It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
Ezra PoundRead
The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that an image transcends mere ideas, embodying a powerful combination of thoughts and energy.
Ezra Pound highlights the depth of visual art, suggesting that an image is not just a singular concept but a dynamic amalgamation of multiple ideas that combine to create a resonant impact. This fusion of thoughts gives an image its inherent energy, making it a powerful medium for expression and communication.
Themes
ImageArtIdeasEnergyVisualExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the power of visual communication, one might use this quote to illustrate how imagery evokes complex ideas.
More from Ezra Pound
All quotes βThe 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.
Ezra PoundRead
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.
Ezra PoundRead
Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
Ezra PoundRead
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
Ezra PoundRead
The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
Ezra PoundRead
Similar quotes
As an actor, the second and last ones were interesting for me. Because those parts had the most change in playing someone who was both light and dark, sort of Jekyl and Hyde.
Sigourney WeaverRead
Photography is only intuition, a perpetual interrogation - everything except a stage set.
Henri Cartier-BressonRead
All these actors who died before I was born, all the theaters and the artistic movements - all that stuff fills you up and makes you feel like you're the inheritor of all this information and of all its passion.
Harold PrinceRead
I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent, they want people with a certain look and a willingness to cooperate. I thought, that's interesting, because I believe a total unwillingness to cooperate is what is necessary to be an artist β not for perverse reasons, but to protect your vision. The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music. That's why I spend my time now painting.
Joni MitchellRead
Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.
Langston HughesRead
Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.
Oscar WildeRead