Yuri Lotman famous quotes

Art's effect is due to the tension resulting from the clash of the collocation of elements of two (or more) systems of interpretation. This conflict has the function of breaking down automatism of perception and occurs simultaneously on the many levels of a work of art ... All levels may carry meaning.
-- Yuri Lotman

#Art #Two #Poetry

Poetic language features an iconic rather than a predominantly conventional relationship of form and content in which all language (and cultural) elements, variant as well as invariant, may be involved in the expression of the content.", "Analysis of the Poetic Text.
-- Yuri Lotman

#Art #Expression #Poetry

Certain supplementary restrictions imposed on the text compel us to perceive it as poetry. As soon as one assigns a given text to the category of poetry, the number of meaningful elements in it acquires the capacity to grow and the system of their combinations also becomes more complex.
-- Yuri Lotman

#Meaningful #Art #Numbers

Artistic simplicity is more complex than artistic complexity for it arises via the simplification of the latter and against its backdrop or system.
-- Yuri Lotman

#Poetry #Simplicity #Literature

A statue of Apollo in a museum does not seem naked, but attach a tie to its neck and it will strike us as indecent ... The text is one of the components of an artistic work, albeit an extremely important component ... But the artistic effect as a whole arises from comparisons of the text with a complex set of ontological and ideological esthetic ideas.
-- Yuri Lotman

#Ideas #Ties #Museums

Teachers believe they have a gift for giving; it drives them with the same irrepressible drive that drives others to create a work of art or a market or a building.

Art, however innocent, looks like deceiving.

As a kid, I was always into art at the same time as computers, and eventually I realised I was making more interesting stuff with my keyboard than with my hands. I really enjoyed modifying computer games more than playing them, so that got me into programming.

Come, come, come. Without a monster or two it's not a quest, merely a gaggle of friends wandering about.

I want to leave my readers with a sequence of ideas/phrases that makes them question something they'd taken for granted. Or that confuses them to the point that they laugh, but contains one or two phrases/lines that stick in their minds.

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out . . .. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.

Can you remember? when we thought the poets taught how to live?

Reality, the oppressor's tongue.

Though my verse but roam the air And murmur in the trees, You may discern a purpose there, As in music of the bees.

But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart.