Eternal secrets

. . . le style, pour l'écrivain, aussi bien que pour le peintre, est une question non de technique,
. . style, for the writer, as well as for the painter, is a question not of technique,

mais de vision.

but of vision.

Il est la révélation, qui serait impossible par des moyens directs et conscients, de la différence qualitative qu'il y a dans la facon dont nous apparait le monde, différence qui, s'il n'y avait pas l'art, resterait le secret éternel de chacun.It is the revelation, that would be impossible through direct and conscious methods, of the qualitative difference in the way the world appears to us - difference that, if art did not exist, would remain the eternal secret within each of us.

Par l'art seulement nous pouvons sortir de nous, savoir ce que voit un autre de cet univers qui n'est pas le meme que le notre, et dont les paysages nous serait restés aussi inconnus que ceux qu'il peut avoir dans la lune.
Through art only we may come out of ourselves, to learn what others see of the universe - for theirs is not the same as ours, and its landscapes would have remained as unknown to us as those of the moon.

Grace à l'art, au lieu de voir un seul monde, le notre, nous le voyons se multiplier, et, autant qu'il y a d'artistes originaux, autant nous avons de mondes à notre disposition, plus différent les uns des autres -Thanks to art, instead of seeing one lone world, ours, we see it multiplied with as many different worlds at our disposition as there are original artists -

et bien des siècles après que c'est éteint le foyer dont ils émanaient,qu'il s'appelat Rembrandt ou Vermeer, nous envoient encore leur rayon spécial.

and many centuries later, after their emanating fire has been extinguished, from now Rembrandt, now Vermeer, we still receive their special light.

JEAN PAVANS
From his essay on Proust's character Bergotte and Vermeer's View of Delft
Les écarts d'une vision

Zao Wou-Ki, Samuel Van Hoogstraaten, Marc Rothko, Nicholas de Stael, Vermeer

A little understanding

“Everyone wants to understand art. Why don’t we try to understand the song of a bird? Why do we love the night, the flowers, everything around us, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting, people think they have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only an insignificant part of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world though we can’t explain them; people who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.” Picasso