Artistic Creation: Call for Comments and Commentaries

02/10/2015

All works of art are commissioned, in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will, but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him...

In matter of artistic creation, there is no absolute point of view from which "real" and "ideal" can be finally separated and labelled...

12/30/2014

Every speech constitutes an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Otherwise said, language appears to be a process of free creation - its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation...

J.K.Rowling at Harvard Commencement. Read the transcript of her speech: bit.ly/1zeUPfA

11/10/2014

In making a speech one must study three points. First, the means of producing persuasion. Second, the language. Third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

Meryl Streep speaks at Barnard College, Columbia University Commencement 2010. Running transcript of speech included. An American actress who has worked in t...

11/08/2014

Whatever exists is far off and most profound - who can discover it?
Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it...

'Rembrandt: The Late Works' has arrived. Book your place now: http://ow.ly/CUd9k

The exhibition features many of Rembrandt’s self-portraits, including this ‘Self-portrait as the Apostle Paul’, the only painting in which Rembrandt depicted himself assuming the role of a biblical figure.

09/19/2014

Good to remember: "The camera introduces us to unconscious optics, as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses" (Walter Benjamin).

09/19/2014

So to speak: "The painter constructs, the photographer discloses" (Susan Sontag).

09/17/2014

Style is art...
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth...

08/16/2014

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
In order to experience everyday spirituality, we need to remember that we are spiritual beings spending some time in a human body.

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies...

08/06/2014

Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
Human beings must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

"Oh! Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it."
--Lady Windermere from "Lady Windermere's Fan"

06/24/2014

Photography: Challenges and Perspectives...
Almost any photographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. So to speak, he can give us the creative fact - the fertile fact, the fact that suggests and engenders.

Annie Leibovitz discusses her new book, "Pilgrimage," which explores the places where the people who have inspired her have worked. The book includes the hom...

05/05/2014

The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading, but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

Mr. King, author of over 350 written works, is the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a...

03/14/2014

What transforms this world is knowledge. Consequently, nothing else can change anything in this world.
Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

At her Harvard commencement speech, "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling offers some powerful, heartening advice to dreamers and overachievers, including one hard-won lesson that she deems "worth more than any qualification I ever earned."