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About this quote

What does it mean?
Art focuses on specific, individual realities rather than abstract, universal forms.
In plain terms
Art chooses real, specific things over abstract ideas.
What can you take from it?
Art thrives on concrete details instead of abstract ideals.

Where it applies

  • art criticism
  • painting
  • writing

Putting it to work

  • focus on specific details
  • avoid vague generalizations

Questions to consider

  • Should art be personal or universal?
  • What is the value of abstraction?

Another view

Abstract art exists and values universals over the concrete.

More from Jorge Luis Borges

  1. The exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to contruct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others like a Platonic archetype, a…

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  2. It is known that Whistler when asked how long it took him to paint one of his 'nocturnes' answered: 'All of my life.' With the same rigor he could have said th…

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  3. Imprecision is tolerable and verisimilar in literature, because we always tend towards it in life.

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