Clement of Alexandria - Art Quotes

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Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, if order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the child completely dead, abort at the same time their own human feelings.

Clement of Alexandria

But it is with a different kind of spell that art deludes you... it leads you to pay religious honor and worship to images and pictures.

Clement of Alexandria

Now the images and temples constructed by mechanics are made of inert matter, so that they too are inert, material, and profane. Even if you perfect the art, it partakes of mechanical coarseness. Works of art cannot then be sacred and divine.

Clement of Alexandria