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   June 18 '39

  It seems to me that art to be noble - to justify its eminence, must be related to personal adventure in the external wilderness of nature.  Otherwise, as in the case of decorative design (still life, flowers, etc.) and the portrait a figure composition, it very often becomes inverted in form, and appeals to that faculty of man that thrills to the small, the pitiful, the smug + rugged.

  Life finds its grandest counterpart in rugged nature, its loftiest grandeur in a strange bay, a strange headland; its widest freedom in the wind, the storm, the great mornings, the great nights.  And thus does art reach its greatest form in the landscape or marine painting.

  As with poetry, painting must portray wildness.  The artist does not find it in indoor subjects.  He seeks the lonely shore or the distant cliff + there sees the world as an awesome uncontrolled creation, [[underscore]] lacking in design + order and therefore infinite to him. [[/underscore]]