“I believe that all great art holds the power to dissolve things: time, distance, difference, injustice, alienation, despair. I believe that all great art holds the power to mend things: join, comfort, inspire hope in fellowship, reconcile us to our selves. …
“We stand before a work of art and our spirit is lifted by it: amazing that someone is like us! We stand before a work of art and our spirit resists: amazing that someone is different!”
Source: The Question of Light, Tilda Swinton speech at the Rothko Chapel when presented with Visionary Award in 2014
An artist friend and I were talking on the weekend about the inevitability of being influenced by the artwork of others, whether you fight against it or whether you absorb and make it something of your own, and how you might do either of these. We may differ in our approaches, but we agree that nothing lifts the spirit like art, both seeing it and creating it.