No puedes salvar el mundo y ni siquiera podrás salvar tu vida, pero sí puedes resistir, pelear, enseñar, crear y demostrarte que este inmenso desastre, a pesar de todo, merece la pena.💥
The Cloister or the World, Arthur Hacker, 1896.
The title has a question mark most people miss: "The Cloister or the World?" That's the whole point of the painting. Hacker shows the nun caught between two choices, an angel to her left, a flower-draped woman and a cherub to her right, and leaves it open which way she'll go. He was actually a Royal Academician, not a Pre-Raphaelite, even though the style makes people assume otherwise.
Theory, Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1780.
That scroll in her hand reads "Theory of the Arts," and Reynolds painted her this way for a reason. This was one of the ceiling roundels he made for the Royal Academy's library, personifying the abstract idea students were meant to study before ever picking up a brush. Theory came before practice, floating above it, literally.