Sculpture Best Quotes

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An ice sculpture in the Sahara makes about as much sense as donkey left open gaping wagon, Sergeant (add cream cheese sparingly).
Jarod Kintz (This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks (This isn't really my best book))
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preéstablishcd harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give hint no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series)
What is the world? What is it for? It is an art. It is the best of all possible art, a finite picture of the infinite. Assess it like prose, like poetry, like architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, delta blues, opera, tragedy, comedy, romance, epic. Assess it like you would a Faberge egg, like a gunfight, like a musical, like a snowflake, like a death, a birth, a triumph, a love story, a tornado, a smile, a heartbreak, a sweater, a hunger pain, a desire, a fufillment, a desert, a waterfall, a song, a race, a frog, a play, a song, a marriage, a consummation, a thirst quenched. Assess it like that. And when you're done, find an ant and have him assess the cathedrals of Europe.
N.D. Wilson
Nonfiction at its best is like fashioning a cabinet. It can never be a sculpture. It can be elegant and very beautiful, but it can never be sculpture. Captive to facts - or predetermined form - it cannot fly.
Peter Matthiessen (The Snow Leopard)
It was all here for me, just as it has all been here for you, the best and the worst of Western Civilization, if you cared to pay attention: music, finance, government, architecture, law and sculpture and painting, history and medicine and athletics and every sort of science, and books, books, books, and teachers and role models. People so smart you can’t believe it, and people so dumb you can’t believe it. People so nice you can’t believe it, and people so mean you can’t believe it.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Timequake)
Love is fragile at best and often a burden or something that blinds us. It's fodder for poets and song writers and they build it into something beyond human capacity. Falling in love means enrolling yourself in the school of disappointment. Being human means failing each other often, and no two people fail each other more than two people who pledge to do things for each other that they'll never do because they are just incapable of it...That's why art is enduring. The look of love or hope, or the look of compassion, bravery, whatever, is captured forever. We spend our lives trying to get someone to be as enduring as a painting or a sculpture and we can't because feelings crumble as quickly as the flesh.
V.C. Andrews (Heart Song (Logan, #2))
Michelangelo said the best way to judge the essential elements of a sculpture is to throw it down a hill and the unimportant pieces will break away. Sometimes life is like that. It tosses us down a hill. But when we reach the bottom and only the important things are left, that's when our vision clears. That's when we hold on tight to what we know, while hope stirs inside us. It's all a matter of perspective.
Everwood
I made an ice sculpture that represents my love for you. It never melts.
Jarod Kintz (This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks (This isn't really my best book))
Our God was made by men, sculptured by savages who did the best they could. They made our God somewhat like themselves, and gave to him their passions, their ideas of right and wrong.
Tim Page (What's God Got to Do With It?: Robert Ingersoll on Free Thought, Honest Talk and the Separation of Church and State)
when it comes to my best asset, all I want you thinking about are these words: long, thick, smooth, hard. If the Renaissance masters were carving sculptures of cocks, mine would be the model for all of them.
Lauren Blakely (Big Rock (Big Rock, #1))
In fact, if a museum were filled with all of the world's stolen artworks, it would be the most impressive collection ever created. It would have far more Baroque sculptures, much better Surrealist paintings, and the best Greek antiquities of any known institution. A gallery of stolen art would make the Louvre seem like a small-town gallery in comparison. Experts call it the Lost Museum.
Ulrich Boser (The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft)
He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely. "I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way—I wonder will you understand me?—his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days of thought'—who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad—for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty— his merely visible presence—ah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body— how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price but which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and for the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I had always looked for and always missed.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Poetic style, when address'd to the Soul, is less definite form, outline, sculpture, and becomes vista, music, half-tints, and even less than half- tints. True, it may be architecture; but again it may be the forest wild-wood, or the best effects thereof, at twilight, the waving oaks and cedars in the wind, and the impalpable odor.
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
The best sculpture, like the head of Nefertiti, says again and again, "The Beautiful One was here, is here, and will be here, forever.
Ray Bradbury (Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You)
He had given her a book on Miriam Dassin, who was best known for her large-scale embroideries, but had also experimented with mixed-media collage and sculpture.
Jennifer Robson (The Gown)
Writing is like painting; editing is like sculpture.  Same sensibilities, different skill set.
Joni Rodgers (First You Write: The Worst Way to Become an Almost Famous Author And The Best Advice I Got While Doing It)
But not today. Today, my role focused on playing the part of the best friend. “First of all,” I said, putting my arm across her back. “I would be highly skeptical that anyone carries pitchforks with them anymore. So, I think we can cross that one off the list. But seriously, T, your sculpture is amaze-balls. They’re going to love it. Stop freaking yourself out.” Trina wiped a hand across her face and glanced over at me. “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m sure. Pitchforks went out of style in the 1800s.” Her lips quivered in a reluctant smile. “Okay, I’ll stop. Thank you for that.
Lacy Andersen (Dare You to Date the Point Guard (Rock Valley High #2))
Nor is it only as a sign of greater gentleness or refinement of mind, but as a proof of the best possible direction of this refinement, that the tendency of the Gothic to the expression of vegetative life is to be admired. That sentence of Genesis, 'I have given thee every green herb for meat,' like all the rest of the book, has a profound symbolical as well as literal meaning. It is not merely the nourishment of the body, but the food of the soul, that is intended. The green herb is, of all nature, that which is most essential to the healthy spiritual life of man. Most of us do not need fine scenery; the precipice and the mountain peak are not intended to be seen by all men, — perhaps their power is greatest. over those who are unaccustomed to them. But trees and fields and flowers were made for all, and are necessary for all. God has connected the labour which is essential to the bodily sustenance with the pleasures which are healthiest for the heart; and while He made the ground stubborn, He made its herbage fragrant, and its blossoms fair. The proudest architecture that man can build has no higher honour than to bear the image and recall the memory of that grass of the field which is, at once, the type and the support of his existence; the goodly building is then most glorious when it is sculptured into the likeness of the leaves of Paradise; and the great Gothic spirit, as we showed it to be noble in its disquietude, is also noble in its hold of nature; it is, indeed, like the dove of Noah, in that she found no rest upon the face of the waters, — but like her in this also, 'Lo, in her mouth was an olive branch, plucked off.
John Ruskin (On Art and Life (Penguin Great Ideas))
I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way--I wonder will you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days of thought'--who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad--for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty--his merely visible presence--ah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body--how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Nonfiction at its best is like fashioning a cabinet. It can be elegant and very beautiful but it can never be sculpture. Captive to facts—or predetermined forms—it cannot fly. Excepting those masters who transcend their craft—great medieval and Renaissance artisans, for example, or nameless artisans of traditional cultures as far back as the caves who were also spontaneous unselfconscious artists. As in fiction, the nonfiction writer is telling a story, and when that story is well-made, the placement of details and events is never random. The parts are not strung out in a line but come around full circle, like a necklace, to set off the others. They resonate, rekindle one another, stirring the reader with a cumulative effect. A good essay or article can and should have all the attributes of a good short story, including structure and design, pacing and effective placement of its parts—almost all the attributes of fiction except the creative imagination, which can never be permitted to enliven fact. The writer of nonfiction is stuck with objective reality, or should be; how his facts are arranged and presented is where his craft appears, and it can be dazzling when the writer is a good one. The best nonfiction has many, many virtues, among which simple truthfulness is perhaps foremost, yet its fidelity to the known facts is its fatal constraint.
Peter Matthiessen
Sophia counted six clangs of the bell before Mr. Grayson jolted fully awake. He looked up at her, startled and flushed. As though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. She smiled. Rubbing his eyes, he rose to his feet. “Will I shock you, Miss Turner, if I remove my coat?” Sophia felt a twinge of disappointment. When would he stop treating her with this forced politesse, maintaining this distance between them? How many tales of passionate encounters must she spin before he finally understood that she was no less wicked than he, only less experienced? Perhaps it was time to take more aggressive measures. “By all means, remove your coat.” She tilted her eyes to cast him a saucy look. “Mr. Grayson, I’m not an innocent schoolgirl. You will have to try harder than that to shock me.” His lips curved in a subtle smile. “I’ll take that under advisement.” She watched as he shook the heavy topcoat from his shoulders and peeled it down his arms. He draped the coat over the back of a chair before sitting back down. The damp lawn of his shirt clung to his shoulders and arms. A pleasant shiver rippled down to Sophia’s toes. “It doesn’t suit you anyway,” she said, loading her brush with paint. He gave her a bemused look as he unknotted his cravat and pulled it loose. She inwardly rejoiced. Now, if only she could convince him to do away with his waistcoat…” “The coat,” she explained, when his eyebrows remained raised. “It doesn’t suit you.” “Why not? Is the color wrong?” The sudden seriousness in his tone surprised her. “No, the color is perfectly fine. It’s the cut that’s unflattering. That style is tailored to gentlemen of leisure, lean and slender. But as you are so fond of telling me, Mr. Grayson, you are no gentleman. Your shoulders are too broad for fashion.” “Is that so?” He chuckled as he undid his cuffs. Sophia stared as he turned up his sleeves, baring one tanned muscled forearm, then the other. “What style of garments would best suit me, then?” “Other than a toga?” He rewarded her jest with an easy smile. Sophia dabbed at her canvas, pleased to be making progress at last. “I think you need something less restrictive. Something like a sailor’s garb. Or perhaps a captain’s.” “Truly?” His gaze became thoughtful, then searching. “And even dressed in plain seaman’s clothes, would you still find me handsome enough? In my own way?” “No.” She allowed his brow to crease a moment before continuing. “I should find you surpassingly handsome. In every way.” She mixed paint slowly on her palette and gave him a coy look. “And what of my attire? If you had your way, how would you dress me?” “If I had my way…I wouldn’t.” A thrill raced through Sophia’s body. Her cheeks burned, and her eyes dropped to her lap. She forced her gave back up to meet his. Now was not the moment to lose courage. Nothing held sway over a man’s intentions like jealousy. “Gervais once kept me naked for an entire day so he could paint me.” He blinked. “He painted a nude study of you?” “No. He painted me. I took off my clothes and stretched out on the bed while he dressed me in pigment. Gervais called me his perfect, blank canvas. He painted lavender orchids here”-she traced a small circle just above her breast-“and little vines twining down…” She slid her hand down and noted with delight how his eyes followed its path. “I feigned the grippe and refused to bathe for a week.” Desire and jealous rage warred in his countenance, yet he remained as immobile as one of Lord Elgin’s marble sculptures. What would it take to spur the man into action?
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
I opened the door, and there I was, on the other side of the glass. On my son’s side. The side where I should have been, long before him. I reached out my hand. I saw how my fingers shook, which was strange because I couldn’t feel the trembling, as if that were someone else’s hand, practically in the dark, reaching out. Or as if something had separated my hand from my body. I touched him. I was surprised at how cold he was. His skin had not only lost its warmth but also its elasticity. My son was icy and stiff, as if he’d been sculptured in marble and death had converted him—for all eternity—into one of the statues above the tombs of kings and nobles to remind the living of the dead who were rotting below. I slid my fingertips along the curve of his nose. I touched his lips. I stroked his cheeks. I kissed him. Goodbye, my son. Goodbye. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry I wasn’t the best mother in the world for you. The mother you deserved, the mother I didn’t know how to be. I lifted my eyes. On the other side of the glass, Mama was looking at me with tears in her eyes. Her tears had formed a streak of mist that grew like her grief
Carme Chaparro (author) (No soy un monstruo (Ana Arén, #1))
The necklace is for you either way. I just--I’ve been meaning to ask you, but I wanted to wait until things had calmed down.” Luca’s shoulders slumped a little as he looked down at the grass. He was taking her hesitation as a rejection. Cass tried to tell him yes, but what came out of her mouth was a mixture of a squeak and a whisper. She nodded her head rapidly, doing her best to fight back her tears. “I understand if you still aren’t ready.” Luca was talking to a patch of dead marigolds. He hadn’t even seen her nod. Cass cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes,” she said. This time she was slightly audible. She sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with her gloved hand. “I want to marry you. I’d like that very much.” He looked up, and Cass saw a million things reflected in his eyes--bronze sculptures, fields of wheat, wooden ships, glittering gold palazzos. The whole world. It was out there waiting for her, and she wanted to experience it with Luca. “You’d like that very much,” he repeated, as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard her right. Or perhaps he just couldn’t reconcile her answer with the tears streaming down her cheeks. Cass giggled. It came out as part laugh, part sob. “I love you,” she said. “When you first returned to Venice, you were a stranger. But now I can’t imagine being without you. I’m sorry I had to drive you away to recognize that what I want most in the world is to hold you close.” Bending down, Luca leaned his forehead against hers. Cass let her eyelids fall closed. His hair whispered across her skin as he kissed away her tears. His mouth touched each eyelid and then found her lips. He pressed one of her hands to his chest and reached out with his other to trace the curve of her cheek. His kiss was warm and sweet, with the promise of wonderful things to come.
Fiona Paul (Starling (Secrets of the Eternal Rose, #3))
Humility, Not Capability (4:1-17) Moses is presented as singularly ill-equipped for the task he is called to do. He stands before us not as a finished sculpture, modeling leadership qualities for us to follow, but rather as rough-cut stone, hewn from the same quarry from which our own humanity was hewn. Which raises a question: Why was the work of salvation entrusted to someone like that? Or why has it been entrusted to someone like us, for that matter? But maybe that’s the point. Salvation is God’s work, not ours. Incompetence may be the essential qualification, lest we presumptuously start taking over something we have no way of comprehending, let alone controlling. Our sight is limited, our steps tentative. That is how we best traverse the landscape of faith—humbly rather than capably.
Eugene H. Peterson (The Message Devotional Bible: Featuring Notes and Reflections from Eugene H. Peterson)
I must be a writer of words, and nothing else. … I do not like writing about words, because then I often use bad and wrong and stale and woolly words. What I like to do is to treat words as a craftsman does his wood or stone or what-have-you, to hew, carve, mould, coil, polish and plane them into patterns, sequences, sculptures, fugues of sound expressing some lyrical impulse, some spiritual doubt or conviction, some dimly-realised truth I must try to reach and realise. … I am a painstaking, conscientious, involved and devious craftsman in words, however unsuccessful the result so often appears, and to whatever wrong uses I may apply my technical paraphernalia, I use everything and anything to make my poems work and move them in the directions I want to… … I, myself do not read poetry for anything but pleasure. I read only the poems I like. This means, of course, that I have to read a lot of poems I don't before I find the ones I do, but, when I do find the ones I do, then all I can say is, 'Here they are', and read them to myself for pleasure. Read the poems you like reading. Don't bother whether they're 'important', or if they'll live. What does it matter what poetry is, after all? If you want a definition of poetry, say: 'Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing', and let it go at that. All that matters about poetry is the enjoyment of it, however tragic it may be. All that matters is the eternal movement behind it, the vast undercurrents of human grief, folly, pretension, exaltation, or ignorance, however unlofty the intention of the poem. You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick, and say to yourself, when the works are laid out before you, the vowels, the consonants, the rhymes or rhythms, 'Yes, this is it. This is why the poems moves me so. It is because of the craftsmanship.' But you're back again where you began. You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in.
Dylan Thomas
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People don’t see things and hear things as objectively as they might think. The visual and auditory information that enters the mind is distorted by experiences, thoughts, circumstances, wild fancies, prejudices, preferences, knowledge, awareness, and countless other workings of the mind. Pablo Picasso’s sketch of a nude man that he did at age eight is remarkable. The painting he did at age fourteen of a Catholic communion ceremony is very realistic. But later, after the shock of his best friend’s suicide, he created paintings in shades of blue that became known as the Blue Period. Then he met a new lover and created the bright and colorful works of the Rose Period. Influenced by African sculptures,
Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1))
From the women in this book, I realized that I had been broken open by becoming a mother, and it was time to build myself back up, and discover the new version of who I was becoming. I think I may be recognizing myself again, if only in short glimpses from a reflection in the glass window. By researching this book, I was inspired by the theory of metta, which is described in some Buddhist circles as mother love. Similar notions of mother love may be found in Christianity, as seen through the stories and sculptures of Mary embracing Jesus. Metta is unlike any other type of love. Because it is metta, it brings out the very best and the very worst in us. Metta is forever—there is no “happily ever after,” and there is no finish line.
Christine Woodcock (The Evolution of Us: Portraits of Mothers and Their Changing Roles)
They landed in a field with a light dusting of snow. “Middle of nowhere?” Elysia said, looking around. “Interesting choice.” “No waaaay!” Thrilled, Ferbus broke from the group and started running toward a series of objects on the horizon. Driggs snickered. “This should be fun.” As they got closer to Ferbus’s shouts of glee, the forms that had made no sense at a distance began to take shape into something that made even less sense: stacks of old automobiles, seemingly dropped from space but arranged in an undeniable pattern. “Carhenge!” Ferbus jubilantly danced through the pillars, taking it all in. “Man, you hear about it, you dream about the day you might get to see it, but it’s even better than I imagined!” Elysia blinked. “What is Carhenge?” “Don’t you get it?” said Ferbus, the grin still on his face. “It’s like Stonehenge.” He pointed. “But with cars.” The Juniors stared at him. Bang coughed. “Well,” said Uncle Mort after a moment, “as riveting as”—he consulted his atlas—“rural Nebraska is, it’s probably best that we keep moving.” Ferbus’s face fell. “But the gift shop.” Uncle Mort rubbed his temples. “Tell you what, next time we’re being chased by a murderous criminal, I’ll try to schedule in a little more time for sightseeing.” He formed the Juniors back into a circle. “Let’s not assign a designated driver this time. We’ll scythe, and whoever thinks of something first, somewhere farther east—that’s where we’ll go. Ready?” *** This time around they were greeted by the stoic faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, all wearing caps of snow. “Ooh, Mount Rushmore,” Ferbus said bitterly. “Because dead presidents are so much more fascinating than the subtle, delicate art of automotive sculpture.” “East!” Uncle Mort said, exasperated. “Not north!
Gina Damico (Scorch (Croak, #2))
See, I have this theory that humans are just living, breathing, talking forms of art, each crafted with a different technique and carved out of different materials. Each beautiful in their own way. And sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and totally subjective, and changes depending on your circumstance, yada-yada-yada… but most of the time, it’s pretty easy to classify people. Like, okay, you know those women who are gorgeous and never know it? Or the men who pass quietly through life, handsome and unnoticed, never begging for attention or crying out for recognition? Those are your watercolors. And the loud, vivacious, gorgeous-and-they-know-it creatures, with bright lipstick and closets full of bold colors and outfits they never wear twice? Acrylics. The graceful, elegant, aging beauties you pick out in the crowd, or across the cafe, the lines on their faces telling a story you just know you’d want to hear, with so many layers and smudges, twists and turns, you’re not even sure where they begin? Charcoals. Then, you’ve got the big-picture-beautiful people, with the collection of interesting features that together make a beautiful face. They’re your oil paintings — best from ten feet away and, at the end of the day, kind of funny looking if you lean closer and analyze all their elements separately. But I’m quickly learning that Chase Croft doesn’t fit any of my categories. He isn’t a brushstroke on canvas, or bumpy layers of paint on a palette, or imperfect lines scratched inside a sketchbook. His features aren’t just gorgeous as a collective — he’s one of those annoyingly attractive people whose every feature is equally stunning. He’s a sculpture.
Julie Johnson
The Parthenon was 228 feet long by 101 broad, and 64 feet high; the porticoes at each end had a double row of eight columns; the sculptures in the pediments were in full relief, representing in the eastern the Birth of Athene, and in the western the Struggle between that goddess and Poseidon, whilst those on the metopes, some of which are supposed to be from the hand of Alcamenes, the contemporary and rival of Phidias, rendered scenes from battles between the Gods and Giants, the Greeks and the Amazons, and the Centaurs and Lapithæ. Of somewhat later date than the Parthenon and resembling it in general style, though it is very considerably smaller, is the Theseum or Temple of Theseus on the plain on the north-west of the Acropolis, and at Bassæ in Arcadia is a Doric building, dedicated to Apollo Epicurius and designed by Ictinus, that has the peculiarity of facing north and south instead of, as was usual, east and west. Scarcely less beautiful than the Parthenon itself is the grand triple portico known as the Propylæa that gives access to it on the western side. It was designed about 430 by Mnesicles, and in it the Doric and Ionic styles are admirably combined, whilst in the Erectheum, sacred to the memory of Erechtheus, a hero of Attica, the Ionic order is seen at its best, so delicate is the carving of the capitals of its columns. It has moreover the rare and distinctive feature of what is known as a caryatid porch, that is to say, one in which the entablature is upheld by caryatides or statues representing female figures. Other good examples of the Ionic style are the small Temple of Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, situated not far from the Propylæa and the Parthenon of Athens, the more important Temple of Apollo at Branchidæ near Miletus, originally of most imposing dimensions, and that of Artemis at Ephesus, of which however only a few fragments remain in situ. Of the sacred buildings of Greece in which the Corinthian order was employed there exist, with the exception of the Temple of Jupiter at Athens already referred to, but a few scattered remains, such as the columns from Epidaurus now in the Athens Museum, that formed part of a circlet of Corinthian pillars within a Doric colonnade. In the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, designed by Scopas in 394, however, the transition from the Ionic to the Corinthian style is very clearly illustrated, and in the circular Monument of Lysicrates, erected in 334 B.C. to commemorate the triumph of that hero's troop in the choric dances in honour of Dionysos, and the Tower of the Winds, both at Athens, the Corinthian style is seen at its best. In addition to the temples described above, some remains of tombs, notably that of the huge Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in memory of King Mausolus, who died in 353 B.C., and several theatres, including that of Dionysos at Athens, with a well-preserved one of larger size at Epidaurus, bear witness to the general prevalence of Doric features in funereal monuments and secular buildings, but of the palaces and humbler dwelling-houses in the three Greek styles, of which there must have been many fine examples, no trace remains. There is however no doubt that the Corinthian style was very constantly employed after the power of the great republics had been broken, and the Oriental taste for lavish decoration replaced the love for austere simplicity of the virile people of Greece and its dependencies. CHAPTER III
Nancy R.E. Meugens Bell (Architecture)
So on matters of faith," continued the Chinaman, the student of Confucius, "it is pride that causes error and discord among men. As with the sun, so it is with God. Each man wants to have a special God of his own, or at least a special God for his native land. Each nation wishes to confine in its own temples Him, whom the world cannot contain. "Can any temple compare with that which God Himself has built to unite all men in one faith and one religion? "All human temples are built on the model of this temple, which is God's own world. Every temple has its fonts, its vaulted roof, its lamps, its pictures or sculptures, its inscriptions, its books of the law, its offerings, its altars and its priests. But in what temple is there such a font as the ocean; such a vault as that of the heavens; such lamps as the sun, moon, and stars; or any figures to be compared with living, loving, mutually-helpful men? Where are there any records of God's goodness so easy to understand as the blessings which God has strewn abroad for man's happiness? Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart? What sacrifices equal the self-denials which loving men and women make for one another? And what altar can be compared with the heart of a good man, on which God Himself accepts the sacrifice? "The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him. And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him, imitating His goodness, His mercy, and His love of man. "Therefore, let him who sees the sun's whole light filling the world, refrain from blaming or despising the superstitious man, who in his own idol sees one ray of that same light. Let him not despise even the unbeliever who is blind and cannot see the sun at all." So spoke the Chinaman, the student of Confucius; and all who were present in the coffee-house were silent, and disputed no more as to whose faith was the best.
Leo Tolstoy (What Men Live By and Other Tales)
There are really only two types of men in this world when it comes to bad trouble,' Andy said cupping a match between his hands and lighting a cigarette. 'Suppose there was a house full of rare paintings and sculptures and fine old antiques, Red? And suppose the guy who owned the house heard that there was a monster of a hurricane headed right at it. One of those two kinds of men just hopes for the best. The hurricane will change course, he says to himself. No right-thinking hurricane would ever dare wipe out all the Rembrandts, my two Degas horses, my Jackson Pollocks and my Paul Klees. Furthermore, God wouldn't allow it. And worst comes to worst, they're insured. Thats's one sort of man. The other sort just assumes that the hurricane is going to tear right though the middle of his house. If the weather bureau says the hurricane just changed course, this guy assumes it'll change back in order to put his house on ground zero again. This second type of guy knows there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.
Stephen King (The Shawshank Redemption: Different Seasons)
remarkable. The painting he did at age fourteen of a Catholic communion ceremony is very realistic. But later, after the shock of his best friend’s suicide, he created paintings in shades of blue that became known as the Blue Period. Then he met a new lover and created the bright and colourful works of the Rose Period. Influenced by African sculptures, he became part of the cubist movement. Then he turned to a neoclassical style, continued on to surrealism, and eventually painted the famous works The Weeping Woman and Guernica.
Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Before the Coffee Gets Cold)
When Rodin created The Thinker, perhaps one of the best-known public sculptures in the world, he gave physical form to his own proprioceptive imagination. A nude man, whom Rodin meant to represent all poets, all artists, all inventors, sits upon a rock in tense and intense contemplation. “What makes my Thinker think,” Rodin wrote, “is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils, and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes.
Robert Root-Bernstein (Sparks of Genius: The 13 Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People)
For the past twenty minutes Keith had been explaining to Jackson Crane his philosophy of art, and how this was reflected in his own practice. "I would say I don't really have a /medium/, you know? Painting, photography, poetry, sculpture - I've mastered them all. It's not for me to call myself a Renaissance man, but. . ." He shrugged. "It has been said. Really if I had to say what my art was /about/, though, it's a celebration of the female form but also a rumination on the gaze. That's why I only use the body, not the head, so they're not looking backing at you - there's a purity there, you know? /In the looking./ Power in anonymity. I want to confront the viewer - but I'm posing questions. The viewer has to answer those questions themselves . . .
Ellery Lloyd (The Club)
No matter who you are or what you’ve accomplished, if you’re working for someone else, you must always have humility about your role. Try looking at it like this: When you’re hired to play background music, you’re essentially filling the same role as an ice sculpture. Sure, you’re playing music, but you’re meant to blend in as atmosphere. No one throws a party and thinks, “Man, I’d really like to bring in an ice sculpture that shows up late and half-sculpted, refuses to pose in place and keeps sliding around, and then demands to be compensated in full despite pulling a premature meltdown and leaving before the night’s over.” Similarly, no one throws a party and hopes that the hired musical performer arrives without a suit, refuses to turn down the volume after being asked twice, and then insists at the last second on being paid in cash instead of by check because rent is due. If you agree to be an ice sculpture, be the best damn ice sculpture you can be.
Scott Bradlee (Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession into My Dream Gig)
Jenna, you are halfway to freedom from Wayne. A few more months and you can hand him back to us, and not have to deal with him anymore. If you launch this business with him, you are locked in, day in and day out, for a minimum of four or five years. And really, can you imagine him really helping at these events? I just see him knocking over ice sculptures, and tipping over cakes, and generally being a bull in the china shop everywhere he goes. A bull on steroids. With an inner ear imbalance. On roller skates." "Enough, lawdouche, she gets it." "I know. But again, Wayne is pretty clear that his area here would be identifying and helping land clients, and consulting on thematic details and event brainstorming, and keeping up with all industry aspects of the target market." "You mean going to movies, reading comics, and playing video games." "Yep, something like that." "You can't really be thinking you are going to do this." "I can be thinking that. And I'm pretty sure that the only opinion I asked you for on this was legal ramifications and financial obligations. I don't really care about your personal opinions." "Well, that hurts my feelings, because I still care about you on a personal level, and I think this is a huge mistake for you personally." I wait for my heart to race, for the sweats to start, for my colon to twist itself into a pretzel. And when none of that happens, I look at Brian. "I think, that being the case, that perhaps you ought to speak to your partners about who might be the best attorney to work with me moving forward." "You're firing me? Because I care about you?" "I'm firing you because I need an attorney who is less personally interested in the decisions I make. I'm a big girl, and I have a dad. And clearly, this is no longer a good fit. I'll appreciate a call from the other partners by the end of the week with a plan that I can review." "Seriously, I feel like you've completely lost your mind!" "Careful, Brian. At the moment, I'm asking you be removed from my account. However uncomfortable that may be for you with your partners, I assume you would rather that, than having to explain why I'm leaving the firm entirely. And I will be advising Wayne to shift to the same person I am with, obviously, for convenience." His chiseled jaw snaps shut, and while I can see a dozen retorts on the tip of his tongue, he doesn't speak. "Thank you. I'll review this further, and will discuss my decision with my new attorney. You'll get formal word from Wayne on his choice soon, I'm sure.
Stacey Ballis (Out to Lunch)
I went into the dining-room, where four covered pots of soup stood on the table, and moved over to the bookshelves to the left of the fireplace. Here I kept two or three dozen works on architecture and sculpture, and a hundred or so plain texts of the standard English and French poets, stopping chronologically well short of our own day: Mallarmé and Lord de Tabley are my most modern versifiers. I have no novelists, finding theirs a puny and piffling art, one that, even at its best, can render truthfully no more than a few minor parts of the total world it pretends to take as its field of reference. A man has only to feel some emotion, any emotion, anything differentiated at all, and spend a minute speculating how this would be rendered in a novel—not just the average novel, but the work of a Stendhal or a Proust—to grasp the pitiful inadequacy of all prose fiction to the task it sets itself. By comparison, the humblest productions of the visual arts are triumphs of portrayal, both of the matter and of the spirit, while verse—lyric verse, at least—is equidistant from fiction and life, and is autonomous.
Kingsley Amis (The Green Man)
And the main thing that was wrong was that everything seemed to have gotten just a little worse, or at best remained the same. You would have predicted that at least a few facets of everyday life would improve markedly in twenty-two years. Her father contended the War was behind it all: any person who showed a shred of talent was sucked up by UNEF; the very best fell to the Elite Conscription Act and wound up being cannon fodder. It was hard not to agree with him. Wars in the past often accelerated social reform, provided technological benefits, even sparked artistic activity. This one, however, seemed tailor-made to provide none of these positive by-products. Such improvements as had been made on late-twentieth-century technology were—like tachyon bombs and warships two kilometers long—at best, interesting developments of things that only required the synergy of money and existing engineering techniques. Social reform? The world was technically under martial law. As for art, I’m not sure I know good from bad. But artists to some extent have to reflect the temper of the times. Paintings and sculpture were full of torture and dark brooding; movies seemed static and plotless; music was dominated by nostalgic revivals of earlier forms; architecture was mainly concerned with finding someplace to put everybody; literature was damn near incomprehensible. Most people seemed to spend most of their time trying to find ways to outwit the government, trying to scrounge a few extra K’s or ration tickets without putting their lives in too much danger. And in the past, people whose country was at war were constantly in contact with the war. The newspapers would be full of reports, veterans would return from the front; sometimes the front would move right into town, invaders marching down Main Street or bombs whistling through the night air—but always the sense of either working toward victory or at least delaying defeat. The enemy was a tangible thing, a propagandist’s monster whom you could understand, whom you could hate. But this war...the enemy was a curious organism only vaguely understood, more often the subject of cartoons than nightmares. The main effect of the war on the home front was economic, unemotional-more taxes but more jobs as well. After twenty-two years, only twenty-seven returned veterans; not enough to make a decent parade. The most important fact about the war to most people was that if it ended suddenly, Earth’s economy would collapse.
Joe Haldeman (The Forever War (The Forever War, #1))
If you are asked to build a castle, don't build it out of sand by the ocean, don't build it out of ice in the middle of summer. Build it with the best materials, with the best design, and with the intention to make it last the passing of time. That castle ought to be your legacy.
F. A. Barillas
IT has been said that pottery is not a medium that can express any very significant concept; that the technical processes which necessarily follow the artist’s work blur his line and color, destroying fine differences and taking away from the immediacy of his touch; that it is at its best when it is anonymous form and color; that in “personal” ceramics gaiety, decorativeness, and fantasy can survive but not much else; and that quite apart from the limitations of size and surface the ceramic equivalent of a “Guernica” is unthinkable. And in this particular case it has also been said that in the course of years the dispersion of Picasso’s energy over some thousands of minor objects encouraged his facility and, by sapping his concentration, did lasting damage to his creative power. This seems to me to overstate the case: but although I love many of the Picasso vases, figurines, and dishes I have seen I think few people would place his ceramics on the same level as his drawing, painting, or sculpture. It may be that he did not intend to express more than in fact he did express: or it may be that Picasso was no more able to perform the impossible than another man—that neither he nor anyone else could do away with the inherent nature of baked clay. Yet even if one were to admit that pottery cannot rise much above gaiety, fantasy, and decoration (and there are Sung bottles by the thousand as evidence to the contrary, to say nothing of the Greek vases), what a range is there! Picasso certainly thought it wide enough, and he worked on and on, learning and innovating among the wheels, the various kilns, and the damp mounds of clay in the Ramiés’ Madoura pottery, taking little time off for anything except some studies of young Claude, a certain number of lithographs and illustrations, particularly for Reverdy’s Le Chant des Morts, and for Góngora. He had always valued Góngora and this selection
Patrick O'Brian (Picasso: A Biography)
Designers study aesthetics for years in order to make these industrial products the equivalent of moving sculpture. That’s why, in some ways, aesthetics is the ultimate design problem. Aesthetics involves human emotion—and we’ve discovered that when emotions are involved, design thinking has proved to be the best problem-solving tool.
Bill Burnett (Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life)