Aphorisms for Artists by Walter Darby Bannard

Aphorism #97

Great art is like a stone in the river.

Janet Leach said of Shoji Hamada’s pots, “They just sat there like stones in the river bed. They did not perform. They did not reach out and grab you. They were fulfilled within themselves and did not seem to care whether you liked them or not.”

Great art is immutable, placid, complete, unchanging, and content to let life rush around it in its perpetual race.

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