| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 46561 |
| QUOTATION: | Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his reflective processes, and incomprehensibly to himself, all his progress should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognise them in the moment of transition. Alas, the artist who waits in ambush there, watching, detaining them, will find them transformed like the beautiful gold in the fairy tale which cannot remain gold because some small detail was not taken care of. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), German poet. letter, Oct. 21, 1907, to Rilke’s wife. Rilke’s Letters on Cézanne (1985). |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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