“A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world. In order to do this adequately, avoiding duplication of labor, the artist should know the given world. Imagination without knowledge leads no farther than the back yard of primitive art, the child’s scrawl on the fence, and the crank’s message in the market place. Art is never simple.”
Vladimir Nabokov, interview with Alvin Toffler (Playboy, January 1964)
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
An ArtsJournal Blog