Black and white can show how something is. Color adds how it is, imbued with temperatures and humidities of experience.
Peter SchjeldahlRead
The artist is a strange being. I think it's safe to say that a real artist is conscious of having a personal singularity that is partly a blessing and partly a curse. An artist enjoys and suffers from isolation. As solitude, isolation can nurture. It can also destroy.
Interpretation
Artists experience both the beauty and pain of their unique perspective on life.
This quote by Peter Schjeldahl highlights the dual nature of an artist's existence. On one hand, their individuality and creativity can be a blessing, allowing them to produce profound art; on the other hand, this very singularity often leads to feelings of isolation and loneliness. The quote emphasizes that while solitude can inspire and nurture an artist's work, it can also have destructive effects on their mental and emotional well-being.
In practice
This quote can be used in an art class to discuss the emotional challenges artists face.
Black and white can show how something is. Color adds how it is, imbued with temperatures and humidities of experience.
The artist usually sets out -- or used to -- to point a moral and adorn a tale. The tale, however, points the other way, as a rule. Two blankly opposing morals, the artist's and the tale's. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper functions of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.
Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.
Do not write if there is no tremendous urge to do so. At the heart, there must be an inspiration or muse or one of those old-fashioned things. Else, why bore yourself, destroy other people's interest and kill trees?
It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . to change through the force of his art that old whispering "I want to be white," hidden in the aspirations of his people, to "Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!"
I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.
I am working, but when one has ceased to do seascape, it is the devil afterward - very difficult; it changes at every instant, and here the weather varies several times in the same day.
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