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Health & Fitness

Artistic Oxymoronica - A Paradoxical Observation

Pablo Picasso, a genius with words as well as other media, crafted many remarkable lines in his lifetime. Here is one: 'We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.'

Artistic creation is much more than a productive form of lying.  It's about dreaming...in a 1986 Time magazine article, Andrew Wyeth said:  'I do more painting when I'm not painting.'  How can people paint when they're not painting?  Wyeth clarified matters when he explained that he dreams all the time, and often paints images in his subconscious.  Paul Gauguin said pretty much the same thing in these words:  'I shut my eyes in order to see.'  Both observations suggest that the most important creative work occurs when artists are not in production mode, but when they're far away from their studios - thinking and visualizing, or even dreaming.  Vincent van Gogh used another great literary device - chiasmus - to describe the creative process:  'First I dream my painting, then I paint my dream.'  *Taken from a book titled 'oxymoronica' by Dr. Mardy Grothe.

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