Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MCwas an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philospher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
art simple tests
But all categories of art, idealistic or realistic, surrealistic or constructivist (a new form of idealism) must satisfy a simple test (or they are in no sense works of art): they must persist as objects of contemplation.
art yield may
The work of art ... is an instrument for tilling the human psyche, that it may continue to yield a harvest of vital beauty.
spiritual art philosophy
That is why I believe that art is so much more significant than either economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of man's spiritual vision.
artist feelings stronger
Once we become conscious of a feeling and attempt to make a corresponding form, we are engaged in an activity which, far from being sincere, is prepared (as any artist if he is sincere will tell you) to moderate feelings to fit the form. The artist's feeling for form is stronger than a formless feeling.
adults forget problem
Freud has shown one thing very clearly: that we only forget our infancy by burying it in the unconscious; and that the problems of this difficult period find their solution under a disguised form in adult life.
war home army
The greatest intensification of the horrors of war is a direct result of the democratisation of the State. So long as the army was a professional unit, the specialist function of a limited number of men, war remained a relatively harmless contest for power. But once it became everyman's duty to defend his home (or his political “rights”) warfare was free to range wherever that home might be, and to attack every form of life and property associated with that home.
children destiny people
Great changes in the destiny of mankind can be effected only in the minds of little children.
real goal simplicity
Simplicity is not a goal, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself, as one approaches the real meaning of things.
progress literature scope
Progress is measured by richness and intensity of experience - by a wider and deeper apprehension of the significance and scope of human existence.
artist wind bitterness
The sensitive artist knows that a bitter wind is blowing.
character men personality
A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them.
earliest group nomadic point primitive records species
The earliest records of our species point to group organizations - the primitive horde, nomadic tribes, settlements, communities, cities, nations.
again answer degree slave speak
And again I answer that it is only in the degree that the slave is emancipated and the personality differentiated that we can speak of progress.
life art patterns
Art is pattern informed by sensibility.