The new masters paint a subject as they please, And Veronese is prosecuted by the Inquisition For the dogs playing at the feet of Christ, The earth is a planet among galaxies. Later Christ disappears, the dogs disappear: in abstract Understanding, without adoration, the last master puts Colors on canvas, a picture of the universe In which a bright spot somewhere in the corner Is the small radioactive planet men called Earth.
Randall JarrellRelated topics
abstract adoration bright christ corner earth feet men last later master paint picture playing small somewhere spot understanding veronese masters radioactive dogsRelated quotes
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out;
The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit,
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets, and the firmament
They seek so many new; then see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All just supply, and all relation:
Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot.
John Donne
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isnt it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it This is how I answer when I am askedas I am surprisingly oftenwhy I bother to get up in the mornings.
Richard Dawkins
In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on and uninhabited planet.
William L. Shirer
My poor soul! Sigh, pray and strive to take upon you the blessed yoke of Christ, and you will live on earth in a heavenly manner. Lord, grant that I may carry the light and goodly yoke, and I shall be always at rest, peaceful, glad and joyous; and I shall taste on earth of crumbs which fall from the celestial feast, like a dog that feeds upon the crumbs which fall from the master's table.
Tikhon of Zadonsk
Abstract Expressionism – especially Pollock, not the more academic painters like De Kooning – made the threshold between illusion and the stuff of painting lower, the distance between them closer. Pollock made all things about the picture, all the stuff, actual. Taking the canvas off the stretcher, putting it on the floor, made it more real. Mixing up different kinds of paint, getting it to stain in, was getting at a kind of materiality.
Kenneth Noland