The purpose of art

“Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don't see a different purpose for it now.”
- Dorethea Tanning (1910-2012)

Tanning, of course, was one of great Surrealist writers and artists of the 20th century -- and, like Zora Neale Hurston, spent formative years in New York City; she also lived in Arizona and France over the course of her long life. The letter below is from Tanning to her friend and fellow-artist Joseph Cornell. More illustrated letters can be seen on the Smithsonian site. (And for those of you in New York, there's a terrific exhibition of Beatrix Potter's illustrated letters at the Morgan Library right now.)