"Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the strangest inventions of Western man. It could not have been foreseen by any logical process"
- Kenneth Clark
About this Quote
This quote by Kenneth Clark speaks with the special as well as unexpected nature of opera. It suggests that opera is something that could not have been forecasted or expected by any sensible procedure. It is an odd innovation of Western male, and also is comparable to Gothic architecture in its peculiarity. Clark indicates that opera is something that is not quickly described or recognized, which it is an item of imagination and also creative imagination. It is a type of art that is not easily classified or understood, and also it is something that is one-of-a-kind to Western society. Opera is a kind of expression that is not conveniently reproduced or forecasted, and it is something that is genuinely unique as well as exceptional.
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"Yet for my part, deeply as I am moved by the religious architecture of the Middle Ages, I cannot honestly say that I ever felt the slightest emotion in any modern Gothic church"
"Preacher is a book that somehow allows me time by its settling on it's characters, that sort of modern gothic western feel. You're not likely to see the boat veering too far from that"
"Well, Italy had been overrun by the War, there had practically been civil war, north and south of the Gothic Line, heavy bombing, the northern industrial cities had been bombed heavily and we had political disorder before 1948"
"The stars are the great Gothic churches: spires, naves, delicate flying buttresses, massive conventional buttresses, stained glass and grandeur, grandeur, grandeur"