Illustration Artist Quotes

The modern artist is working with space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.

Inking is meditation in liquid form...

Allowing artist-illustrators to control the design and content of statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose.

An illustration is an enlargement, and interpretation of the text, so that the reader will comprehend the words better. As an artist, you are always serving the words. You must never illustrate exactly what is written. You must find a space in the text so that the pictures can do the work. Then you must let the words take over where words do it best. It’s a funny kind of juggling act.

I hope the artist who illustrates this work will take care to do justice to his portrait. Mr. Clive himself, let that painter be assured, will not be too well pleased if his countenance and figure do not receive proper attention.

This is for everyone who has ever looked at the stars, or gazed from atop a hill, or across the sea and wondered...

The true purpose of illustrated journaling [is] to celebrate your life. No matter how small or mundane or redundant, each drawing and little essay you write to commemorate an event or an object or a place makes it all the more special.

Children need to see themselves in books. They need to see their gender. They need to see their color, hair texture, their disability, themselves. Picture books are like many children’s first introduction to the world. Seeing yourself is almost like a message. It’s saying, you matter, you are visible, and you’re valuable

I never drew a picture of anything that was before me but always from fancy, a sure sign of the absence of artistic eyesight; and I illustrated my lack of real feeling for art by a very early speech: 'Mama,' said I, 'I have drawed a man. Shall I draw his soul now?

faith must believe without discussion, and the stronger it is, the more it keeps silent.

In fact, I do not believe there is an honest man alive without some pretension,

He had seen her painted sign by the road: Skin Illustration! Illustration instead of tattoo! Artistic!

It was an irresistible development of modern illustration (so largely photographic) that borders should be abandoned and the "picture" end only with the paper. This method may be suitable for for photographs; but it is altogether inappropriate for the pictures that illustrate or are inspired by fairy-stories. An enchanted forest requires a margin, even an elaborate border. To print it coterminous with the page, like a "shot" of the Rockies in Picture Post, as if it were indeed a "snap" of fairyland or a "sketch by our artist on the spot", is a folly and an abuse.

I thought that if I couldn’t make a living as an artist, at least I shouldn’t starve. By the time I had finished these studies, I had realized that I simply did not draw well enough to be the kind of artist and illustrator that I wanted to be, and so for two days a week over two years I drew — and drew and drew — from the models in the life classes at Chelsea School of Art. I really found out how people looked and moved and balanced, and though nowadays I almost never use a sketchbook and just make everything up as I go along, it’s those days in the life room that are the back of it all.

In the case of Michel Angelo we have an artist who with brush and chisel portrayed literally thousands of human forms; but with this peculiarity, that while scores and scores of his male figures are obviously suffused and inspired by a romantic sentiment, there is hardly one of his female figures that is so,—the latter being mostly representative of woman in her part as mother, or sufferer, or prophetess or poetess, or in old age, or in any aspect of strength or tenderness, except that which associates itself especially with romantic love. Yet the cleanliness and dignity of Michel Angelo's male figures are incontestable, and bear striking witness to that nobility of the sentiment in him, which we have already seen illustrated in his sonnets.

All the products of one period have something in common; the artists who illustrate the poetry of their generation are the same artists who are employed by the big financial houses. And nothing reminds me so much of the monthly parts of Notre-Dame de Paris, and of various books by Gérard de Nerval, that used to hang outside the grocer's door at Combray, than does, in its rectangular and flowery border, supported by recumbent river-gods, a 'personal share' in the Water Company.

Alice recalled one of the books Dylan had read to her, a collection of Japanese fairytales. In one, a woman artist practiced kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. There'd been an illustration of a woman bent over a pile of broken pottery pieces, laid out to fit together, with a fine paintbrush in her hand, its bristles dipped in gold. It had enchanted Alice, the idea that breakage and repair were part of the story, not something to be disdained or disguised.

Art is the reflection of pure emotion and mind, the nature of sensation. An artist illustrates that.

The simultaneous existence and shared residence of such opposite moods and feelings is well-illustrated by Franz Schubert's assertion that whenever he sat down to write songs of love he wrote songs of pain, and whenever he sat down to write songs of pain he wrote songs of love.

Although we couldn’t entertain on the same level we had previously enjoyed, we did have several friends over for dinner and managed to cook some delectable meals. For Mama’s birthday, we made a delicious chilled artichoke soup to accompany a French Provencal chicken dish served with leeks, rice, and John’s special green salad. We poured a classic white Burgundy and topped it off with a frozen lemon souffle. Not too bad for an out-of-work couple with a new baby.

To be an artist means to invite an occupation into your life that requires commitment and hard work, but the rewards and satisfaction you’ll get make the work seem like play. But you have to do it every day.

I cannot waste my time teaching mediocrity," to J. Henry Harper, when he quit teaching an open-to-all illustrating class at Drexel Institute... from Where Your Heart Is...The Story of Harvey Dunn, Artist. page 32.

I always feel the greatest bliss when I recollect those I have caught in my snares, for they generally are insolent, and so self-conceited that they challenge wit. We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised for a fool is covered with steel and it is often very hard to find his vulnerable part. In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man.

Happy are those who know how to obtain pleasures without injury to anyone; insane are those who fancy that the Almighty can enjoy the sufferings, the pains, the fasts and abstinences which they offer to Him as a sacrifice, and that His love is granted only to those who tax themselves so foolishly.

- You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity too.

When I received my glossy black invitation in the mail a few days later, I could feel my heart swell with excitement. “Hef’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Party,” it read. On the front was a beautiful pinup illustration by famed artist Olivia De Berardinis and inside was a small piece of paper with directions. It was like Cinderella finally scoring an invitation to the ball—except instead of arriving by horse-drawn carriage, we would board a shuttle at a UCLA parking garage.

One of my dad’s colleagues said, “She wants to paint with her shit. Maybe we should give her paints.” And it worked.’ Mary Barnes eventually became a celebrated and much-exhibited artist. Her paintings were greatly admired throughout the 1960s and 1970s for illustrating the mad, colourful, painful, exuberant, complicated inner life of a schizophrenic.

I have had friends who have acted kindly towards me, and it has been my good fortune to have it in my power to give them substantial proofs of my gratitude.

Death is a monster which turns away from the great theatre an attentive hearer before the end of the play which deeply interests him, and this is reason enough to hate it. All

Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom. Should

Oh, cruel ennui! It must be by mistake that those who have invented the torments of hell have forgotten to ascribe thee the first place among them.

Miss, I'd gladly pay you to remove your clothes.

Sometimes I defy flower anatomy & other times I try and replicate it intricately!

Sometimes when I am painting large flowers, I imagine that I am the bee.

Repeated elements encourage comparison of like objects and force our eye to follow from one element to the next, even when those elements only share slight similarities.

Dissimilarity is central to creating variety.

All the products of one period resemble one another; the artists who illustrate the poetry of their generation are the same artists who are employed by the big financial houses.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium

Creating a world within the imagination one day at a time through words and colors.

The errors caused by temperament are not to be corrected, because our temperament is perfectly independent of our strength: it is not the case with our character. Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved. I

Almost all men are over anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor and on they go as their fathers went before them till weary and sick at heart they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood.

All of Dostoevsky’s heroes question themselves as to the meaning of life. In this they are modern: they do not fear ridicule. What distinguishes modern sensibility from classical sensibility is that the latter thrives on moral programs and the former on metaphysical programs. In Dostoevsky’s novels the question is propounded with such intensity that it can only invite extreme solutions. Existence is illusory or it is eternal. If Dostoevsky were satisfied with this inquiry, he would be a philosopher. But he illustrates the consequences that such intellectual pastimes may have in a man’s life, and in this regard he is an artist.

G. K. Chesterton wrote in Charles Dickens, that The Pickwick Papers was neither a good novel nor a bad novel but in fact ‘not a novel at all.’ He believed it was “something nobler than a novel”. Certainly it was never conceived as a novel but merely as the letterpress to accompany the “cockney sporting plates”. Unfortunately Robert Seymour committed suicide after the first two instalments so the third one was undertaken by Robert Buss whose work Dickens did not like and consequently the task fell to Hablot Knight Browne, who took the name “Phiz” and continued an artistic relationship with Dickens, illustrating many of his novels.

The Yellow House has never left the artist’s estate. Since 1962, it has been held by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, established by the artist’s nephew, and is permanently housed in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

You are kind to painters, and I tell you, the more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. You will say that then it would be a good thing to do without art and artists.

exchanging pictures with other artists. In one word, with much energy, with a sincere personal feeling of colour in nature I would say an artist can get on here notwithstanding the many obstructions. And I intend remaining here still longer.

Trade is slow here. The great dealers sell Millet, Delacroix, Corot, Daubigny, Dupré, a few other masters at exorbitant prices. They do little or nothing for young artists. The second class dealers contrariwise sell those at very low prices.

The point is that you have here a direct, unmistakable assault on sanity and decency; and even - since some of Dali’s pictures would tend to poison the imagination like a pornographic postcard - on life itself. What Dali has done and what he has imagined is debatable, but in his outlook, his character, the bedrock decency of a human being does not exist. He is as anti-social as a flea. Clearly, such people are undesirable, and a society in which they can flourish has something wrong with it. Now, if you showed this book, with its illustrations, to Lord Elton, to Mr. Alfred Noyes, to The Times leader writers who exult over the “eclipse of the highbrow” - in fact, to any “sensible” art-hating English person - it is easy to imagine what kind of response you would get. They would flatly refuse to see any merit in Dali whatever. Such people are not only unable to admit that what is morally degraded can be æsthetically right, but their real demand of every artist is that he shall pat them on the back and tell them that thought is unnecessary. And they can be especially dangerous at a time like the present, when the Ministry of Information and the British Council put power into their hands. For their impulse is not only to crush every new talent as it appears, but to castrate the past as well. Witness the renewed highbrow-baiting that is now going on in this country and America, with its outcry not only against Joyce, Proust and Lawrence, but even against T. S. Eliot. But if you talk to the kind of person who can see Dali’s merits, the response that you get is not as a rule very much better. If you say that Dali, though a brilliant draughtsman, is a dirty little scoundrel, you are looked upon as a savage. If you say that you don’t like rotting corpses, and that people who do like rotting corpses are mentally diseased, it is assumed that you lack the æsthetic sense. Since “Mannequin rotting in a taxicab” is a good composition. And between these two fallacies there is no middle position, but we seldom hear much about it. On the one side Kulturbolschewismus: on the other (though the phrase itself is out of fashion) “Art for Art’s sake.” Obscenity is a very difficult question to discuss honestly. People are too frightened either of seeming to be shocked or of seeming not to be shocked, to be able to define the relationship between art and morals. It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people. Just pronounce the magic word “Art,” and everything is O.K.

But if Gauguin and his Jewish bankers came tomorrow and asked me for no more than 10 pictures for a society of dealers, and not a society of artists, on my word I do not know if I’d have confidence in it, though I would willingly give 50 to a society of artists.

The descent of sport into spectacle is not unique to the age of genetic engineering. But it illustrates how performance-enhancing technologies, genetic or otherwise, can erode the part of athletic and artistic performance that celebrates natural talents and gifts.

Beneath their strict conventionalisation one could grasp the minute and accurate observation and graphic skill of the artists; and indeed, the very conventions themselves served to symbolise and accentuate the real essence or vital differentiation of every object delineated.

I am of opinion that the only foreboding in which man can have any sort of faith is the one which forbodes evil, because it comes from the mind, while a presentiment of happiness has its origin in the heart, and the heart is a fool worthy of reckoning foolishly upon fickle fortune.

I was fortunate in having Charles Vess, to my mind the finest fairy artist since Arthur Rackham, as the illustrator of Stardust, and many times I found myself writing scenes – a lion fighting a unicorn, a flying pirate ship – simply because I wanted to see how Charles would paint them.

Poor Gauguin has no luck. I am very much afraid that in his case convalescence will last even longer than the fortnight which he has had to spend in bed. My God! Shall we ever see a generation of artists with healthy bodies! Sometimes I am perfectly furious with myself, for it isn’t good enough to be either more or less ill than the rest; the ideal would be a constitution tough enough to live till eighty, and besides that, blood in one’s veins that would be right good blood. It would be some comfort, however, if one could think that a generation of more fortunate artists was to come.

You must not go there in too anemic or enervated a condition, if you set a value on coming out of it stronger. I do not consider it a great misfortune for you to be obliged to be a soldier, but rather as a very serious trial from which you will emerge - if you emerge at all - a very great artist.

But what would Monsieur Tersteeg say about this picture when he said before a Sisley - Sisley, the most discreet and gentle of the impressionists - “I can’t help thinking that the artist who painted that was a little tipsy.” If he saw my picture, he would say that it was delirium tremens in full swing.

I hate death; for, happy or miserable, life is the only blessing which man possesses, and those who do not love it are unworthy of it. If we prefer honour to life, it is because life is blighted by infamy; and if, in the alternative, man sometimes throws away his life, philosophy must remain silent. Oh,

I always feel the greatest bliss when I recollect those I have caught in my snares, for they generally are insolent, and so self-conceited that they challenge wit. We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised for a fool is covered with steel and it is often very hard to find his vulnerable part. In

The private umbrella is father's favorite figure to illustrate the old way when everybody lived for himself and his family. There is a nineteenth century painting at the Art Gallery representing a crowd of people in the rain, each one holding his umbrella over himself and his wife, and giving his neighbors the drippings, which he claims must have been meant by the artist as a satire on his times.

There is such a place as fairyland-but only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and must be evermore exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.

I suppose that really I had a training or education not so very different from a lot of other artists and illustrators — it’s just that I didn’t have it in the normal order. When I was at school I liked drawing, and I liked anything to do with humor, and I liked writing too. When I was about fourteen, I was lucky enough to be introduced to a man who both painted pictures and drew cartoons for newspapers and magazines, including Punch, the most famous English humorous magazine at the time. He was called Alfred Jackson and every few months I would take him a collection of my drawings to look at. Now I look back and realize these were in fact lessons or tutorials, and what was especially good about them was that he talked not only about the cartoonists’ drawings in Punch at the time, but also about Michelangelo and Modigliani as well.

Moore has been noted for the number of appositeness, as well as novelty of his similes; and the renown thus acquired is indicial of his deficiency in that noble merit- the noblest of all. No poet thus distinguished was ever richly ideal. Pope and Cowper are instances. Direct similes are of too palpably artificial a character to be artistical. An artist will always contrive to weave his illustrations into the metaphorical form.

In these times there is a powerful demarcation between the surface and the deep currents of human development. Events and upheavals, which seem more profound than they really are, are happening on the surface. But there is another and deeper change in progress. It is of long, steady persistent growth, very little affected and not at all disturbed by surface conditions. The artist of today should be alive to this deeper evolution on which all growth depends, has depended and will depend. On the surface there is the battle of institutions, the illustration of events, the strife between peoples. On the surface there is propaganda and there is the effort to force opinions. The deeper current carries no propaganda. The shock of the surface upheaval does not deflect it from its course. It is in search of fundamental principle; that basic principle of all, which in degree as it is apprehended points the way to beauty and order, and to the law of nature.

A good exercise session leaves an athlete person gasping for air, sweating, and exhausted, and so is writing and drawing for writers and artists, but the brain is what pants and feels exhaustion. Writing and drawing are a great mental effort that equals tiring physical training. When you write and draw, you need to use all your brain muscles to transfer your ideas into the paper. Concentration, knowledge, experience, creativity, imagination, all unite, trying hard to finish a text or an art piece.

There is a striking sketch from the late 1830s by transcendentalist artist and writer Christopher Pearse Cranch that was made to illustrate the concept of the “transparent eye-ball” in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Nature. Emerson felt that nature was the closest we can get to experiencing God, and he believed that in order to truly appreciate nature, you must not only look at it and admire it, but also be able to feel it taking over the senses. The transparent eyeball absorbs—rather than reflects—what it perceives:

Their dancing was simple and expert and reminded her of something one of her art teachers told her about bad artists taking something simple and making it seem complicated while good artists took something very complex and made it seem simple. The couple was an illustration of this rule; the dance seemed barely to qualify for the term--in essence they seemed merely to be walking, slowly in lockstep. They would stop occasionally, the woman led into a simple ocho and then resume their slow, meditative procession. They seemed, to Rosalind's untrained eye, to be under a spell.

A lot of excellent illustrators are working at the moment--especially in fantasy and children's books. It is exciting also to see graphic artists such as Dave McKean, in his film Mirrormask, moving between different media. I also greatly admire the more traditional work of Gennady Spirin and Roberto Innocenti. Kinuko Craft, John Jude Palencar, John Howe, Charles Vess, Brian Froud ... I'll stop there, as the list would get too long. But--in a fit of pride and justified nepotism--I'll add my daughter, Virginia Lee, to the list. Her first illustrated children's book, The Frog Bride [coming out in the U.K. in September, 2007], will be lovely.

Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their— “Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten. “How far did you get?” Quentin said. He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment. I ignored that he’d snuck up on me again, just this once. There was a bigger issue at play. In the book was an illustration of the group done up in bold lines and bright colors. There was Sun Wukong at the front, dressed in a beggar’s cassock, holding his Ruyi Jingu Bang in one hand and the reins of the Dragon Horse in the other. A scary-looking pig-faced man and a wide-eyed demon monk followed, carrying the luggage. And perched on top of the horse was . . . me. The artist had tried to give Xuanzang delicate, beatific features and ended up with a rather girly face. By whatever coincidence, the drawing of Sun Wukong’s old master could have been a rough caricature of sixteen-year-old Eugenia Lo from Santa Firenza, California. “That’s who you think I am?” I said to Quentin. “That’s who I know you are,” he answered. “My dearest friend. My boon companion. You’ve reincarnated into such a different form, but I’d recognize you anywhere. Your spiritual energies are unmistakable.” “Are you sure? If you’re from a long time ago, maybe your memory’s a little fuzzy.” “The realms beyond Earth exist on a different time scale,” Quentin said. “Only one day among the gods passes for every human year. To me, you haven’t been gone long. Months, not centuries.” “This is just . . . I don’t know.” I took a moment to assemble my words. “You can’t walk up to me and expect me to believe right away that I’m the reincarnation of some legendary monk from a folk tale.” “Wait, what?” Quentin squinted at me in confusion. “I said you can’t expect me to go, ‘okay, I’m Xuanzang,’ just because you tell me so.” Quentin’s mouth opened slowly like the dawning of the sun. His face went from confusion to understanding to horror and then finally to laughter. “mmmmphhhhghAHAHAHAHA!” he roared. He nearly toppled over, trying to hold his sides in. “HAHAHAHA!” “What the hell is so funny?” “You,” Quentin said through his giggles. “You’re not Xuanzang. Xuanzang was meek and mild. A friend to all living things. You think that sounds like you?” It did not. But then again I wasn’t the one trying to make a case here. “Xuanzang was delicate like a chrysanthemum.” Quentin was getting a kick out of this. “You are so tough you snapped the battleaxe of the Mighty Miracle God like a twig. Xuanzang cried over squashing a mosquito. You, on the other hand, have killed more demons than the Catholic Church.” I was starting to get annoyed. “Okay, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” If he thought I was the pig, then this whole deal was off. “You’re my weapon,” he said. “You’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang.” I punched Quentin as hard as I could in the face.

J. M. W. Turner is regarded by many as Britain’s greatest artist, whose works have become iconic symbols of the Romantic art movement. He became known as ‘the painter of light’, due to his increasing interest in brilliant colours and the contrast between light and dark in his many landscapes and seascapes. Turner was born on 23 April 1775 in London. His father, William Turner (1745-1829), was a barber and wig maker and his mother, Mary Marshall, came from a family of butchers. In 1785, his mother suffered from severe mental illness and was admitted first to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in Old Street in 1799 and then Bethlem Hospital in 1800, where she died four years later.

Albert Einstein, considered the most influential person of the 20th century, was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. His parents thought he was retarded. He spoke haltingly until age nine. He was advised by a teacher to drop out of grade school: “You’ll never amount to anything, Einstein.” Isaac Newton, the scientist who invented modern-day physics, did poorly in math. Patricia Polacco, a prolific children’s author and illustrator, didn’t learn to read until she was 14. Henry Ford, who developed the famous Model-T car and started Ford Motor Company, barely made it through high school. Lucille Ball, famous comedian and star of I Love Lucy, was once dismissed from drama school for being too quiet and shy. Pablo Picasso, one of the great artists of all time, was pulled out of school at age 10 because he was doing so poorly. A tutor hired by Pablo’s father gave up on Pablo. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the world’s great composers. His music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.” Wernher von Braun, the world-renowned mathematician, flunked ninth-grade algebra. Agatha Christie, the world’s best-known mystery writer and all-time bestselling author other than William Shakespeare of any genre, struggled to learn to read because of dyslexia. Winston Churchill, famous English prime minister, failed the sixth grade.

We should expect artists to be more sensitive and more open to abstract thoughts and ideas. If they are more open, they should be capable of tapping into the mystical static that is bouncing around the collective ether. True inspiration is a mystery, and any artist can describe how getting lost in this zone can create a sort of timeless trance where things just flow magically. An artist’s best work comes from a mindless place, unhindered by logic and intellect. This could be the concert violinist standing on stage, or the illustrator hunched over in the corner with a sketchbook. Although it almost always falls short, the Hollywood machine is continually trying to come up with the next UFO-themed product. But where do these ideas come from?

During an interlude of peace in 1802, a consortium of patrons clubbed together to send Turner to Paris, in order to study in the Louvre. To begin with, he embarked on a tour of the Alps, whose sublime beauty and constant climatic change taught the young artist the awesome scale and mutability of nature. The Alpine tour resulted in some spectacular watercolours and oil paintings. Although he never witnessed an avalanche himself, an account of a devastating one in the Grisons prompted Turner to create the following painting in 1810. The tragic event occurred at Selva, killing twenty-five people. The canvas depicts huge rocks, driven before the weight of snow, crashing down upon a small chalet. Turner opted to portray not a single human figure, concentrating on the unparalleled might of nature instead.

Van Gogh completed two series of still life paintings of sunflowers. The earlier series was executed in Paris in 1887, depicting the flowers lying on the ground, while the second series was undertaken a year later in Arles, portraying bouquets of sunflowers in a vase. Van Gogh had hoped to welcome and impress his artist friend Gauguin with a Sunflowers work, which he hung in the guestroom of his Yellow House where Gauguin stayed. In a letter to his brother Theo, van Gogh wrote, “It is a kind of painting that rather changes in character, and takes on a richness the longer you look at it. Besides, you know, Gauguin likes them extraordinarily. He said to me among other things, ‘That...it’s...the flower.’ You know that the peony is Jeannin’s, the hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is somewhat my own.

Now, as it were, the Olympic magic mountain reveals itself and shows us its roots. The Greek knew and felt the terror and horrors of existence: in order to be able to live at all, he must have placed in front of him the gleaming dream birth of the Olympians. That immense distrust of the titanic forces of nature, that Moira [Fate]enthroned mercilessly above everything which could be known, that vulture of the great friend of man, Prometheus, that fatal lot of wise Oedipus, that family curse on the House of Atreus, which compelled Orestes to kill his mother, in short, that entire philosophy of the woodland god, together with its mythical illustrations, from which the melancholy Etruscans died off — that was overcome time after time by the Greeks, or at least hidden and removed from view, through the artistic middle world [Mittelwelt] of the Olympians.

Vincent’s House in Arles (The Yellow House) This painting depicts the right wing of 2 Place Lamartine, Arles, France — the house van Gogh rented in May 1888. The window on the first floor near the corner with both shutters open is the artist’s guest room, where Gauguin lived for nine weeks later in the same year. Behind the next window, with one shutter closed, is van Gogh’s bedroom. Van Gogh depicts the restaurant, where he used to have his meals, in the building painted pink close to the left edge of the painting. To the right side of the Yellow House, the Avenue Montmajour runs down to the two railway bridges. The first line, with a train just passing, served the local connection to Lunel, which is on the opposite bank of the river Rhône. Sadly, the building was severely damaged in a bombing raid by the Allies on June 25, 1944 and was later demolished.

A lovely home atmosphere is one of the flowers of the world, than which there is nothing more tender, nothing more delicate, nothing more calculated to make strong and just the natures cradled and nourished within it. Those who have never experienced such a beneficent influence will not understand wherefore the tear springs glistening to the eyelids at some strange breath in lovely music. The mystic chords which bind and thrill the heart of the nation, they will never know. Hurstwood’s residence could scarcely be said to be infused with this home spirit. It lacked that toleration and regard without which the home is nothing. There was fine furniture, arranged as soothingly as the artistic perception of the occupants warranted. There were soft rugs, rich, upholstered chairs and divans, a grand piano, a marble carving of some unknown Venus by some unknown artist, and a number of small bronzes gathered from heaven knows where, but generally sold by the large furniture houses along with everything else which goes to make the “perfectly appointed house.

Several years ago, I was invited to deliver a lecture on art and literature to the Tinworth Historical Society. While searching in the attic for a treatise of mine written during my student days at the Sorbonne, I came upon a large, dust-and-cobweb-covered trunk bearing the initials W.W. which I had never before noticed. Inside were stacks of paper tied in neat bundles and a large quantity of fascinating memorabilia - faded flowers, old invitations, scraps of satin, velvet and lace, postage stamps, jewelry, postcards from foreign capitals. The variety was endless. As I examined several bundles of paper more carefully, I realized I was holding a collection of drawings by Amelia Woodmouse, a promising young artist and a member of the family who had lived in the house at the turn of the century. From the delightful portraits and paintings depicting the life around her, and the accumulation of personal mementos, it was obvious that the artist had begun her collection in order to compile a family album, which for some reason, sadly, she never completed.

... The influence of the Pre-Raphaelites was felt less through their paintings than through a book, The Poems of Tennyson, edited by Moxon and wonderfully illustrated by Rossetti and Millais. The influence on Maeterlinck stems less from the poems themselves than from the illustrations. The revival of illustrated books in the last two years of the century derives from this Tennyson, the books printed at William Morris' press, the albums of Walter Crane. These last two and the ravishing little books for children by Kate Greenaway were heralded by Huysmans as early as 1881. Generally speaking, it is the English Aesthetic Movement rather than the Pre-Raphaelites which influenced the Symbolists, a new life-style rather than a school of painting. The Continent, passing through the Industrial Revolution some fifty years after England, found valuable advice on how to escape from materialism on the other side of the Channel. Everything that one heard about the refinements practised in Chelsea enchanted Frenchmen of taste: furniture by Godwin, open-air theatricals by Lady Archibald Campbell, the Peacock Room by Whistler, Liberty prints. As the pressure of morality was much less pronounced in France than in England, the ideal of Aestheticism was not a revolt but a retreat towards an exquisite world which left hearty good living to the readers of the magazine La Vie Parisienne ('Paris Life') and success to the readers of Zola. If one could not write a beautiful poem or paint a beautiful picture, one could always choose materials or arrange bouquets of flowers. Aesthetic ardour smothered the anglophobia in the Symbolist circle. The ideal of a harmonious life suggested in Baudelaire's poem L' Invitation au Voyage seemed capable of realization in England, whose fashions were brought back by celebrated travellers: Mallarmé after 1862, Verlaine in 1872. Carrière spent a long time in London, as did Khnopff later on. People read books by Gabriel Mourey on Swinburne, and his Passé le Détroit ('Beyond the Channel') is particularly important for the artistic way of life ... Thus England is represented in this hall of visual influences by the works of Burne-Jones and Watts, by illustrated books, and by objets d'art ...

p.cm. Includes indexes.ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-6278-7 (soft cover) ISBN-10: 0-7360-6278-5 (soft cover) 1. Hatha yoga.2. Human anatomy.I.Title.RA781.7. K356 2007 613.7’046--dc22 2007010050 ISBN-10: 0-7360-6278-5 (print) ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-6278-7 (print) ISBN-10: 0-7360-8218-2 (Adobe PDF) ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-8218-1 (Adobe PDF) Copyright © 2007 by The Breathe Trust All rights reserved. Except for use in a review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, and in any information storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. Acquisitions Editor: Martin Barnard Developmental Editor: Leigh Keylock Assistant Editor: Christine Horger Copyeditor: Patsy Fortney Proofreader: Kathy Bennett Graphic Designer: Fred Starbird Graphic Artist: Tara Welsch Original Cover Designer: Lydia Mann Cover Revisions: Keith Blomberg Art Manager: Kelly Hendren Project Photographer: Lydia Mann Illustrator (cover and interior): Sharon Ellis Printer: United Graphics Human Kinetics books are available at special discounts for bulk purchase. Special editions or book excerpts

Completed in Arles late in 1888 and now housed in the National Gallery, London, this painting depicts the artist’s humble chair and pipe. The work was completed shortly after Gauguin’s departure from the Yellow House. The two artists had quarrelled bitterly, causing Gauguin to write to Theo, “The incompatibility of both our characters means that Vincent and I cannot live together peacefully. It is imperative that I leave.” Vincent was devastated, seeing his dreams of establishing an artists’ commune with Gauguin shatter and disappear. In response, he painted his and Gauguin’s empty chairs, symbolising the loneliness and isolation that he felt. Van Gogh’s wooden chair is more modest, with the pipe and tobacco adding to its humble image; whilst Gauguin’s more elaborate chair, holding a book and candle, suggests learning and ambition. Van Gogh’s choice of colours for his chair include yellow and violet, hinting at daylight and a metaphorical idea of hope for the future. In contrast, Gauguin’s chair is depicted in darker colours of red and green, which along with the candle, enforce the idea of night-time. Together, the pictures represent day and night, with the painting of Gauguin’s chair suggesting that the absent friend had brought light and happiness to van Gogh’s evenings.

The poetical term fête galante refers to a new genre of paintings and drawings that blossomed in the early 18th century during the [French] Regency period (1715-1723) and whose central figure was Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Inspired by images of bucolic merrymaking in the Flemish tradition, Watteau and his followers created a new form, with a certain timelessness, characterised by greater subtlety and nuance. These depict amorous scenes in settings garlanded with luxuriant vegetation, real or imaginary: idealised dancers, women and shepherds are shown engaged in frivolous pursuits or exchanging confidences. The poetical and fantastical atmospheres that are a mark of his work are accompanied by a quest for elegance and sophistication characteristic of the Rococo movement, which flourished during the Age of Enlightenment, evidenced in his flair for curved lines and light colours. The flexibility of the fête galante theme proved to be an invitation to experimentation and innovation, and the genre was to inspire several generations of artists, occupying a central place in French art throughout the 18th century. Works by other highly creative painters, such as François Boucher (1703-1770) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), illustrate their very personal visions of the joys of the fête galante as first imagined by Watteau.

Before art school, I approached art as though it illustrated social relations and history, upholding or denouncing the political status quo. During my years in art school I increasingly concentrated on visual meaning, on how artwork looked—its composition, its color, its artist’s style, as separate from what it said about society. Critics call a preoccupation with appearance that ignores social meaning formalism, which carries a negative taint these days when formalism divorces art from the power relations surrounding its creation and circulation. Coming from the Left, I began as an anti-formalist. But as a maker of art, I moved toward formalism as I sought to discover processes of how art was made, a move prompted by the neglect of the formal qualities of the work of black artists, assumed to be important only according to the degree to which it critiqued American racism. Where Romare Bearden had figured in my mind as celebrating blackness and black Harlem, I now investigated how he made his work, step by step, how he decided what to depict and how to depict it. I was now seeing my father’s prized Sharecropper, by Elizabeth Catlett, which he bought from her in her studio in Mexico, less as a salute to black workers and more as a masterly lino print. From the opposite starting point, my relationship to Warhol encapsulated my trajectory.

This is why, where art is concerned, the most interesting thing would be to infiltrate the spongiform encephalon of the modern spectator, For this is where the mystery lies today: in the brain of the receiver, at the nerve centre of this servility before 'works of art'. What is the secret of it? In the complicity between the mortification 'creative artists' inflict on objects and themselves, and the mortification consumers inflict on themselves and their mental faculties. Tolerance for the worst of things has clearly increased considerably as a function of this general state of complicity. Interface and performance - these are the two current leitmotifs. In performance, all the forms of expression merge - the plastic arts, photography, video, installation, the interactive screen. This vertical and horizontal, aesthetic and commercial diversification is henceforth part of the work, the original core of which cannot be located. A (non-) event like The Matrix illustrates this perfectly: this is the very archetype of the global installation, of the total global fact: not just the film, which is, in a way, the alibi, but the spin-offs, the simultaneous projection at all points of the globe and the millions of spectators themselves who are inextricably part of it. We are all, from a global, interactive point of view, the actors in this total global fact.

Mental Accounting Alarm clocks and Christmas clubs are external devices people use to solve their self-control problems. Another way to approach these problems is to adopt internal control systems, otherwise known as mental accounting. Mental accounting is the system (sometimes implicit) that households use to evaluate, regulate, and process their home budget. Almost all of us use mental accounts, even if we’re not aware that we’re doing so. The concept is beautifully illustrated by an exchange between the actors Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman in one of those extra features offered on DVDs. Hackman and Hoffman were friends back in their starving artist days, and Hackman tells the story of visiting Hoffman’s apartment and having his host ask him for a loan. Hackman agreed to the loan, but then they went into Hoffman’s kitchen, where several mason jars were lined up on the counter, each containing money. One jar was labeled “rent,” another “utilities,” and so forth. Hackman asked why, if Hoffman had so much money in jars, he could possibly need a loan, whereupon Hoffman pointed to the food jar, which was empty. According to economic theory (and simple logic), money is “fungible,” meaning that it doesn’t come with labels. Twenty dollars in the rent jar can buy just as much food as the same amount in the food jar. But households adopt mental accounting schemes that violate fungibility for the same reasons that organizations do: to control spending. Most organizations have budgets for various activities, and anyone who has ever worked in such an organization has experienced the frustration of not being able to make an important purchase because the relevant account is already depleted. The fact that there is unspent money in another account is considered no more relevant than the money sitting in the rent jar on Dustin Hoffman’s kitchen counter.

it is helpful to keep in mind three ways in which we can know something. The first is by way of theoretical statements. We can learn a lot by listening to a lecture. In this mode of knowing, we endeavor to abstract from the particulars of the case and grasp what is essential to it. Although the lecturer might use examples or illustrations to aid comprehension, the primary mode of delivery is by way of statements and arguments made up out of abstract notions. Another way we can know something is by what we might call the way of doing. There’s real know-how that comes from doing something, especially when we do something so much that our experience of it becomes rich and varied. For example, our sweet, humble Aunt Emily knows a lot about the virtue of humility by having lived humility over many years. Her theoretical knowledge of humility—her knowledge of humility by way of universal statements and arguments—may be nil. She may have never studied moral theology. If asked to give a definition of humility, she would probably be at a loss. And yet, it’s undeniable that Aunt Emily has a real understanding of what it means to be humble, an experiential knowledge embodied in her habitually humble acts. And by imitating Aunt Emily’s humility, we can proceed along this way of doing as well. The third way of knowing is by what we might call the way of showing. By “showing,” I mean the activities of the artistic imagination. A movie is a kind of showing, as is a play. But there are other kinds of showing that do not involve performance either live or recorded. A novel is a kind of showing, as is a poem, as is a short story. These latter arts are showings in the sense that they, just like a movie or play, offer us images of human beings doing things. And whether a showing is performance-based or text-based, it attempts—as we so often say about a work of art—to “say” something. It offers us the experience of something meaningful.

Linguistic and musical sound systems illustrate a common theme in the study of music-language relations. On the surface, the two domains are dramatically different. Music uses pitch in ways that speech does not, and speech organizes timbre to a degree seldom seen in music. Yet beneath these differences lie deep connections in terms of cognitive and neural processing. Most notably, in both domains the mind interacts with one particular aspect of sound (pitch in music, and timbre in speech) to create a perceptually discretized system. Importantly, this perceptual discretization is not an automatic byproduct of human auditory perception. For example, linguistic and musical sequences present the ear with continuous variations in amplitude, yet loudness is not perceived in terms of discrete categories. Instead, the perceptual discretization of musical pitch and linguistic timbre reflects the activity of a powerful cognitive system, built to separate within-category sonic variation from differences that indicate a change in sound category. Although music and speech differ in the primary acoustic feature used for sound category formation, it appears that the mechanisms that create and maintain learned sound categories in the two domains may have a substantial degree of overlap. Such overlap has implications for both practical and theoretical issues surrounding human communicative development. In the 20th century, relations between spoken and musical sound systems were largely explored by artists. For example, the boundary between the domains played an important role in innovative works such as Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Reich's Different Trains (cf. Risset, 1991). In the 21st century, science is finally beginning to catch up, as relations between spoken and musical sound systems prove themselves to be a fruitful domain for research in cognitive neuroscience. Such work has already begun to yield new insights into our species' uniquely powerful communicative abilities.

Interestingly enough, creative geniuses seem to think a lot more like horses do. These people also spend a rather large amount of time engaging in that favorite equine pastime: doing nothing. In his book Fire in the Crucible: The Alchemy of Creative Genius, John Briggs gathers numerous studies illustrating how artists and inventors keep their thoughts pulsating in a field of nuance associated with the limbic system. In order to accomplish this feat against the influence of cultural conditioning, they tend to be outsiders who have trouble fitting into polite society. Many creative geniuses don’t do well in school and don’t speak until they’re older, thus increasing their awareness of nonverbal feelings, sensations, and body language cues. Einstein is a classic example. Like Kathleen Barry Ingram, he also failed his college entrance exams. As expected, these sensitive, often highly empathic people feel extremely uncomfortable around incongruent members of their own species, and tend to distance themselves from the cultural mainstream. Through their refusal to fit into a system focusing on outside authority, suppressed emotion, and secondhand thought, creative geniuses retain and enhance their ability to activate the entire brain. Information flows freely, strengthening pathways between the various brain functions. The tendency to separate thought from emotion, memory, and sensation is lessened. This gives birth to a powerful nonlinear process, a flood of sensations and images interacting with high-level thought functions and aspects of memory too complex and multifaceted to distill into words. These elements continue to influence and build on each other with increasing ferocity. Researchers emphasize that the entire process is so rapid the conscious mind barely registers that it is happening, let alone what is happening. Now a person — or a horse for that matter — can theoretically operate at this level his entire life and never receive recognition for the rich and innovative insights resulting from this process. Those called creative geniuses continuously struggle with the task of communicating their revelations to the world through the most amenable form of expression — music, visual art, poetry, mathematics. Their talent for innovation, however, stems from an ability to continually engage and process a complex, interconnected, nonlinear series of insights. Briggs also found that creative geniuses spend a large of amount of time “doing nothing,” alternating episodes of intense concentration on a project with periods of what he calls “creative indolence.” Albert Einstein once remarked that some of his greatest ideas came to him so suddenly while shaving that he was prone to cut himself with surprise.

God Is The Artist Of Your Landscape Will things always work out in the way you hope and want? Of course not! You are not the illustrator of your life painting. God has all the hues and brush strokes worked out. The painting He is creating, thanks to the struggle He has given you, is a masterpiece.

Americans might be the loneliest, most desperate, and intensely depressed culture that ever existed. Americans’ ability to own their houses, drive their own cars, and sit alone in front of their televisions sets and personal computer screens results in inconspicuous Americans living largely in isolation of one another. Insulated Americans understandably crave a sense of shared experience, a means to cross the universe, to be part of a chain of love. Americans yearn for social contact. The broad halo effect proffered by music enables lonely people to feel linked to the artist as well as connected to other fans of the appreciated musician. For many Americans, the circle of life begins and ends with a musical accompaniment, because music exemplifies what they feel in their hearts, what they perceive with their eyes and mind, personifies their ring of doubts and fears, voices the illustrative majesty of their hopes, and shares with other people the splendor of their most vivid dreams. The collective intones of music exemplifies the cultural nimbus of Americans’ auspicious spirituality.

Intellectual Fascism – 2/3 Take, by way of illustration, two well-educated, presumably liberal, intelligent people in our culture who are arguing with each other about some point. What, out of irritation and disgust, is one likely to call the other? A "filthy black," a "dirty Jew bastard," or a "black-eyed runt"? Heavens, no. But a "stupid idiot," a "nincompoop," a "misinformed numbskull"? By all means, yes. And will the note of venom, of utter despisement that is in the detractor's voice, be any different from that in the voice of the out-and-out fascist with his racial, religious, and political epithets? Honestly, now: will it? Suppose the individual against whom a well-educated, presumably liberal, intelligent person aims scorn actually is stupid, or misinformed. Is this a crime? Should he, perforce, curl up and die because he is so afflicted? Is she an utterly worthless, valueless blackguard for not possessing the degree of intelligence and knowledge that her detractor thinks she should possess? And yet - let us be ruthlessly honest with ourselves, now! - isn't this exactly what the presumably liberal person is saying and implying - that the individual whose traits she dislikes doesn't deserve to live? Isn't this what we (for it is not hard to recognize our own image here, is it?) frequently are alleging when we argue with, criticize, and judge others in our everyday living? The facts, in regard to higher-order fascism, are just as clear as those in regard to lower-order prejudice. For just as everyone in our society cannot be, except through the process of arbitrary genocide or "eugenic" elimination, Aryan, or tall, or white, so cannot everyone be bright, or artistically talented, or successful in some profession. In fact, even if we deliberately bred only higher intelligent and artistically endowed individuals to each other, and forced the rest of the human race to die off, we still would be far from obtaining a race of universal achievers: since, by definition, topflight achievement can only be attained by a relatively few leaders in most fields of endeavour, and is a "relative" rather than an "absolute" possibility. The implicit goals of intellectual fascism, then, are, at least in today's world, impractical and utopian. Everyone cannot be endowed with artistic or intellectual genius; only a small minority can be. And if we demand that all be in that minority, to what are we automatically condemning those who clearly cannot be? Obviously: to being blamed and despised for their "deficiencies"; to being lower-class citizens; to having self-hatred and minimal self-acceptance. Even this, however, hardly plumbs the inherent viciousness of intellectual fascism. For whereas lower-order or politico-economic fascism at least serves as a form of neurotic defensiveness for those who uphold its tenets, higher-order fascism fails to provide such defences and actually destroys them. Thus, politico-social fascists believe that others are to be despised for not having certain "desirable" traits - but that they are not to be applauded for having them. From a psychological standpoint, they compensate for their own underlying feelings of inadequacy by insisting that they are super-adequate and those who are not like them are subhumans. Intellectual Fascists start out with a similar assumption but more often than not get blown to bits by their own homemade explosives. For although they can at first assume that they are bright, talented, and potentially achieving, they must eventually prove that they are. Because, in the last analysis, they tend to define talent and intelligence in terms of concrete achievement, and because outstanding achievement in our society is mathematically restricted to a few, they rarely can have real confidence in their own possession of the values they have "arbitrarily deified".

TWO FORMS OF IMAGINATION The imaginative faculty functions in two forms. One is known as "synthetic imagination," and the other as "creative imagination." SYNTHETIC IMAGINATION: Through this faculty, one may arrange old concepts, ideas, or plans into new combinations. This faculty creates nothing. It merely works with the material of experience, education, and observation with which it is fed. It is the faculty used most by the inventor, with the exception of the who draws upon the creative imagination, when he cannot solve his problem through synthetic imagination. CREATIVE IMAGINATION:-Through the faculty of creative imagination, the finite mind of man has direct communication with Infinite Intelligence. It is the faculty through which "hunches" and "inspirations" are received. It is by this faculty that all basic, or new ideas are handed over to man. It is through this faculty that thought vibrations from the minds of others are received. It is through this faculty that one individual may "tune in," or communicate with the subconscious minds of other men. The creative imagination works automatically, in the manner described in subsequent pages. This faculty functions ONLY when the conscious mind is vibrating at an exceedingly rapid rate, as for example, when the conscious mind is stimulated through the emotion of a strong desire. The creative faculty becomes more alert, more receptive to vibrations from the sources mentioned, in proportion to its development through USE. This statement is significant! Ponder over it before passing on. Keep in mind as you follow these principles, that the entire story of how one may convert DESIRE into money cannot be told in one statement. The story will be complete, only when one has MASTERED, ASSIMILATED, and BEGUN TO MAKE USE of all the principles. The great leaders of business, industry, finance, and the great artists, musicians, poets, and writers became great, because they developed the faculty of creative imagination. Both the synthetic and creative faculties of imagination become more alert with use, just as any muscle or organ of the body develops through use. Desire is only a thought, an impulse. It is nebulous and ephemeral. It is abstract, and of no value, until it has been transformed into its physical counterpart. While the synthetic imagination is the one which will be used most frequently, in the process of transforming the impulse of DESIRE into money, you must keep in mind the fact, that you may face circumstances and situations which demand use of the creative imagination as well.

The comic strip is no longer the comic strip, but in reality an illustrated novel. It is new and raw in form just now, but material for limitless intelligent development. And eventually and inevitably it will a legitimate medium for the best writers and artists. It is already the embryo of a new art form.

Book Descriptions: Amazon Rainforest Magic: The Adventures of Namowë, a Yanomami Boy, Volume 1 The magic of the Amazon rainforest enchanted artist Barbara Crane Navarro as she spent the winter months with the Yanomami communities in Venezuela and Brazil over a period of twelve years and inspired her to write her children's book series. The vividly illustrated stories in this series evoke daily life in the rainforest and the magical quality of the Yanomami's relation to the plants and animals around them. The first book, "Amazon Rainforest Magic: The Adventures of Namowë, a Yanomami Boy", recounts the journey of Namowë, a thirteen year old Yanomami boy living in the rainforest, as he seeks a cure for his baby sister. Amazon Rainforest Magic: The Adventures of Meromi, a Yanomami Girl, Volume 2 The second volume recounts the surprising voyage of Meromi, a 9 year old Yanomami girl who is swept into an unexpected adventure in the rivers and jungles of the Amazon. With the help of improvised allies, she seeks a way to discourage intruders and make them leave the forest. Aspects of traditional Yanomami life in the Rainforest are woven into the fanciful story. The author’s enchanting illustrations transform readers into fellow travelers on Meromi’s magical quest.

the love of Francesca and Paolo, often essayed by artists, yet never rendered, even by Ary Scheffer, as Dante would have had it, and as it was rendered here. There were no vulgarities of a fabled Hell; there were the two, alone in that true torture — Ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria —  yet happy, because together. Her face and form were in full light, his in shadow. Heart beating against heart, their arms round each other, they looked down into each other’s eyes. On his face were the fierce passions, against which he had had no strength, mingled with deep and yearning regret for the fate he had drawn in with his own. On hers, lifted up to him, was all the love at sight of which he who beheld it “swooned even as unto death;” the love — — placer si forte, Che come vedi ancor non m’abbandona — the love which made hell, paradise; and torture together, dearer than heaven alone.

Here are to be seen all the varied colors which Bierstadt and Church endeavor to represent in their mountain scenery. A journey across and around them on foot and upon horseback will well repay the tourist or artist. The air is pure and fragrant, and as exhorting as the purist wine; the climate entrancingly mild; the sky clear, and blue as the most beautiful sapphire, with here and there clouds of rarest loveliness, presenting to the eye the richest commingling of bright and varied colors; delightful odors are constantly being wafted by; while forests, filled with the mockingbird, the colibri, the hummingbird, and the thrush, constantly put forth a joyful chorus, and all combine to fill the soul with visions of delight and enhance the perfection and glory of the creation. Strong indeed must be the unbelief which can here contemplate nature in all her purity and glory, and unawed by the sublimity of this closely-connected testimony, question either the Divine origin or purpose of the beautiful firmament.

Denmark was the world’s largest exporter of beer in 1972. An illustration showed how Ålborg’s infrastructure was likely to look in 1990: subway, a raised monorail around a city that the artist seemed to have modeled on something taken from the Liseberg Amusement Park. Mass transport by helicopter. Winter envied that era’s faith in the future.

We may not stay quick, If we are weak or sage, but a lot can squeak As we start to age.

They record thoughts and overheard conversations, as well as maps of their personal paths, phone numbers for hotels, restaurant recommendations, airline flight numbers. Eventually,

When a work of painting, music or other form attains two-way communication, it is truly art. One occasionally hears an artist being criticized on the basis that his work is too 'literal' or too 'common.' But one has rarely if ever heard any definition of 'literal' or 'common.' And there are many artists simply hung up on this, protesting it. Also, some avant-garde schools go completely over the cliff in avoiding anything 'literal' or 'common'—and indeed go completely out of communication! The return flow from the person viewing a work would be contribution. True art always elicits a contribution from those who view or hear or experience it. By contribution is meant 'adding to it.’ An illustration is 'literal' in that it tells everything there is to know. Let us say the illustration is a picture of a tiger approaching a chained girl. It does not really matter how well the painting is executed, it remains an illustration and it is literal. But now let us take a small portion out of the scene and enlarge it. Let us take, say, the head of the tiger with its baleful eye and snarl. Suddenly we no longer have an illustration. It is no longer 'literal.' And the reason lies in the fact that the viewer can fit this expression into his own concepts, ideas or experience: he can supply the why of the snarl, he can compare the head to someone he knows. In short, he can CONTRIBUTE to the head. The skill with which the head is executed determines the degree of response. Because the viewer can contribute to the picture, it is art. In music, the hearer can contribute his own emotion or motion. And even if the music is only a single drum, if it elicits a contribution of emotion or motion, it is truly art.

SELF PORTRAIT, 1799 In this early self portrait we can note the subtle blend of light and dark, illuminating the face of the young twenty-four year old artist. Dating from around 1799, the painting was most likely intended to mark Turner’s election as a full member of the Royal Academy, a momentous occasion for any aspiring artist. This meant that he could now exhibit his works on the walls of the Academy without fear of rejection by any members of the committee. Despite his relative youth, Turner had already made a name for himself as an original, accomplished painter with the technical abilities of someone many years more experienced. He had been described in London newspapers as an artist that ‘seems thoroughly to understand the mode of adjusting and applying his various materials’ and ‘their effect in oil or on paper is equally sublime’. The portrait, which is now housed in Tate Britain, depicts a confident young man, who stares assertively at the viewer, hinting at his ambitions and skilled abilities as an artist.