Preface
A Note on the Artist
Introduction: Thinking about Thought
Keeping it Brief
- On Aphorisms
- On Thoughts
- On Maxims (not forgetting Proverbs
Part One: Power (Money, Fame etc.), Love and Death
1 Minding Your Own Business
- Three Cheers for His Lordship!
- Suaviter in modo
- Taking Stock
- Going, Going, Gone!
2 Love, a Dream?
- Tell Me Some Truths about Love
- Venus and Cupid (blindfold)
- Home is where Love Starts from
- Art into Love, Love into Art
- Death of the Heart
3 A Notable Death
- A Dying Fall
- The Theatre of Death
- The End, Actually
Part Two: The Gods and Magic
1 The Homecoming of the Gods
- The Gods Defined
- Art and Religion
2 “You See, I Perform Magic”
- Magic in Art
- Magic in Life
Part Three: Life into Art, Artists, Ethics of Art
1 Life into Art
- Life into Art, Art into Art
- Art
2 The Artist and His First Dose of Pox
- The Artist
- The Artist and the Other
3 The Ethics of Art
- Maxims and Thoughts on Art
- Maxims on Artists and Teachers
- Ars theorica
Part Four: Beauty, Truth and Genius
1 Whence Beauty?
- Beauty
- Kitsch
2 The Carp of Truth
- Truth
- Wisdom
- Scholars and Thinkers
- 3 How Genius Strides!
Part Five: Style and the Arts, Music
1 The Quest for Simplicity
2 “Die heilige Musik!”
- Was ist Musik?
- Musical Time and Musical Feeling
- Musical Form
- Three Maxims on Musical Contrast
- Words and Music
- Opera
Part Six: Critics
A Brush with the Critics
- Critics
- Practical Criticism
Appendix
Notes on the Other Arts, Sport Not Excluded
- Sport, Sculpture and Painting
- Theatre and Cinema
- Maxims on Film (on a Festival of Michelangelo Antonioni at the National Film Theatre, 2005-06)
Catalogue of ‘Beasts’ (Ana Maria Pacheco)