"The purpose of art", he explained in a letter to a friend, "is to humanize universal life, that is to say to make it proportional to man's deposed royalty". He added that "art became a need of love ever since man was no longer as grand as the universe he looks at. He calls the universe to himself, and it is thus that works come into being. One therefore needs eternity to understand it, needs to feel his exile in order to give painful birth to living truth."