Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.
Claude DebussyRead
On those who overanalyze his music: When you tear the wings off a butterfly, it is no longer a butterfly
Interpretation
Overanalyzing art can strip it of its beauty and essence.
Claude Debussy's quote highlights the idea that excessive scrutiny and analysis can detract from the true essence and beauty of art. Just as removing the wings of a butterfly robs it of its identity and grace, overanalyzing music or any form of art can diminish the emotional impact and the experience intended by the creator.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a discussion during an art class about the interpretation of artistic works.
Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.
The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.
But music, don't you know, is a dream from which the veils have been lifted. It's not even the expression of a feeling, it's the feeling itself.
People come to music to seek oblivion: is that not also a form of deception?
Some people wish above all to conform to the rules, I wish only to render what I can hear.
Art is the most beautiful deception of all!
If what you want to paint is the emotive mood in all its strength... then you must not sit and stare at everything and depict it exactly as one sees it.
What the poet is searching for_x000D_ is not the fundamental I_x000D_ but the deep you.
In fiction, imaginary people become realer to us than any named celebrity glimpsed in a series of rumored events, whose causes and subtler ramifications must remain in the dark. An invented figure like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary emerges fully into the light of understanding, which brings with it identification, sympathy and pity.
I get little kids who recognize me from 'Mary Poppins,' and it just delights me because it's our third generation.
Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination.
Sport is an art: it has incredible appeal everywhere on this earth, and it fills so many human hearts with passion that it's impossible to dismiss.
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