“Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

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Friedrich Nietzsche 655

German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and cl… 1844–1900

Giovanni Baldelli (1914–1986) Anarchist theorist

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 7

“Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken the wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for his own sake.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 38
Context: Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken the wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for his own sake. What purports to be art begins to looks like an eccentric occupation for suspect characters who maintain that any personalised action is of intrinsic value simply as a display of self-will. But in an artistic creation the personality does not assert itself it serves another, higher and communal idea. The artist is always the servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of the self can only be expressed in sacrifice. We are gradually forgetting about this, and at the same time, inevitably, losing all sense of human calling.

“The art of reading consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting non essentials.”

Adolf Hitler book Mein Kampf

Source: Mein Kampf

“Art, if it is successful in the task of questioning reality, if it is good painting and not merely a performance of dexterity, will be an affirmation of God.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

Italian Report (1955).
Italian Report (1955)

“What is essential is whether it is perceived and not whether it exists. To exist and yet not to be perceived is the same as not exist.”

Gao Xingjian book Soul Mountain

Source: Soul Mountain (1989), ch. 77, p. 481

“As poetry is a species of art, its essential principle must be a specific development of the principle essential to all art; and it will merely remain for us to determine what the specific addition is, which the peculiar conditions of the poet's art make to the principle of art in general.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Art-Principle as Represented in Poetry, p.182