The Aristos (1964)
Context: The artefacts of a genius are distinguished by rich human content, for which he forges new images and new techniques, creates new styles. He sees himself as a unique eruption in the desert of the banal. He feels himself mysteriously inspired or possessed. The craftsman, on the other hand, is content to use the traditional materials and techniques. The more self-possessed he is, the better craftsman he will be. What pleases him is skill of execution. He is very concerned with his contemporary success, his market value. If a certain kind of political commitment is fashionable, he may be committed; but out of fashion, not conviction. The genius, of course, is largely indifferent to contemporary success; and his commitment to his ideals, both artistic and political, is profoundly, Byronically, indifferent to their contemporary popularity. <!-- no. 61
Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 12 : Schumann: Triumph and Failure of the Romantic Ideal
Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert (2006)
Context: Herzog by his example gave me a model for the film artist: fearless, driven by his subjects, indifferent to commercial considerations, trusting his audience to follow him anywhere. In the 38 years since I saw my first Herzog film, after an outpouring of some 50 features and documentaries, he has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular.
Garimella Subramaniam in: A musical colossus http://hindu.com/2004/07/06/stories/2004070603272000.htm, The Hindu, 6 July 2004.
On Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1831)
“Politeness is organized indifference.”
Tel Quel (1943)
K.L. Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants: A History to the end of Indenture in 1920, (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1962).
Letter to Dorothy Miller February 5, 1952; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 193
1950s
“His calls for justice were lost at the mercy of the wind and human indifference.”
Source: Daughter of Fortune
