As a European, I am rooted in the Western tradition – the ethics and aesthetics of Classical antiquity, Renaissance humanism, the Enlightenment, Neoclassicism. In both art and philosophy, virtually all great innovations have come about by one way only: Realising your era was at a dead end, rediscovering the craft of a more accomplished time period, then refining and applying it in order to break into previously uncharted territory.

I take the view that sometime in the 19th century, society went off track when it decided that any mediocre fragment could be claimed to be art, regardless of its craft or comprehensibility. This was such a pervasive notion that it also tainted music, literature, even philosophy; but it is a fallacy. The true artist differentiates himself from the mere fantasists and fraudsters by creating works that are both profound and intuitively comprehensible to other people. This is the one principle that unites all genuine artists throughout different ages and civilisations. One might benefit from study in order to better appreciate Mozart, Molière, or Raphael; but one needs absolutely no explanation to feel moved by their works. There is a sense of the eternal in these achievements that naturally resonates within the human soul, a continuous, unchanging spirit: this is also the reason why art consoles us.

My life's purpose is to try and anchor at least some instances of this immutable principle in the transient century that is ours.