"Insistence on the opposition between life and art is tied to the
experience of an alienated world. And failure to recognize the universal
scope and ontological dignity of play is an abstraction that blinds us
to the interdependence of both [life and art]. Play is less the opposite
of seriousness than the vital ground of spirit as nature, a form of
restraint and freedom at one and the
same time. It is precisely because what we encounter in the creative
forms of art is not merely the freedom of caprice or of the blind
superabundance of nature, that their play is capable of penetrating all
the dimensions of our social life, through all classes, races, and
levels of cultural attainment. For these our forms of play are forms of
our freedom."
— Hans-Georg Gadamer "The Play of Art" [1973]
in The Relevance of the Beautiful. p130
— Hans-Georg Gadamer "The Play of Art" [1973]
in The Relevance of the Beautiful. p130
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