Sunday, 2 June 2013

What is an Artist to do?

"Faced with the blazing magnificence of the everyday, the artist is both humbled and provoked. There are photographs now of events on an unimaginable scale: the death of stars, the birth of galaxies, soup-stirrings near the dawn of Time. Bright crowds of suns gather in the wildernesses of the sky. Magellanic clouds of glory, heavenly Pisan towers set in a celestial Campo dei Miracoli, lean across the frame. When we look at these images, there is, yes, legitimate wonderment at our own lengthening reach and grasp. But it would be vain indeed to praise our puny handiwork - the mastery of the Hubble wielders, the computer enhancers, the colourizers, all the true-life fantastist counterparts of Hollywood's techno-wizards and imagineers - when the universe is putting on so utterly unanswerable a show. Before the majesty of being, what is there to do but hang our heads?"

- From Salman Rushdie's 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet', a book I keep returning to.  

1 comment:

Grandmother Mary said...

I can see why- this is stunning. Thanks.