“All true feeling is in reality untranslatable. To express it is to betray it. But it translate it is to dissimulate it. True expression hides what it makes manifest. It sets the mind in opposition to the real void of nature by creating in reaction a kind of fullness in thought. Or, in other terms, in relation to the manifestation-illusion of nature it creates a void in thought. All powerful feeling produces in us the idea of the void. And the lucid language which obstructs the appearance of this void also obstructs the appearance of poetry in thought. That is why an image, an allegory, a figure that masks what it would reveal have more significance for the spirit than the lucidities of speech and its analytics. This is why true beauty never strikes us directly. The setting sun is beautiful because of all it makes us lose.”
— Antonin Artaud, from “The Theater and Its Double”
