'Creating sunshine is the artist's business'

 

“It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails.  He who has a sun in himself won’t seek for it somewhere else.” – Romain Rolland

Nobel Prize-winner Rolland was born in France on this date in 1866.  He wrote across the spectrum producing award-winning works as a novelist, essayist, art historian and dramatist, producing works for the stage that could be seen by "ordinary" people.   He was an early leader in making theater productions accessible to all and not just reserved for the rich and famous. 

His friend Sigmund Freud said he was profoundly influenced by Rolland’s views and a great admirer of Rolland’s epic (10-volume) novel Jean-Christophe, written over an 8-year period and setting the stage for his Nobel Prize, which he earned in 1915. 

 

“Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth but already to possess it,”  Rolland once noted.   

“Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepares the way for the faith of tomorrow.”