Art

The Humanness of Art

Caveat: this post is a mental exercise, trying to work out my thinking. First a quote from Roger Scruton: “There is also the division that separates merely conscious creatures from self-conscious creatures like us. Only the second have a genuine ‘first-person’ perspective, from which to distinguish how things seem to me from how they seem to you. The creature …

The Humanness of Art Read More »

Quotable: George Steiner

The last couple paragraphs of his brilliant, The Poetry of Thought: “The radical break with the western historical past would be that of ephemerality. It would entail the deliberate acceptance of the momentary and the transient. There would be no avowed aspirations to immortality. These would be left to the French Academicians. Lines of verse …

Quotable: George Steiner Read More »

Edward Hopper, “House by the Railroad”

Personal Reflections I appreciate the way this picture captures the absurdity of American life, with its competing pulls toward material prosperity and spiritual (or aesthetic) peace (it is clear which is primary). Put in another setting, perhaps with an abundance of trees scattering the glittering sun, hedged by bushes and water, the house would be …

Edward Hopper, “House by the Railroad” Read More »

%d bloggers like this: