Alec Nevala-Lee

Thoughts on art, creativity, and the writing life.

Prudence, shrewdness, and cleverness

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Yet…the fine arts, from the very fact that they belong in the generic nature of art, participate in the law of the useful arts…This part, which relates to the particular ways of the making of an object, and of the realization of a creative intuition in matter, is an instrumental part: not only secondary, but merely instrumental. As soon as it gets the upper hand, the work is but a corpse of a work of art—a product of academicism. But when the resourcefulness of discursive reason, and the rules involved—which I called a moment ago the secondary rules—are used as instruments of a master habitus, and as the fingers, so to speak, of creative intuition, they compose the indispensable arsenal of prudence, shrewdness, and cleverness of the life of art.

Jacques Maritain

Written by nevalalee

June 10, 2012 at 9:50 am

Posted in Quote of the Day

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