The paramount relation between poetry and painting today, between modern man and modern art, is simply this: that in an age in which disbelief is so profoundly prevalent or, if not disbelief, indifference to questions of belief, poetry and painting, and the arts in general, are, in their measure, a compensation for what has been lost. Men feel that the imagination is the next greatest power to faith: the reigning prince.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Art compensates for lost faith by elevating imagination to a spiritual role.
- In plain terms
- Imagination replaces faith as the most powerful force in modern life.
- What can you take from it?
- Value imagination as a substitute for traditional belief systems.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is imagination your new faith?
- What has lost importance to art?
Another view
It assumes faith is universally lost or irrelevant today.
More from Wallace Stevens
The world about us would be desolate except for the world within us.
Permalink to quote #191 Our own time, and by this I mean the last two or three generations, including our own, can be summed up in a way that brings into unity an immense number of de…
Permalink to quote #193 The truth seems to be that we live in concepts of the imagination before the reason has established them. If this is true, then reason is simply the methodizer…
Permalink to quote #190
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