#herbert read

The special position of the visual artist may be illustrated by a quotation from Whitehead’s ‘Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect’ (1928). 'We look up and see a coloured shape in front of us and we say- there is a chair. But what we have seen is the mere coloured shape. Perhaps an artist might not have jumped to the notion of a chair. He might have stopped at the mere contemplation of a beautiful colour and a beautiful shape. But those of us who are not artists are very prone, especially if we are tired, to pass straight from the perception of the coloured shape to the enjoyment of the chair, in some way of use, or of emotion, or of thought. We can easily explain this passage by reference to a train of difficult logical inference, whereby, having regard to our previous experiences of various shapes and various colours, we draw the probable conclusion that we are in the presence of a chair.’

Creeds and castes, and all forms of intellectual and emotional grouping, belong to the past. The future unit is the individual, a world in himself, self-contained and self-creative, freely giving and freely receiving, but essentially a free spirit.

[...] to give everything for the sake of life and of living men—in that way we can show that “real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”