Aphorisms for Artists by Walter Darby Bannard

Aphorism #32

Art is good by judgment, not inventory.

There are thousands of paintings of the Crucifixion. They all have the same highly charged, well-known content. Only a few persist as great art.

Why? Because most of them, although they may invoke the Christ story well enough, are not great art.

If art depended on content then one painting of an apple would be as good as the next one. Why bother with Cézanne?

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