Quote of the Day (N.C. Wyeth, on ‘Practical’ and ‘Artistic’ Ideals)

“Practical ideals and artistic ideals are as foreign to each other as black is to white. They are of equal value (in their proper places) in their relations to life and living. But if a boy is naturally gifted with the ‘artistic ideal,’ be it in either art, music or writing, he should be guided into it, placed into its atmosphere unhampered by too much practicality; the latter will come from necessity."—American illustrator and painter N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), letter to his father, Andrew Newell Wyeth II, July 30, 1906, in The Wyeths: Letters of N.C. Wyeth, 1901-1945, Second Edition, edited by Betsy James Wyeth (2008)

Wyeth, the patriarch of a great family of painters, knew all too well the tug between practical and artistic ideals. As I discussed in this prior post about his death, he was afflicted towards the end of his life with “melancholy and self-doubt over an inability to be taken seriously as a producer of fine paintings rather than of popular commercial art”—the illustrations he created for classics by the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, James Fenimore Cooper, and Jules Verne for which he is still best known.

In some way, many artists, writers, and musicians who’ve achieved popularity have struggled with the same aspiration for higher achievement that Wyeth did.

(The image accompanying this post is a self-portrait of Wyeth.)