Found words

During the studio cleanup I'm finding not just UFOs but lots of scraps of paper with wise words (or so I thought at the time) scribbled on them - perhaps they'll be of interest to someone...

First, an interesting thought from David Hockney (possibly in The Bigger Picture): "Good artists work all the time. What else is there to do?"

"There's no outcrop of rock or mountain that hasn't been imbued with human meaning by giving it a name" - Peter Randall Page

The "magic five" qualities of art that get the eye to "stick" on it are:

Gray to rest the eye.

Gradation in a large area - or interlocking gradations.

Warm against cool or cool against warm.

Strong value pattern when reduced to black and white.

Colour surprise.

"Their power is mysterious and therefore compelling." (Possibly from a Robert Genn letter.)

"In picking up a piece of paper he gained, even in the split second before putting pen to paper, creative impulse" (referring perhaps to Michelangelo?) On the same bit of paper with this quote was the name Laocoon, which sent me to find out about it. This is the guy who warned the Trojans, in vain, against accepting that famous horse from the Greeks (and we all know what that led to...) A Roman copy of a 2nd century Greek statue was unearthed in 1506 and immediately put on display. Laocoon and his sons are being attacked by snakes -

It's been influential for centuries; many museums have plaster casts of it. The serpentine forms gave rise to an exhibition, and catalogue, in 2007.