“The Symbol of all Art is the Prism. The goal is destructive. To break up the white light of objective realism into the secret glories it contains.”

—  E.E. Cummings

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The Symbol of all Art is the Prism. The goal is destructive. To break up the white light of objective realism into the …" by E.E. Cummings?
E.E. Cummings photo
E.E. Cummings 208
American poet 1894–1962

Related quotes

Antoni Tàpies photo

“I often told the fanatics of realism that there is no such thing as realism in art: it only exists in the mind of the observer. Art is a symbol, a thing conjuring up reality in our mental image. That is why I don't see any contradiction between abstract and figurative art either.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

Source: undated quotes, Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 – 2003,' (2004), p. 25.

Cesare Pavese photo

“We want Realism's wealth of experience and Symbolism's depth of feeling. All art is a problem of balance between two opposites.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

John Shelby Spong photo

“Above all, words must be recognized as symbolic pointers to truth, not objective containers of truth.”

John Shelby Spong (1931) American bishop

Source: Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (1994), p. 37

Felix Adler photo

“When the light of the sun shines through a prism it is broken into beautiful colours, and when the prism is shattered, still the light remains.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 8 : Suffering and Consolation
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: When the light of the sun shines through a prism it is broken into beautiful colours, and when the prism is shattered, still the light remains. So does the life of life shine resplendent in the forms of our friends, and so, when their forms are broken, still their life remains; and in that life we are united with them; for the life of their life is also our life, and we are one with them by ties indissoluble.

Walt Whitman photo

“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist
Simone Weil photo

“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees

Evelyn Waugh photo

“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Simone Weil, The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees
Misattributed

“Black and white are the colors of photography. To me, they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. Most of my photographs are of people; they are seen simply, as through the eyes of the man in the street. There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough—there has to be vision and the two together can make a good photograph. It is difficult to describe this thin line where matter ends and mind begins.”

Robert Frank (1924–2019) American photographer and filmmaker

Robert Frank, in: Nathan Lyons, Photographers on photography: a critical anthology, (1966), p. 66

Salman Rushdie photo

“Realism can break a writer's heart.”

Salman Rushdie Shame

Source: Shame

Arthur Wesley Dow photo

“Realism was the death of art.”

Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) painter from the United States

Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers, Boston (1899)

Related topics