Spring 2009 Potomac Term - Potomac School

Music, visual arts and perfroming arts have long been
an integral part of a Potomac education. [ below ] A
production of “Robin Hood” in 1915.
Languages without Words
It is all very well to talk about the arts, but so much
cannot be translated at all. Nor should we try.
Words are coded substitutes for ideas and
for things. Words have their own logic, cadence,
melody and color, but they are not stone or paint
or music. Some beauties are unspeakable.
When children express themselves through
the arts, they are learning and practicing dialects
new to themselves, but old as humanity.
“What is jazz? Man, if you have to ask what it is,
then you’ll never know.”
- Louis Armstrong
American jazz musician
“If you could say it in words, there would be no
reason to paint.”
- Edward Hopper
20th century American painter
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