Art And Religion Are, Then, Two Roads

There Must Be Some One Quality Without Which A Work Of Art Cannot Exist; Possessing Which, In The Least Degree, No Work Is Altogether Worthless.

Let The Artist Have Just Enough To Eat, And The Tools Of This Trade: Ask Nothing Of Him. Materially Make The Life Of The Artist Sufficiently Miserable To Be Unattractive, And No-one Will Take To Art Save Those In Whom The Divine Daemon Is Absolute.

Art And Relligion Are Not Professions: They Are Not Occupations For Which Men Can Be Paid. The Artist And The Saint Do What They Have To Do, Not To Make A Living, But In Obedience To Some Mysterious Necessity. They Do Not Product To Live - They Live To Produce.

What Quality Is Shared By All Objects That Provoke Our Aesthetic Emotions? Only One Answer Seems Possible— Significant Form. In Each, Lines And Colors Combined In A Particular Way; Certain Forms And Relations Of Forms, Stir Our Aesthetic Emotions. These Relations And Combinations Of Lines And Colors, These Aesthetically Moving Forms, I Call ‘significant Form’; And ‘significant Form’ Is The One Quality Common To All Works Of Visual Art.

Genius Worship Is The Inevitable Sign Of An Uncreative Age.