"In science, one becomes so obsessed with the number of feathers in a bird’s wing or its mass or muscular strength that one forgets the fact of the bird’s flight, or its beauty, or its existence. One forgets the truth of those things. Similarly, the artist who looks only within, without looking to the minutiae of the bird or the air in which the bird flies or the earth below the air, forgets those apparently solid details that may also lead him to truth. If he never bothers to examine a bird’s mass and strength, then his painting or poem can speak only of his own narcissism."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Malcolm_Azania