To wit, as the lawyers say, within every great painting you can find startling abstractions—wave-like flows, juxtapositions of color, expressive patterns and the shattering of patterns, stirring contrasts, hypnotic forms, etc. But within even the most magnificent abstractions you cannot find great paintings. In every Raphael there are a hundred million de Koonings. In de Kooning there is not a single Raphael. You can break a $10,000 Federal Reserve Certificate into a million pennies, but you cannot, from a penny, make a $10,000 bill. – From “Against The Dehumanization of Art” Mark Helprin

painting by Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900)
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