A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.
Paul GauguinRead
A bit of advice, don't copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction; as you dream amid nature, extrapolate art from it, and concentrate on what you will create as a result.
Interpretation
Art should draw inspiration from nature but not imitate it directly. Instead, it should be an abstraction that comes from personal creativity.
In this quote, Paul Gauguin emphasizes that while nature is a source of inspiration for artists, true art should not attempt to replicate nature in a literal sense. Instead, artists should engage with the natural world to cultivate their own unique interpretations and ideas, allowing their creativity to flow as they create something original that reflects their individual vision.
In practice
In an art class discussing the influence of nature on creativity.
A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.
A hint - don't paint too much direct from nature. Art is an abstraction! study nature then brood on it and treasure the creation which will result, which is the only way to ascend towards God - to create like our Divine Master.
Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them.
The flat sound of my wooden clogs on the cobblestones, deep, hollow and powerful, is the note I seek in my painting.
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty?
Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.
I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.
I think of myself as a theater animal instead of an intellectual animal.
Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed.
All great composers of the past spent most of their time studying. Feeling alone won't do the job. A man also needs technique.
You can't improvise without a skeletal structure; you can't just go in and start talking. This is a very misunderstood craft because no one else makes movies like this.
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