7 Novalis Quotes on Art

Novalis quotes on art

68. The spirit of Poesy is the morning light, which makes the Statue of Memnon sound.

73. When we speak of the aim and Art observable in Shakespeare's works, we must not forget that Art belongs to Nature; that it is, so to speak, self-viewing, self-imitating, self-fashioning Nature. The Art of a well-developed genius is far different from the Artfulness of the Understanding, of the merely reasoning mind. Shakspeare was no calculator, no learned thinker; he was a mighty, many-gifted soul, whose feelings and works, like products of Nature, bear the stamp of the same spirit; and in which the last and deepest of observers will still find new harmonies with the infinite structure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas, affinities with the higher powers and senses of man. They are emblematic, have many meanings, are simple and inexhaustible, like products of Nature; and nothing more unsuitable could be said of them than that they are works of Art, in that narrow mechanical acceptation of the word.

82. Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.

84. Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

85. Romanticize the world.

86. The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.

97. For Novalis the poetic in the world was the only genuine reality, even as the poetic spirit in man was the proof of man's divine origin. All of his poetry is concerned ultimately with revealing and celebrating the poetic spirit.