“Profound statements must be drawn by the artist from the most secret recesses of his being; there no murmuring torrent, no birdsong, no rustle of leaves can distract him.”
as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p . 232
1908 - 1920, On Mystery and Creation, Paris 1913
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Giorgio de Chirico 23
Italian artist 1888–1978Related quotes
“The plaintiff cannot dive into the secret recesses of his (the defendant's) heart.”
In Re Ward (1862), 31 Beav. 7.
The Dagger with Wings (1926)
Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), p. 271, "Being Outside"
Source: A Bachelor's Establishment (1842), Ch. I.
Context: A grocer is drawn to his business by an attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives artists away from it. We do not sufficiently study the social potentialities which make up the various vocations of life. It would be interesting to know what determines one man to be a stationer rather than a baker; since, in our day, sons are not compelled to follow the calling of their fathers, as they were among the Egyptians.
“The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.”
The Fire of Drift-wood, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
As quoted in The Artist Observed: 28 interviews with contemporary artists (1991) by John Gruen, p. 3
Context: I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.