Aphorisms, after reading Plato

Art is a form of discovery.

Where knowledge ends, art begins.

At the limit of seeing, a universe unfolds.

Facility will never blunder into a new world.

There is no evolution in art, just a succession of different artists.

What is behind the painting? What is inside the artist? What is inside us as human beings?

“Who are we, where have we come from, where are we going?” Gauguin)

What is the now?

If time stops in a picture, is that moment infinite?

If memory exists, why not a glimpse of the future?

Socrates claimed artists are possessed by a divine madness — inspiration.

Manet, described by his model, worked in a mad attack everywhere on the canvas at once.

The speed of the eye’s idea has been glimpsed in the work of photographers. It is as brief as a second, maybe a fraction thereof.

Paint for money and you will have money.

If you would study, study what you do. There is a truth and magic to each person.

The deepest things are the most protected property we own. Most people would prefer to remain private.

Art is essentially a profound vulnerability. You open yourself to view, and feel criticism will follow, but people appreciate you instead for speaking up for them, for showing the way.

What is this way we are curious about? Why does it stun us to see certain paintings? Why have we woken up? Why were we sleeping before?

The mind returns to elaborate, but the idea comes all at once.

The most difficult part is the waiting.

While we are waiting, the mind is working in secret.

The more you allow, the more you will do.

Leo Castelli began with one artist, then that artist’s friends, and so forth. Friendships curate everything, the way love curates the human genome.

Just because there is a sequence, doesn’t mean it is progress.

Individuals each bring something unique. This is the true cause of discoveries.

You were born as a new discovery of human life. So you will turn out in some way or another.

Life is a technology higher than anything else. It is protected by the force of cuteness. Love is its engine; tenderness its power.

Socrates spoke of two kinds of art: copies of copies and a philosophic creative art. The higher of these is the latter. And that is not all: such art serves the muse and knows the idea of beauty as well as the good.

There is a mystical source to inspiration which is best cultivated through the act of surrender. This makes art difficult to a person in the throes of ego. The evidence for this is that just when a writer or artist feels bereft of ideas or depressed or in a low ebb of energy, the fallow field blooms before him as if animated by some other force outside himself. Composers of music especially navigate between the antipodes of creation and uselessness.

John Sevcik