The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.
Interpretation
The artist has the ability to evoke deep emotions and reactions through their creative work.
This quote by Wassily Kandinsky highlights the transformative power of art, suggesting that an artist, through their skillful creation, can stir the emotions and feelings of their audience. The metaphor of an artist as a hand touching keys implies that art operates like music, where specific notes resonate and elicit responses from the soul, thus drawing out the inherent emotional qualities within each viewer or listener.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of art in schools, this quote could illustrate the deep emotional connection art fosters.
The true work of art is born from the 'artist': a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation. It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life, becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being.
The artist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather the adapting of form to its inner meaning.
With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.
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.
The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct its appeal.
All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.
Don't worry about how pretty (the story) sounds, how lilting it is, and the imagery, and the metaphor, all that. Most readers don't care. It's the people in your book that matter.
It is shameful that dancing should renounce the empire it might assert over the mind and only endeavor to please the sight.
I'm a failed poet. Reading poetry helps me to see the world differently, and I try to infuse my prose with figurative language, which goes against the trend in fiction.
I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows.
To be a film-maker, you have to lead. You have to be psychotic in your desire to do something. People always like the easy route. You have to push very hard to get something unusual, something different.
A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.
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