| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: and lifted, layer by layer, the colors of Titian, king of light. Like
him, great sovereign of art, I have sketched my figure in light clear
tones of supple yet solid color; for shadow is but an accident,--
remember that, young man. Then I worked backward, as it were; and by
means of half-tints, and glazings whose transparency I kept
diminishing little by little, I was able to cast strong shadows
deepening almost to blackness. The shadows of ordinary painters are
not of the same texture as their tones of light. They are wood, brass,
iron, anything you please except flesh in shadow. We feel that if the
figures changed position the shady places would not be wiped off, and
would remain dark spots which never could be made luminous. I have
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: mentality; no judgment is called for, no inhibition, no disturbance
of the instinctive flow of perfect reactions. Such a life is bliss,
or nirvana. It is unconsciousness below dreaming. Consciousness is
discord evoking the will to adjust; it is inseparable from need. At
every need consciousness breaks into being. Imperfect adjustments,
needs, are the rents and tatters in the smooth dark veil of being
through which the light of consciousness shines--the light of
consciousness and will of which God is the sun.
So that every need of human life, every disappointment and
dissatisfaction and call for help and effort, is a means whereby men
may and do come to the realisation of God.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: the first volume of "Modern Painters." The young man awoke to
find himself famous. In the next few years four more volumes were
added to "Modern Painters," and the other notable series upon
art, "The Stones of Venice" and "The Seven Lamps of
Architecture," were sent forth.
Then, in 1860, when Ruskin was about forty years old, there
came a great change. His heaven-born genius for making the
appreciation of beauty a common possession was deflected from its
true field. He had been asking himself what are the conditions
that produce great art, and the answer he found declared that art
cannot be separated from life, nor life from industry and
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