William Fulton Soare:
Fine Art Works
Although the financial struggle of the
Depression and competition from the newly developed medium of
color photography allowed the artist little of the precious time
he longed for to paint purely for self-expression, rather than
for an immediate commercial objective, there are "fine
art" pieces in the collection as well. It is an irony unique
to the 20th century that we make a distinction between
"fine" and "commercial" art. The
greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance were commisioned by
wealthy patrons who told the artist what to paint!
"Night closes down, but
fading of the day brings dawning of
the night with new color, music, moods.
Castillian twilight, peasant rhythms, tired
happy faces, the last plaintive voices of sleepy
children; the glow of new hearth
fires, the eager clasp of reunited
friends.
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A great city lies resting, with a distant roar of transit
and muffled throbbing of its heart.
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Still
a million lighted windows with their soul of
gaiety, study, or work. Still a thousand heads
bent over ledgers struggling through a maze of
petty pages.
The earth rolls
ponderously into night, but no one looks
up into the infinite. Far off deep throated
liners nose their way out into the ocean, a
dazzling city afloat, soon to a cockle shell, full of
anxious hearts."
April 28, 1931
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"It
is very difficult for me to paint the kind of
pictures referred to... ...and even more so to
describe them in words. They are the
kind of picture which really need no title...
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...though I call them 'Valley of Peace,' 'Transition,'etc.... and
in a way it is better for the observer to have his own individual
reaction, if any.
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Such things are not widely
appreciated; they are not sufficiently obvious and
gay.
But if I only had time, they
would absorb my whole being to abstraction, and might
lead some day to something worth
while."
Nov 13, 1930
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"The Valley of Peace"(above) and
"Transition"(below) recall the mysticism of the
Pre-Raphaelites.
"For myself I would drift
out upon the wings of fancy. I yearn to
escape the hard impersonal city, and
journey to a pleasantness of
dreams, to a land of beauty and
mysticism... I must have something of pagan in
me... or is it a roving imagination.... which
from the earth and sky... And from the
depths of human fantasy As from a thousand
prisms and mirrors, Fills the universe
with glorious beams. But therefore we love and
have faith and transform the world about
us."
February 4, 1932
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