“No form of Nature is inferior to Art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.”
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
Meditations. xi. 10.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“No form of Nature is inferior to Art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.”
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
Meditations. xi. 10.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist
'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 40
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker
Quote in Edvard Munch, Hans Dedekam, Kristiana 1909, p. 4
1896 - 1930
Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist
As quoted in Hans Hofmann (2000) by James Yohe
1970s and later
“There is no nature which is inferior to art, the arts imitate the nature of things.”
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
XI, 10
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book XI
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian composer, pianist and conductor
Source: 1970s and later, Themes and Conclusions (1982), p. 188.
“Appearance should never attain reality,
And if nature conquers, then must art retire.”
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright
To Goethe, when he put Voltaire's Mahomet on the stage (1800)
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.183-4
“All art is but imitation of nature.”
Omnis ars naturae imitatio est.
Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXV: On the first cause, Line 3.
“We’re clusters of chemical reactions that contemplate deep truths about the nature of reality.”
Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)
Source: The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve (2018), p. 15