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The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.
Gertrude Stein
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Innovative artists often face criticism, but their work may eventually be recognized and celebrated.

Gertrude Stein's quote reflects the idea that those who create groundbreaking art often challenge existing norms and conventions, facing backlash and rejection in their time. However, as time passes, their contributions can be reevaluated, and they may be embraced as classics, signifying a transformation from being an outsider to an essential part of the artistic canon.

Themes

ArtCreationInnovationAcceptanceLegacy

In practice

Example use cases

This quote is perfect for an art class discussing the evolution of artistic styles.

More from Gertrude Stein

. . . money . . . is really the difference between men and animals, most of the things men feel, animals feel, and vice versa, but animals do not know about money.
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If the communication is perfect, the words have life, and that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.
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The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.
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I simply contend that the middle-class ideal which demands that people be affectionate, respectable, honest and content, that they avoid excitements and cultivate serenity is the ideal that appeals to me, it is in short the ideal of affectionate family life, of honorable business methods.
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It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.
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Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.
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