, especially yourself.
In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.
I hear the singing of the lives of women. They clear mystery, the offering, and pride.
Theatre is fake... The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real.
I can't work without a model. I won't say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.
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