"There are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration"
About this Quote
Anna Katharine Green draws a line between two artistic temperaments by focusing on motive. One type is seized by an inner force. The spirit is in them, she says, and they cannot be silent. Creation here is necessity rather than choice, a pressure that must be released. The other type is motivated by conscience. Beauty has stirred them, and they feel a deliberate obligation to make that beauty visible to others. Art becomes an act of communication and service, not merely an overflow.
Her phrasing is revealing. She describes the first group as those that work and the second as those that speak. Work suggests compulsion, labor, the body swept along by energy. Speak suggests intentional address, an audience in mind, a moral stance about what ought to be shared. Both spring from admiration, but one is urgent expression while the other is transmission and teaching.
Green wrote at the cusp of the Gilded Age, when debates about art for art’s sake jostled with demands for moral and social utility. Her distinction sidesteps a hierarchy. The Romantic impulse and the conscientious impulse are equally legitimate. One locates authenticity in inner fire; the other locates it in responsibility to the community of viewers and readers. In practice, many artists braid the two, driven by compulsion and guided by a wish to illuminate.
The terms also resonate with Green’s own craft in detective fiction. The sleuth labors under an inner need to solve, to resolve the pressure of mystery; then, at the end, speaks, assembling clues so others can see what was hidden. That arc mirrors the movement from work to speech, from vision to revelation. Green invites us to consider not only what art does, but why the artist begins at all. Whether an irresistible pulse or a clear intention to share beauty, the origin shapes the tone, urgency, and ethics of the work, and deepens our understanding of how art reaches us.
Her phrasing is revealing. She describes the first group as those that work and the second as those that speak. Work suggests compulsion, labor, the body swept along by energy. Speak suggests intentional address, an audience in mind, a moral stance about what ought to be shared. Both spring from admiration, but one is urgent expression while the other is transmission and teaching.
Green wrote at the cusp of the Gilded Age, when debates about art for art’s sake jostled with demands for moral and social utility. Her distinction sidesteps a hierarchy. The Romantic impulse and the conscientious impulse are equally legitimate. One locates authenticity in inner fire; the other locates it in responsibility to the community of viewers and readers. In practice, many artists braid the two, driven by compulsion and guided by a wish to illuminate.
The terms also resonate with Green’s own craft in detective fiction. The sleuth labors under an inner need to solve, to resolve the pressure of mystery; then, at the end, speaks, assembling clues so others can see what was hidden. That arc mirrors the movement from work to speech, from vision to revelation. Green invites us to consider not only what art does, but why the artist begins at all. Whether an irresistible pulse or a clear intention to share beauty, the origin shapes the tone, urgency, and ethics of the work, and deepens our understanding of how art reaches us.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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