Giorgio de Chirico:

"Every object has two aspects: The common aspect, which is the one we generally see and which is seen by everyone, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals see at moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical meditation. A work of art must relate something that does not appear in its visible form."

The Soothsayer's Recompense, oil on canvas by Giorgio de Chirico, 1913;

in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

"Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were the first to teach the deep significance of the senselessness of life, and to show how this senselessness could be transformed into art . . . . The dreadful void they discovered is the very soulless and untroubled beauty of matter."