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
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.
artist wind bitterness
The sensitive artist knows that a bitter wind is blowing.
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.
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.
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.
boys play dull
Perhaps it is this theory of all work and no play that has made the Marxist such a very dull boy.
destiny artist modern
The modern artist, by nature and destiny, is always an individualist.
passion literature digestion
The assumption is that the right kind of society is an organic being not merely analogous to an organic being, but actually a living structure with appetites and digestions, instincts and passions, intelligence and reason.
two luxury space
The peculiarity of sculpture is that it creates a three-dimensional object in space. Painting may strive to give on a two-dimensional plane, the illusion of space, but it is space itself as a perceived quantity that becomes the peculiar concern of the sculptor. We may say that for the painter space is a luxury; for the sculptor it is a necessity.
feelings favors conformity
These are the sensations and feelings that are gradually blunted by education, staled by custom, rejected in favor of social conformity.
world violence violent
Revolt, it will be said, implies violence; but this is an outmoded, an incompetent conception of revolt. The most effective form of revolt in this violent world we live in is non-violence.
wise art moving
Art is always the index of social vitality, the moving finger that records the destiny of a civilization. A wise statesman should keep an anxious eye on this graph, for it is more significant than a decline in exports or a fall in the value of a nation's currency.
doubt evolution stage
I have not the slightest doubt that this form of individuation represents a higher stage in the evolution of mankind.