Lookback: on dark and light art

From 2004:

I do think, however, that under the aspect of modernism, we're taught to distrust happiness, at least as represented in art (and probably also in life as well). I myself don't feel this way, which is why I gravitate to a great many artists whose view of the world is essentially sunny. On the other hand, that doesn't stop me from embracing the dark side of art, so long as it isn't ponderously dark. Even darkness can be "light," like The Great Gatsby, Mozart in a minor key, or Bonnard at his most obsessive....

Read the whole thing here .