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Henry James -
Artist
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There is, I think, no more nutritive or suggestive truth... than that of the perfect dependence of the "moral" sense of a work of art on the amount of felt life concerned in producing it. The question comes back thus, obviously, to the kind and the degree of the
artist
's prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs.
Henry James
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To see deep difficulty braved is at any time, for the really addicted
artist
, to feel almost even as a pang the beautiful incentive, and to feel it verily in such sort as to wish the danger intensified. The difficulty most worth tackling can only be for him, in these conditions, the greatest the case permits of.
Henry James
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I still, in presence of life... have reactions — as many as possible... It's, I suppose, because I am that queer monster, the
artist
, an obstinate finality, an inexhaustible sensibility. Hence the reactions — appearances, memories, many things, go on playing upon it with consequences that I note and "enjoy" (grim word!) noting. It all takes doing — and I do. I believe I shall do yet again — it is still an act of life.
Henry James
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Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the
artist
is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so.
Henry James
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The
artist
is present in every page of every book from which he sought so assiduously to eliminate himself.
Henry James
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The critical sense is so far from frequent that it is absolutely rare, and the possession of the cluster of qualities that minister to it is one of the highest distinctions... In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of the
artist
, a torchbearing outrider, the interpreter, the brother... Just in proportion as he is sentient and restless, just in proportion as he reacts and reciprocates and penetrates, is the critic a valuable instrument.
Henry James
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We must grant the
artist
his subject, his idea, his donnée: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it....If we pretend to respect the
artist
at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
Henry James
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If the
artist
is necessarily sensitive, does that sensitiveness form in its essence a state constantly liable to shade off into the morbid? Does this liability, moreover, increase in proportion as the effort is great and the ambition intense?
Henry James
Quote of the day
Life is just what happens to you, while you're busy making other plans.
John Lennon
Henry James
Creative Commons
Born:
April 15, 1843
Died:
February 28, 1916
(aged 72)
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