I don't feel I've arrived home until I get on the beach. All my life, the theater of the sea has been a very strong thing.
Derek WalcottRead
Musical composition, about which I know little, is a complicated art, and some contemporary music may be the equivalent of a complex abstract painting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Musical composition is intricate and can be as abstract as modern art.
In this quote, Derek Walcott expresses the complexity of musical composition, drawing a parallel between music and abstract art. He suggests that just like a complex painting can evoke emotions and thoughts that may not be immediately clear, contemporary music can also possess layers of depth and intricacy that require careful listening and interpretation to fully appreciate.
Themes
MusicArtCompositionAbstractCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on contemporary art, this quote can be referenced to discuss the parallels between music and visual arts.
More from Derek Walcott
All quotes →Creating a poem is a continual process of re-creating your ignorance, in the sense of not knowing what's coming next.
Derek WalcottRead
A long time ago, I thought, as a writer in the Caribbean, 'I don't ever want to have to write 'It was great in Paris.'' Because I don't think, proportionately speaking, that one's experience in a city as opposed to, say, a village in St. Lucia, is superior to the other.
Derek WalcottRead
My mother was a schoolteacher and very, very encouraging. She understood what it meant when I said I wanted to be a writer; both me and my brother wrote.
Derek WalcottRead
When I went to college - when I read Shakespeare or Dickens or Scott - I just felt that, as a citizen of England, a British citizen, this was as much my heritage as any schoolboy's. That is one of the things the Empire taught, that apart from citizenship, the synonymous inheritance of the citizenship was the literature.
Derek WalcottRead
The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.
Derek WalcottRead
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