the work of art is the resolution of conflicting relations

Before I came back to Irvine, a few books I borrowed from UCI library were overdue. "From Lascaux to Brooklyn" by Paul Rand is one of them. I returned all the books except for this one. This book is not a story, but full of statements about art and aesthetics. However, with all the variety of forms of statements, I think the gists are simple and very concentralized. That is true art is timeless; it is a instrinsic quality in the piece of art itself and independent from the external environment and the audience, or there are certain abstract properties determine the quality of art; it is a result of an interpretation of an artist over a subject, not the subject itself; it is the resolution of conflicting relations.

Many of the claims knock my mind and I can't help quoted them here:

"Perpectual moderness is the measure of merit in every work of art. "-- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"There is no such thing as bad content, only bad form. This explains the place of form in art. "

"Art is an intuitive, autonomous, and timeless activity and works independently of the development of society."

"Like mathematics, the principles of aesthetics involve the abstract formal properties of things and applies to everything - to apples and to oranges, to ideas and to things - regardless of one's feelings, opinions, or emotions."

"idea is the very life of form. "

"a great poet or painter may hold the wrong theory, an array of conflicting theories, or no theory at all. Who cares? The work is the thing." -- Albert Guerard

"In the visual arts all content and forms depend on optical, tactile, and motor senstations - the first are dominant in painting, the second in sculpture, and the third in architecture." -- Max Raphael

"One must not reproduce it. One must interpret it; by means of what? by means of plastic equivalents and color." -- Cezanne

"On one who has a real understanding of the art of painting attaches any importance to what we call the subject of a picture - what is represented. To one who feels the language of pictorial form, all depends on how it is represented, nothing on what." -- Roger Fry

"One quickly realizes that simplicity and geometry are the language of timelessness and universality."

"The toy is the child's first initiation into art."

"The language of morality and social awareness is expressed in a language of form that endures."

"I learned from poetry that art is best derived from artless things." -- Jimmy Carter

"What a particular proportion contains, and how it is designed, are more important than the shape and its containment."

"Proportional systems are an incentive for some, an inspiration for others, and a crutch for too many."

"The creator understands that emotions can best be expressed visually by overstatement rather than by literal depiction"

"What was ritual and symbolism to one was invention and formalism to the other."

"Grace, dignity, passion, and pleasure signal the presence and suffuse the atmosphere of anything worthy of the accolade art: a persuasive poster, a painting, ann elegant room, a Gothic cathedral, or a simple utensil"

"Art changes our whole attitude to life, not merely out understanding of it but also out evaluation of it, in fact, all our perspective." - Max Raphael.

"The quality of a picture is measured not by how much it adheres to nature bu by how far it departs from it."

"Artisitic beauty stands higher than nature, for the beauty of art is beauty that is born - born again, that is - of the mind, by as much as the mind and its products are higher than nature and its appearnaces, by so much is the beauty of art higher than the beauty of nature." -- G.W.E.Hegel

"Aesthetics is the standard by which a work of art is judged. It is essentially the study of the successive or simultaneous interaction of form and content. How skillfully these components are fused will determine the aesthetics quality of the work in question."

"It is a unity of opposites: a series of steps reflecting Hegels's dialectics: thesis, the subject; antithesis, the conflict; and synthesis, the resolution."

"art is commentary, art is revelation, art is culmination of the creative process. It is a by-product, not a goal, a point of view about a particular object that rises above its topical source. It is not just a facsimile but an opinion expressed visually in a distinctive way."

"Art is reality enhanced."

"By its very nature a work of art hides its wrinkles by constantly renewing itself. The term old-fashioned is an expression of sentimentality and nostalgia, both of which tend to distort one's understanding. sentimentality provides only a momentary response to a work of art; nostafia provides a momentary escape from reality."

"A work of art elicits unsuspected associations and defines vague boundaries-it does not particularize, it generalizes."

"Seeing the new in the old is one aspect of innovation and a rich source of ideas."

"When there's nothing new in what I have to say, I must make up for its staleness by something new in the way I say it." -- H.W. Fowler.

"The confluence of form and idea can be attributed to a fluke, or a bit of luck. The answer is always obvious once it is pointed out."

"Ideas are fuel for the imagination; they are the unique response to the meaningful question."

"I keep six hoest serving-men, they taught me all I knew, their names are what and why and when and how and where and who." -- Rudyard Kipling.

"There are four stages in the creative process: 1. preparation, during which a problem is investigated; 2. incubation, during which conscious thought is useless; 3. revelation, which yields the "happy idea"; and 4. verification, which embodies working out an application of the idea."

"The spontaneous in art is the complete absorption of subject matter that is fresh, the freshness of which holds and sustain emotion. Staleness of matter and obtrusion of calculation are the two enemies of spontanety of expression." - john dewey.

"Sensitivity to a medium as a medium is the very heart of all artisitic creation and esthetic perception."

"A loggo is the distillation of the complex, the absence of the irrelevant. It is the visual essence of simplicity."

"The content of art is the idea and its form lies in the plastic use of images accessible to sense."

"The solution to a problem is inherent in the problem itself - a game of hide-and-seek."

"I do not seek, I find. ARt is an idea that has found its perfect form."

"The role of the imagination is to create new meanings and to discover connections that, even if obvious, seem to escape detection."

"Imagination begins with intuition, not intellect."

"The products of originality, very often, have less to do with invention than with interpretation-with seeing things in a way that is unexpected."

"Knowledge is power." -- Hobbes.
"Imagination is more powerful." -- Einstein.

"things that sometimes appear original often turn out to be meaningless, for they depend on visual devices that appeal to those interested only in novelty or in formalist ideas, which corresponds to fashion rather than to real need."

"Brevity and wit play a role, as do talent, good fortune, a receptive and intelligent client, and an audience conditioned to accept good work."

"The real culprit is the business community's fear and mistrust of the nature and/or relevance of good design - of design's importance as a cultural necessity, as a social responsibility, and as a sensible vehicle for sensible business."

"The degree of interest a picture holds is often determined by its abstract quality, which is the artisit's critical commentary, expressed with emphasis on interpretation rather than on verisimilitude."

"The abstract also provides room for the imagination to roam."

"The art that is frankly decorative is the art to live with. It is, of all visible arts, the one art that creates in us both mood and temperament. Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied by definite form, can speak to soul in a thousand different ways. The marvels of design stir the imagination...By its deliverate rejection of Nature as the ideal of beauty, as well as of the imitative method of the ordinary painter, decorative art not merely prepares the soul for the recpetion of true imaginative work, bu develops in it that sense of form which is the basis of creative no less than critical achievement."

"Nuerals are abstract symbols. They are the busy bees of the world of mathematics. They annouce births and deaths, weddings and anniversaries, happy and sad occasions."

"Art represents a social necessity that no nation can neglect without endangering its intellectual existence." -- John Ruskin

"Good desing cannot be dictated or willed; alas, it is not the product of market research but of natural talent, relevant ideas, and mutual respect, without which design programs eventually will unravel and good design wither away."

"Design can help inform, delight, and even persuade -- assuming that the designer is an artist and not just someone focused on the nonsense of "self-expression" or on the fads of the moment."

"simplicity is never a goal; it is a by-product of a good idea and modest expectations."

"A work of art is realized when form and content are indistinguishable, when they are in synthesis. When form predominates, meaning is blunted; when content predominates, interest lags."

"A consumer survey cannot predict the long-term benefits of design, nor can it evaluate the contributions of an experienced designer. Only time can elucidate such mysteries. A survey can disclose facts, demographics, and opinions but not a future response or reaction."

"Art is a mode of prediction not found in chars and statisitcs, and it insinuates possibilities of human relations not to be found in rule and percept, admonition and administration." -- john dewey