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.
Interpretation
Art serves to critique and enhance nature while highlighting its imperfections.
H. L. Mencken suggests that the primary role of an artist is to observe the world around them and provide commentary on its flaws and beauty. Through the act of creation, artists refine and reinterpret nature, almost like editors who improve the text, pointing out 'bad spelling' as a metaphor for imperfections present in the world created by a higher power.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of creativity, one might cite this quote to emphasize the role of artists in society.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
A successful novel should interrupt the reader’s life, make him or her miss appointments, skip meals, forget to walk the dog.
The first long chapter of my career was almost entirely theater so that, by the time I was 30, 35, I sort of knew who I was as an actor, and I was gradually learning who I was as a human being.
I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.
And if you can find out something about the laws of your own growth and vision as well as those of photography you may be able to relate the two, create an object that has a life of its own, which transcends craftsmanship. That is a long road, and because it must be your own road nobody can teach it to you or find it for you. There are no shortcuts, no rules.
The language of art is celestial in origin and can only be understood by the chosen.
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.
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