Creative work holds more life than its forms can contain

Evidence

There is more in human products, perhaps in every single one which derives fully from the creative power of the spirit, than is contained in its forms. This marks off everything that has soul from all that is produced merely mechanically. Here, perhaps, may be found the motivation for the contemporary interest in the art of Van Gogh. In him more than any other painter, one senses a passionate life which swings far beyond the limits of pictorial art. It flows from a unique breadth and depth; that it finds in the painter’s talent a channel for its expression seems only accidental, as if it could just as well have given life to practical or religious, to poetic or musical activities. It is primarily this burning life, which can be felt in its immediacy—and which sometimes enters into a destructive contrast with its obvious form—that makes Van Gogh so fascinating. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 853

Categorization

• FICTION: The idea of a burning life that overflows its chosen form — ‘as if it could just as well have given life to practical or religious activities’ — is a rich characterization device for a wandering, unmoored protagonist.
• XREF: connects to: Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 837; Conceptualization inevitably imposes form on formless life — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 1018; Every completed work of art is merely a ghost of its possibilities — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1227 (+3 more)

Related

• Art and play preserve depth only by retaining life’s traces in autonomous forms (similarity 0.89)
• Every completed work of art is merely a ghost of its possibilities (similarity 0.83)
• Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them (similarity 0.80)
• Life both requires and overflows every determinate form (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them #complicates (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 837
• Conceptualization inevitably imposes form on formless life #corroborates (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 1018