Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known
Source: The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Topic
Michelangelo paints with brains, not hands; Keats insists that if poetry does not come naturally it had better not come at all. La Bruyère distinguishes the mediocre mind that thinks it writes divinely from the good mind that merely thinks it writes reasonably. Gibran traces art from the obvious to the concealed; Burroughs calls literature an investment of genius with dividends to all subsequent times. Shaw's claim that without art the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable is the strongest argument here. The collection takes art seriously as a necessity rather than an ornament — something that does work in the world that nothing else can do. Lawrence adds the dimension of relationship: art reveals the connection between a person and their environment.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese
Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.