Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation .. . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time. Robert A. Heinlein
About This Quote

John Ruskin condemned the idea of art as a mere intellectual exercise. He claimed that “Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human.” To Ruskin, art was the process of getting people to be moved by something they didn’t understand. The great artists caught you off guard, causing you to feel something that was not rational or intellectual in nature. This argument is pretty much the same today. People who claim that art should be thought-provoking are saying that art should take you out of your comfort zone and make you think about things outside of yourself.

Source: Stranger In A Strange Land

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More Quotes By Robert A. Heinlein
  1. Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
  2. Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy - in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.
  3. May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.
  4. Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used...
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