Content, as opposed to subject matter, may be described as… that which a work betrays but does not parade. It is the basic attitude of a nation, a period, a class, a religious persuasion - all this unconsciously qualified by one personality, and condensed into one work. It is obvious that such an involuntary revelation will be obscured in proportion as one of two elements, IDEA or FORM, is voluntarily emphasized or suppressed.
A spinning machine is perhaps the most impressive manifestation of a functional idea and an abstract painting is probably the most expressive manifestation of pure form, but both have a minimum of content.
…He possibly believed, with Proust, that a work in which the theory is visible is like an object which displays its price-tag.
These thoughts from Montesque which I came across the other day, where he says that as soon as a man’s mind reached maturity his bodily powers begin to fail.
