THE VISIONARY PAINTER Cecil Collins is perhaps the most important metaphysical artist to have emerged in England since William Blake. “The true purpose of art”, he wrote, “is to remember the paradise we’ve forgotten.” The poet Kathleen Raine wrote of her response to Collins’ work as “entering a world infinitely familiar; a sense of homecoming”. But she acknowledged in this same essay that there are always those who say, “I am afraid I don’t understand these paintings; can you explain them to me?” “To explain to those who need such explanation”, she wrote, “is probably impossible; one can but say, ...
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