Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Creativity can seem like a mysterious process. But many of the most creative people understand that you can actually break it down into a simple formula, involving what researcher Douglas Hofstadter calls “jootsing.” Here’s how …
“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context —a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” — Eliel Saarinen *** “The following lessons in design, …
Ever noticed a certain “sameness” to the pop songs you hear nowadays? A similarity in their structure, feel, and the voices you hear on the tunes? You’re correctly clued in. Mostly gone are the days of Elton John and …
“The best things in life happen to you when you’re alone.” *** Agnes Martin was a famous abstract painter and minimalist. In this short interview with Chuck Smith and Sono Kuwayama from her studio in 1997, the 85-year-old …
Philippe de Montebello was the longest-serving Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1977-2008). Martin Gayford was an acclaimed art critic. Their book, Rendez-Vous with Art, is structured around the conversations they had …
In a letter to his brother Theo, dated July 1882, found in Ever Yours: The Essential Letters, Vincent van Gogh describes how the simple few fundamentals combine into nearly endless permutations. Absolute black doesn’t in fact occur. Like …
A thoughtful passage by David Gelernter in Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox…How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean on how looking at a Rembrandt can teach us to better understand not only software …
“Ingres is said to have created an artistic order out of rest; I should like to create an order from feeling and, going still further, from motion.” *** Paul Klee was a painter who wrote extensively about color theory. His …
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a legendary curator and interviewer. In the book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Curating, the tables are turned and he is the one being interviewed. Here is a noteworthy exchange between him and Jefferson …
“If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning.” *** Two excerpts from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell found in The Essential Blake. The Voice of the Devil All Bibles or sacred codes have been the …
Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag’s second book, was published in 1966, but some of the essays date back to 1961, when she was still writing for The Benefactor. Sontag had come to New York in the early 60’s, eager to become …
You’re a painter. What’s the worst thing that can happen to you: neglect, derision, disgrace? Worse than all these misfortunes is to have to mutilate your masterpiece, the bravest thing you’ve ever tried. That’s what …
The Palace of Versailles, also know as The Château de Versailles, began as King Louis XIII’s hunting lodge. It is now considered one of the most beautiful achievements of 18th-century French art. The son of King Louis XIII, Louis XIV, …
Richard Feynman talking about the beauty of the natural world. I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it …