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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Two different faces of artists

Art has always two antithetical faces, a medal where one side, for example, would resemble Paul Rembrandt and the other side, Jacques Callot. Rembrandt is the philosopher with a white beard who holes himself up, absorbing himself in meditation and prayer, closing his eyes to better withdraw into himself, holding conversations with spirits of beauty, science, wisdom, and love, and burning himself out in order to penetrate the mysterious symbols of nature. Callot, on the contrary, is the braggart and salty footsoldier, strutting about the square, rowdy in the tavern and caressing the daughters of the bohemians, swearing only by his rapier and his blunderbuss, whose greatest concern is to wax his moustache. Now the author of this book has always considered art under this double personification. - Aloysius Bertrand

2 comments:

  1. Thank you! You've just added to my list of dichotomies in art:
    - Nietzsche, with the Apolline and Dionysiac
    - Worringer, with abstraction and empathy
    - Artaud, with Occidental and Oriental
    - Caliaba, with Pan and Zeus
    (I can't think of others right now, but they're definitely out there)

    What is this obsession? Why always two? Each art has its strange double, I suppose.

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  2. Love this personification (and all things Aloysius!). Thank you, dear Muse, for posting ~

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