Art is Revelation

"God is in the details." The quote is commonly attributed to the German architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, but it has also been attributed to Gustave Flaubert, to my mind the more likely candidate. Vladimir Nabokov had his own variation: "Caress the detail, the divine detail." And I've always liked the ditty by the obsessive Michelangelo: "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."

While God may be in the details, it seems the devil is in there, too. In her entry in the Spectator DIARY, Jenny McCartney is struck by this "appealingly casual" drawing by Watteau (currently on display at the Royal Academy of Art).

"It calls to mind the difference between pornography and eroticism: pornography imposes the uniform of desire upon its faceless subject; eroticism teases out the particular allure of the person already there."

Particulars turn us on. They're keyholes into the mystery, the rousing essence of art.