Would that we could at once paint with the eyes! In the long way from the eye through the arm to the pencil, how much is lost!
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for direct expression of visual imagination without the loss in translation to physical mediums.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing reflects on the frustrations of translating visual sensations and emotions into art. He muses that the intricate process of moving an image from perception through the arm to the pencil inherently results in a loss of the original vision, suggesting that a more immediate way to capture these images would enhance artistic expression.
In practice
An artist could quote this during a gallery opening to express the challenges of their creative process.
Why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this world? Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge? Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest? Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?
The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes
Absolute truth belongs to Thee alone.
Pleasures, riches, honor and joy are sure to have care, disgrace, adversity and affliction in their train. There is no pleasure without pain, no joy without sorrow. O the folly of expecting lasting felicity in a vale of tears, or a paradise in a ruined world.
It is not the truth that a man possesses, or believes that he possesses, but the earnest effort which he puts forward to reach the truth, which constitutes the worth of a man
Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.
I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.
A poem is a naked person... Some people say that I am a poet.
When I was in high school, I felt totally alienated from the world, but I loved movies. They were my escape, but coming from a disadvantaged community, I never knew that filmmaking was an option for me. A program like School of Doc would have been a game-changer.
I am not an actress. I can only play me - on and off the screen.
Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.