“Beauty brings copies of itself into being. It makes us draw it, take photographs of it, or describe it to other people. Sometimes it gives rise to exact replication and other times to resemblances and still other times to things whose connection to the original site of inspiration is unrecognizable.”
More from Elaine Scarry
“It is as though beautiful things have been placed here and there throughout the world to…”
“The moment of perceiving something beautiful confers on the perceiver the gift of life.”
“Perhaps only if one spins momentarily out of control, or grows feathers, or begins to…”
“Matisse never hoped to save lives. But he repeatedly said that he wanted to make paintings…”