Following up on a series of posts about Michelangelo, Beethoven, and Liszt. From Frederic V. Grunfeld’s very good Rodin: A Biography, the answer in the case of August Rodin is education and self education. Rodin was born into a French culture in which the large majority of the population was illiterate or semi-literate. The fact […]
Yet more on how great artists become great: Rodin Read More »
Wagner, in a letter to Franz Liszt: “If I am obliged to plunge once more into the waves of an artist’s imagination in order to find satisfaction in an imaginary world, I must at least help out my imagination and find means of encouraging my imaginative faculties. So I cannot live like a dog, I
Creative geniuses as selfish — Richard Wagner version Read More »
The great Rachmaninoff on what the creator needs and what this implies for others: “A creator is a very limited person. Always he revolves around his own axis. There is nothing for him but his own creative work. I agree that the wife has to forget herself, her own personality. She must take upon herself
Creative geniuses as selfish — Rachmaninoff version Read More »
My publications and posts on major figures and movements in the history of ideas. Jump to: Before Philosophy * Thales * Socrates * Plato * Aristotle * The Stoics * Augustine * Aquinas * The Renaissance * The Reformation * Bacon * Descartes * Spinoza * Locke * The Enlightenment * Hume * Smith *
Intellectual History Read More »