Word: motif
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Rutman's explanation for the "motif" of his paintings is that this is something to provide that consistency of style which critics have found wanting in his previous work. Although he titles his works after he paints them, they are not abstracts; rather they are all - and despite his own titles - "pieces...
...shapes, Netsch had to do far more than satisfy one specific congregation, and one creed. He not only had to build a private place of worship for the cadets, he also had to create a national monument. Furthermore, his building would serve Protestants, Catholics and Jews. A single-spire motif would imply one religion, and a three-spire motif would make no sense. The problem was how to produce a building that would be unmistakably a house of worship, without benefit of using, on the exterior at least, any of the traditional architectural hallmarks of any one faith...
...leit-motif of German diplomacy between the wars was not aggression: it was Hitler's perception that the Western Powers would let drop the plums he was after without too much shaking, if he would only be patient. Hitler's genius as a diplomat resided in this incredible patience -- and in such confidence in himself, that he was able to win battle after battle in the war of nerves by out-waiting his opponents. "Right to the end," says Taylor, "Hitler did not make demands; he graciously accepted what was offered by others...
...because it seeks to overcome our delight in sonority for its own sake, and thereby to thrust upon us the import of precisely what it wants to say. This import strikes us at the moment that we become so imbued with Wagner's musical world that each single utterance--motif, cadence or action--conveys the full magnitude of the drama. In the end singers and orchestra should lose their novelty for us and become vehicles for the expression of Wagner's overarching musical revelation. Music can only touch our lives, he would claim, when it is aware of its mundanity...
...Doors to Perception, Aldous Huxley is concerned with the social applications of the so-called Budda drugs (mescaline, psilocybin, LSD). He refers to society's need for escapes. The escape motif should not be emphasized. For most subjects the opposite seems true. Confrontation, intense (and often painful) contact with reality more accurately characterize the experience...