“There is much virtue in a window. It is to a human being as a frame is to a painting, as a proscenium to a play, as 'form' to literature. It strongly defines its content.”

—  Max Beerbohm, book Mainly on the Air

"Fenestralia" http://books.google.com/books?id=YZMhAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+much+virtue+in+a+window+It+is+to+a+human+being+as+a+frame+is+to+a+painting+as+a+proscenium+to+a+play+as+form+to+literature+It+strongly+defines+its+content%22&pg=PA147#v=onepage, Mainly on the Air (1946), The Atlantic ( April 1944 http://books.google.com/books?id=5KAGAQAAIAAJ&q=%22There+is+much+virtue+in+a+window+It+is+to+a+human+being+as+a+frame+is+to+a+painting+as+a+proscenium+to+a+play+as+form+to+literature+It+strongly+defines+its+content%22&pg=PA85#v=onepage)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There is much virtue in a window. It is to a human being as a frame is to a painting, as a proscenium to a play, as 'fo…" by Max Beerbohm?
Max Beerbohm photo
Max Beerbohm36
English writer 1872–1956

Related quotes

Ellsworth Kelly photo

“The form of my painting is the content.”

Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

as quoted in "Abstract Art", Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson 1990, p. 173
1969 - 1980

Ellsworth Kelly photo

“Instead of making a picture that was an interpretation of a thing seen, or a picture of invented content, I found an object and 'presented' it as itself alone. My first object was 'Window' [Museum of Modern Art, Paris], done in 1949. After constructed 'Window' with two canvases and a wood frame I realized that from then on painting as I had known it was finished for me. The new works were to be objects, unsigned, anonymous.”

Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

Source: 1969 - 1980, In: "Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper," 1987, pp. 9-10 : 'Notes from 1969'

Sofia Samatar photo

“The truth has its own virtue, which is separate from its content.”

Sofia Samatar book A Stranger in Olondria

Source: A Stranger in Olondria (2013), Chapter 17, “The House of the Horse, My Palace” (p. 248)

Guity Novin photo

“I never have restricted myself into a frame of a particular technique. My techniques are determined simultaneously along with the subjects of my works. It is similar to the works of a poet, the form of a poem is determined at the same time as its content.”

Guity Novin (1944) artist

Etelaat (1973), no. 14119, Thursday, June 7th, p. 7

Jerome K. Jerome photo

“Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Simone de Beauvoir photo

“The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another; it is never the given that confers superiorities: "virtue", as the ancients called it, is defined at the level of "that which depends on us."”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

In both sexes is played out the same drama of the flesh and the spirit, of finitude and transcendence; both are gnawed away by time and laid in wait for by death, they have the same essential need for one another; and they can gain from their liberty the same glory. If they were to taste it, they would no longer be tempted to dispute fallacious privileges, and fraternity between them could then come into existence.
The Second Sex (1949)

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo

“That her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out”

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie book Americanah

Source: Americanah

Ramsay MacDonald photo

“Lower forms merge into higher forms, one species with another, the vegetable into the animal kingdom; in human history one epoch slides into another…Socialism, the stage which follows Liberalism, retains everything of value in Liberalism by virtue of its being the hereditary heir of Liberalism.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Socialism and Society (1905), pp. 164-165
1900s

Jerome K. Jerome photo

“Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

"On Getting On in the World".
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Related topics