K.J. Bishop
Quote
Art is the conscious making of numinous phenomena. Many objects are just objects - inert, merely utilitarian. Many events are inconsequential, too banal to add anything to our experience of life. This is unfortunate, as one cannot grow except by having one’s spirit greatly stirred; and the spirit cannot be greatly stirred by spiritless things. Much of our very life is dead. For primitive man, this was not so. He made his own possessions, and shaped and decorated them with the aim of making them not merely useful, but powerful. He tried to infuse his weapons with the nature of the tiger, his cooking pots with the life of growing things; and he succeeded. Appearance, material, history, context, rarity - perhaps rarity most of all - combine to create, magically, the quality of soul. But we modern demiurges are prolific copyists; we give few things souls of their own. Locomotives, with their close resemblance to beasts, may be the great exception; but in nearly all else with which today’s poor humans are filling the world, I see a quelling of the numinous, an ashening of the fire of life. We are making an inert world; we are building a cemetery. And on the tombs, to remind us of life, we lay wreaths of poetry and bouquets of painting. You expressed this very condition, when you said that art beautifies life. No longer integral, the numinous has become optional, a luxury - one of which you, my dear friend, are fond, however unconsciously. You adorn yourself with the same instincts as the primitive who puts a frightening mask of clay and feathers on his head, and you comport yourself in an uncommonly calculated way - as do I. We thus make numinous phenomena of ourselves. No mean trick - to make oneself a rarity, in this overpopulated age.
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Similar Crossword Answers
| Answer | Clues |
|---|---|
| ART | 2083 clues |
| SOUL | 351 clues |
| CHANGE | 302 clues |
| SPIRIT | 244 clues |
| COURAGE | 148 clues |
| POETRY | 111 clues |
| APPEARANCE | 110 clues |
| HISTORY | 105 clues |
| MASKS | 92 clues |
| RARITY | 82 clues |
| ARTISTS | 79 clues |
| MATERIAL | 77 clues |
| WRITING | 74 clues |
| INTEGRAL | 73 clues |
| TOMBS | 71 clues |
| PAINTING | 52 clues |
| CREATIVITY | 31 clues |
| CONTEXT | 28 clues |
| OBJECTS | 15 clues |
| INSPIRATIONAL | 5 clues |
Similar crossword clues
- A BISHOP 77.78%
- Of a bishop 76.19%
- Bishop 75.00%
- Rook or bishop 75.00%
- crook, bishop 72.73%
- GREEK bishop 72.73%
- Rook and bishop 72.00%
- Big bishop 70.00%
- Knight or bishop 69.23%
- Rank below bishop 66.67%
- Pawn or bishop 66.67%
- robe bishop 66.67%
- SEAT of bishop 66.67%
- ROME bishop 66.67%
- of Rome Bishop 66.67%
- Bader or Bishop 64.00%
- CHAIR of bishop 64.00%
- Ordain a bishop 64.00%
- Early TV Bishop 64.00%
- of Paris Bishop 64.00%
Related word tools
Poet’s word, with inverted comma, for the end of the day
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E
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E
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N
Hint 1 meaning
The old plural of Eye.
Hint 2 anagram
NEE
Hint 3 another clue
AND STILL ___
8 +1