[Below is the text of Richard Wagner’s 1849 essay “Art and Revolution” (and here is a PDF version).] Richard Wagner “Art and Revolution” Almost universal is the outcry raised by artists nowadays against the damage that the Revolution has occasioned them. It is not the battles of the “barricades,” not the sudden mighty shattering of the pillars […]
Richard Wagner’s “Art and Revolution” text Read More »
Art begins in the mind of a creative individual. The artist takes his significant experiences and thoughts as raw material and creates a perceptual embodiment for them. Each artist makes independent judgments about which of his experiences and thoughts are significant. And to the best of his ability and with his unique style, each artist
Post-Postmodern Art [original text] Read More »
Reflecting on Robert Frost, John F. Kennedy (just three weeks before his assassination) spoke of the corrective power of the arts in times when politics becomes unmoored. From a speech at Amherst College in 1963: When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern,
JFK on how the artist corrects politics Read More »
[My “Post-postmodern Art” essay was translated into Arabic (text below and PDF version here) by Moin Jaffar Mohammed of Babylon, Iraq, edited by Maha El-Shenhaby, and published in the journal Al-Adeeb Al-Thakafiya. For more of my art-related publications, see my Art page.] فن ما بعد – ما بعد الحدثة كتابة : ستيفن هِكس ترجمة : معين
Arabic translation of my “Post-postmodern Art” essay (updated) Read More »
Recommended. Thanks to Joshua Zader for his recommendation. Here’s the trailer:
Movie: “A Most Violent Year” — business and grit Read More »
Here is a site devoted to Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), the 19th-century German Romantic painter. The feature image is a portrait of Friedrich by Franz Gerhard von Kugelgen (1772-1820). [More of my art-related posts.]
Caspar David Friedrich faces the world Read More »
“Philip Ernst, the artist father of the surrealist Max Ernst, was painting a picture of his garden when he omitted a tree that spoiled the composition. Then ‘overcome with remorse’ at his offense against realism, he cut down the tree.” Source: Peter Watson, The German Genius, p. xvii.
Commitment to artistic realism — anecdote Read More »
“But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt, And by thir vices brought to servitude, Then to love Bondage more then Liberty, Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty”. John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671), lines 268-71
“But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt … Read More »