Quotes & Notes

They say that art is seeking new paths. But does it find, does it have the least chance of finding, any new paths? Contempt for the old is no source of inspiration. The attempts made appear forbidding more than anything, least of all encouraging, offering very little hope. Hopelessness and weariness now even seem to have affected the technical skill. Presumably, all this is a consequence of the impoverishment of feeling, its lack of certainty and a goal. When feeling withers, is being dulled and coarsened, then no art worthy of the name is born.
It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.