Introduction: Painting and Writing

Jeffrey Meyers begins his book Painting and the Novel with a quotation from Baudelaire: ‘A characteristic symptom of the spiritual condition of our century is that all the arts tend, if not to act as a substitute for each other, at least to supplement each other, by lending each other new strength and new resources.’ 2 That statement might be clarified by stipulating that it deals with artists rather than with art consumers, for the latter have enjoyed the various arts for centuries by appropriating from one the terms of enjoyment for another. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.