The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.
Jean CocteauRead
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
Interpretation
Good music reflects and evokes the emotions and objects that inspired it.
In this quote, Jean Cocteau suggests that good music is not just a collection of sounds but an evocative representation of the emotions, experiences, and objects that inspired its creation. The essence of music lies in its ability to resonate with listeners on a deeper level, allowing them to connect with the feelings and imagery that the composer intended to express.
In practice
This quote could be used in a music class to illustrate the emotional power of music.
The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.
One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.
Watch yourself all your life in a mirror and you'll see Death at work like bees in a glass hive.
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart.
Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.
The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.
Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.
Black artists are encouraged to explore their identity but are then pigeonholed according to their ethnicity. We may have seen the decline of old racism, but we are witnessing a new kind of racialising.
The true function of art is to criticize, embellish and edit nature⦠the artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue penciling the bad spelling of God.
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