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April 18, 2008
art is the result of one’s having been in danger
Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further. The further one goes, the more private, the more personal, the more singular an experience becomes, and the thing one is making is, finally, the necessary, irrepressible, and, as nearly as possible, definitive utterance of this singularity…Therein lies the enormous aid the work of art brings to the life of the one who must make it, -: that it is his epitome; the knot in the rosary at which his life recites a prayer, the ever-returning proof to himself of his unity and genuineness, which presents itself only to him while appearing anonymous to the outside, nameless, existing merely as necessity, as reality, as being -.
Rilke - Letters on Cezanne
Posted by amin at April 18, 2008 10:42 PM