Harmony

Paul Cezanne   Chrysanthemums   oil on canvas  1896-1898

"In The Transformation of Nature in Art, A.T. Coomeraswamy says that the transformation of nature has to do with indicating its mystic dimension, and nature just naturally is out there, so what!  You see it in pictures, you go out in the fields and you see it again.  But what the artist does by organization is to render a rhythmic statement that something of the mystery dimension comes radiantly through and touches us.  Cezanne had a saying, 'Art is a harmony parallel to nature,' and the harmony that is stated in art is of the nature that is both the nature of our own lives and the nature out there.  So we get an 'Aha!' a sense that, 'Ah yes, I've known that all the time.'"

--Joseph Campbell