There is a spell in mediaeval Art which has had power to bewitch some people into trying, or wishing to try, or fancying that they wish to try or making believe to fancy that they wish to try, to bring back the Middle Ages.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Historically, art has always had a market. When one medieval fiefdom defeated another they would drag back its jewels, gold, tapestries and art objects as the spoils of war. Art equaled power, riches and culture.
The arts stimulate imagination. They provoke thought. And then, having done that, all sorts of other things happen.
And the fifteenth century was an impassioned age, so ardent and serious in its pursuit of art that it consecrated everything with which art had to ad as a religious object.
The arts, as a reflection of human existence at its highest, have always and spontaneously lived up to this demand of plenitude. No mature style of art in any culture has ever been simple.
For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential - the imagination.
Art is basically made by dissatisfied people who are willing to find some means to relieve the dissatisfaction.
Poetry, just because it is poetry, doesn't mean it is some kind of magic spell.
I don't understand why people talk of art as a luxury when it's a mind-altering possibility.
Painting is, I think, inevitably an archaic activity and one that depends on spiritual values.
During the '70s I was interested in words and meaning as a way of making art.