Essays, letters, and writings by Artists

I would, to immerse my consciousness into your serenity

I Would to Love You

Milena Pavlović-Barili1940

The Republic

Plato

Irony, humor, metaphysics and the meaning of life. The original philosophical masterwork.

360 BCE

Crystal Flowers: Poems and a Libretto

Florine Stettheimer

Sad poems from a strange artist

1949

Of the Just Shaping of Letters

Albrecht Dürer

Typography that stands the test of time

1525

Aristotle’s Poetics

Aristotle

A masterclass on poetry and theater — too bad it’s half missing

335 BCE

In this city of the generous, all are chivalrous

From a Paris Window–High

Marsden Hartley1913

The Six Enneads

Plotinus

270 CE

The history of Rome from by Titus Livius Patavinus

Livy's History of Rome

Titus Livius Patavinus32 BCE

The Lives of the Artists

Giorgio Vasari

The first encyclopedia of artists

1550

By the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth

Apology

Plato399 BCE

The history of the conquest of the Gauls (aka Celts) written by Julius Caesar.

The Conquest of the Gauls

Julius Ceasar50 BCE

The New Art — The New Life

Piet Mondrian, Harry Holtzman, Martin S. James

Great minds don't always think alike

1993

The Compound of Alchemy

George Ripley

Divide your elixirs and make the Projection

1591

The Painter of Modern Life

Charles Baudelaire

Present-day beauty: the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent

1863

The Key of Solomon, Book 1

Author Unknown

Spells for finding hidden treasure, binding love and summoning angels

1400

The Magus, Book 1

Francis Barrett

The rarest of the 19th century grimoires

1801

The First Law of the Land: if any one ensnare another, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death

Law Code of Hammurabi

Hammurabi1754 BCE

The Ramayana

Valmiki

Rama's journey to rescue his wife from the demon king (she's in another castle)

100 BCE

The Laws of Manu

Author Unknown

Want to become a Brahman? Memorize 1000 laws.

200 BCE

On the Nature of Things

Lucretius

Physics, the mind, soul, the movements of the universe, and sex, obviously

50 BCE

Ten Books on Architecture

Vitruvius

How to build roads, buildings and aqueducts with Roman precision

15 BCE

Metamorphoses

Ovid

The transformations of man and gods from before formation of the world

1 CE

Aeneid

Virgil

The adventures of Aeneis the Trojan, and what happens when the gods hate you

19 CE

The Mahābhārata

Vyasa

It takes 1.8 million words to describe the meaning of life

400 BCE

Action and inaction will both destroy you in the end

The Dialogue of Pessimism

1000 BCE

We ask of our rulers no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation. We ask justice.

Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States

1876

I condemn without hesitation the position of the Knave of Diamonds, which has replaced creative activity with theorizing.

Cubism — a Diatribe

Natalia Goncharova1912

Abandon love, abandon aestheticism, abandon the baggage of wisdom, for in the new culture, your wisdom is ridiculous and insignificant. I have untied the knots of wisdom and liberated the consciousness of color!

From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism

Kazimir Malevich1915

I shake off the dust of the West, and I consider all those people ridiculous and backward who still imitate Western models in the hope of becoming pure painters and who fear literariness more than death.

The Rise of Russian Art

Natalia Goncharova1913

In the midst of Umma Entemena overthrew Urlumma and killed him. He left behind 60 soldiers of his force dead on the bank of the canal.

The war for the Tigris and Euphrates canal

2500 BCE

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