“Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist”

“I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world.”

Kate Forsyth (1966) Australian writer

“If the world were clear, art would not exist.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

“Some sort of pressure must exist; the artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world.”

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director

“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

“The mystery of the world's existence — the mystery of the emergence of self-organizing matter or the mystery of the beginning of its motion.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“Science may explain aspects of art but it will not replace the inspiration that art evokes…”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

“All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

“We do not have a complete and satisfying knowledge of the world. We are reduced to the simple conclusion that everywhere in the world there is life like ourselves and that all life is shrouded in mystery. A true acquaintance with the world consists in being filled with a sense of the mystery of existence and life. This mystery becomes only more mysterious with every advance in scientific research. To be filled with the mystery of life is like that which is called in the language of mysticism the "wise ignorance," an ignorance which is nonetheless knowledge of the essential.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

“The present painter is concerned not with his own feelings or with the mystery of his own personality but with the penetration into the world mystery. His imagination is therefore attempting to dig into metaphysical secrets. To that extend his art is concerned with the sublime. It is a religious art which through symbols will catch the basic truth of life which is its sense of tragedy.”

Barnett Newman (1905–1970) American artist