A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter that neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it do not even wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name written under it will not serve you much. At all events, the business of the painter is not to teach zoology. George MacDonald
About This Quote

The quote above is from the book The Art of the Possible by the American writer Robert L. Schuller. The artist has written that “A genuine work of art must mean many things, the truer its art, the more things it will mean”. The idea here is that a true work of art may have multiple meanings to different people, but should have only one meaning to each person who views it.

This idea is one that can be applied to other forms of communication as well. In order for a message to be effective, there must be a single meaning behind it.

Source: The Light Princess And Other Fairy Stories

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something. - Rainbow Rowell
  2. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done. - Vincent Van Gogh
  3. Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep. - Clive Barker
  4. Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. - Chuck Klosterman
  5. There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. - Vincent Van Gogh
More Quotes By George MacDonald
  1. All that is not God is death.
  2. I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first.
  3. If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he does ever and always, but to answer them as we want them answered, he would not be God our Saviour but the ministering genius of our destruction.
  4. One of my greatest difficulties in consenting to think of religion was that I thought I should have to give up my beautiful thoughts and my love for the things God has made. But I find that the happiness springing from all things not in...
  5. Love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming...
Related Topics