Goethe

One of Goethe's ideas was that art is not only a reflection of the artist, it is also a reflection of the circumstances of the world that the artist inhabits. True art seeks to interpret and describe the world surrounding the human being from the perspective of and filtered through that being. Therefore, a piece of art blends the individual and the collective. It is a view of the soul of the creator as altered by the collective. The state of that soul is a statement, as well, of the state of the health of the collective.