THE SUPREME VIRTUE
S
omeone once asked the Spartan king Leonidas to
identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all
others flowed. He replied: "Contempt for death."
For us as artists, read "failure." Contempt for failure is our
cardinal virtue. By confining our attention territorially to our
own thoughts and actions—in other words, to the work and
its demands—we cut the earth from beneath the blue-
painted, shield-banging, spear-brandishing foe.THE WAR OF ART