Bernard Berenson
Bernard Berenson
Bernard Berensonwas an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book The Italian Painters of the Renaissance was an international success...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth26 June 1865
CountryUnited States of America
stress passion healing
The artist, depicting man disdainful of the storm and stress of life, is no less reconciling and healing than the poet who, while endowing Nature and Humanity, rejoices in its measureless superiority to human passions and human sorrows.
space movement enchantment
In figure painting, the type of all painting, I have endeavoured to set forth that the principal if not sole source of life enchantments are Tactile Values, Movement and Space Composition.
taste appetite satisfied
Taste begins when appetite is satisfied.
lying home would-be
As I got warmed up, and felt perfectly at home in talk, I heard myself boasting, lying, exaggerating. Oh, not deliberately, far from it. It would be unconvivial and dull to stop and arrest the flow of talk, and speak only after carefully considering whether I was telling the truth.
years play creative
Who will free me from hurry, flurry, the feeling of a crowd pushing behind me, of being hustled and crushed? How can I regain even for a minute the feeling of ample leisure I had during my early, my creative years? Then I seldom felt fussed, or hurried. There was time for work, for play, for love, the confidence that if a task was not done at the appointed time, I easily could fit it into another hour. I used to take leisure for granted, as I did time itself.
art our-world doe
No artifact is a work of art if it does not help to humanize us. Without art...our world would have remained a jungle.
giving stones degrees
German is of stone, limestone, pudding stone, marble, granite even, and so to a considerable degree is English, whereas French is bronze and gives out a metallic resonance with tones that neither German nor English tolerate.
lying men self
The Renaissance had resulted in the emancipation of the individual, in making him feel that the universe had no other purpose than his happiness. This brought an entirely new answer to the question, 'Why should I do this or that?' It used to be, 'Because self-instituted authority command you.' The answer now was, 'Because it is good for men.' In this lies our greatest debt to the Renaissance, that it instituted the welfare of men as the end of all action.
fate men two
There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never learned to separate them.
government long taxation
Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.
history comparison
Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.
desire excess youth
I never felt that there was anything enviable in youth. I cannot recall that any of us, as youths, admired our condition to excess or had a desire to prolong it.
beauty appreciation appreciate
When everything else physical and mental seems to diminish, the appreciation of beauty is on the increase.
life quality taught
Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.