The special gift of Lewis Hyde

Ideas come not from single minds, but from exchanges across many minds, argues Lewis Hyde, and it is in a “gift economy” that art flourishes.

By David Hall In Books

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24th January, 2013

It is an eminently practical question: how are artists supposed to get by in this world? After all, staying alive takes money and making money takes time. But art takes time, too, often lots of it, and art doesn’t always make money. For unestablished artists especially, making art and making a living can sometimes seem like incompatible pursuits. “My God,” complained painter Paul Gauguin, “how terrible these money questions are for an artist!” Lewis Hyde was once on the sharp end of this dilemma himself. “When I got out of college,” he tells me over the phone from Ohio, “I ...

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