QuoteProject
Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church above a bleached village.
Derek Walcott
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on how art captures the essence of history and nostalgia, favoring simpler, more traditional forms over modernity.

Derek Walcott's quote emphasizes the idea that art serves as a vessel for nostalgia, often drawing upon historical and simpler settings in contrast to the complexities of modern industrial life. By highlighting the preference for a thatched roof and a towering church, the quote suggests that art yearns for the beauty and warmth of the past, presenting an aesthetic that resonates with emotional and cultural memory.

Themes

ArtHistoryNostalgiaCultureSimplicity

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be shared at an art exhibition to evoke a sense of historical appreciation.

More from Derek Walcott

I don't feel I've arrived home until I get on the beach. All my life, the theater of the sea has been a very strong thing.
Derek WalcottRead
Creating a poem is a continual process of re-creating your ignorance, in the sense of not knowing what's coming next.
Derek WalcottRead
A long time ago, I thought, as a writer in the Caribbean, 'I don't ever want to have to write 'It was great in Paris.'' Because I don't think, proportionately speaking, that one's experience in a city as opposed to, say, a village in St. Lucia, is superior to the other.
Derek WalcottRead
My mother was a schoolteacher and very, very encouraging. She understood what it meant when I said I wanted to be a writer; both me and my brother wrote.
Derek WalcottRead
When I went to college - when I read Shakespeare or Dickens or Scott - I just felt that, as a citizen of England, a British citizen, this was as much my heritage as any schoolboy's. That is one of the things the Empire taught, that apart from citizenship, the synonymous inheritance of the citizenship was the literature.
Derek WalcottRead
The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.
Derek WalcottRead

Similar quotes

The sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.
Wassily KandinskyRead
If I had not been successful as a director, then I'm sure I would still be telling stories. I would have continued on 16mm or found a different medium through which to tell them.
Pedro AlmodovarRead
You know, people speak in poetry all the time. They just don't realize it.
Sherman AlexieRead
The stage is a place where I can be wholly myself. Even though you're in front of people almost to be judged, it is a place without judgement.
Florence WelchRead
All art is a kind of confession.
James A. BaldwinRead
I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn't mean anything to me.
Van MorrisonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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