
Art Is for Seeing Evil

This is why art matters: because it dredges our psychic depths in ways that even the artist may not understand. “The arts,” writes the Zen poet Gary Snyder, following Levi-Strauss, “are the wilderness areas of the imagination, surviving like national parks in the midst of civilized minds.” Strange things grow in the wilderness; unusual plants thriv... See more
Paul Kingsnorth • The Great Work: Alchemy and the Power of Words – Paul Kingsnorth
The question of good and evil will always be one of philosophy's most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself. I'm not quarreling with your choice of issues, only with your intellectually diminished approach. If evil means to be self-motivated, to live on one's own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original
... See moreJanet Fitch • White Oleander (Oprah's Book Club)
The pursuit of art, then, by artist or audience, is the pursuit of liberty. If you accept that, you see at once why truly serious people reject and mistrust the arts, labeling them as “escapism.”
Ursula K. Le Guin • Dreams Must Explain Themselves: The Selected Non-Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin
Great art challenges the thinking, pre-conceived notions, beliefs, and concepts of the viewer. Great art challenges viewers to think and feel in a different way.
Eric Kim • 82 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography
Opinion | Art Isn’t Supposed to Make You Comfortable
nytimes.com