This quote from Mark Rothko has stuck with me...

I paint very large pictures.
 I realize that historically the function of painting
  large pictures is painting something
        grandiose and pompous.
 The reason I paint them, however - I think it applies
      to other painters I know – is precisely
because I want to be very intimate and human.
 To paint a small picture
  is to place yourself outside your experience,
to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or
        with a reducing glass...
  However you paint the larger picture,
    you are in it.
    It isn't something you command.