All persistent practices in art have a creative function. They may serve several ends, but the chief one is the shaping of the work.
Susanne Katherina LangerEvery artistic form reflects the dynamism that is constantly building up the life of feeling.
Susanne Katherina LangerTragedy dramatizes human life as potentiality and fulfillment. Its virtual future, or Destiny, is therefore quite different from that created in comedy. Comic Destiny is Fortune - what the world will bring, and the man will take or miss, encounter or escape; tragic Destiny is what the man brings, and the world will demand of him. That is his Fate.
Susanne Katherina LangerThe development of beings with minds is probably the highest individuation the world has ever known, and its prehistory is the history of life on earth.
Susanne Katherina LangerThe high intellectual value of images, however, lies in the fact that they usually, and perhaps always, fit more than one actual experience.
Susanne Katherina LangerMusic is 'significant form,' and its significance is that of a symbol, a highly articulated, sensuous object, which by virtue of its dynamic structure can express the forms of vital experience which language is peculiarly unfit to convey. Feeling, life, motion and emotion constitute its import.
Susanne Katherina Langer