quotations about art
The artist is justified by his art.
LEWIS FOREMAN DAY
Stained Glass
I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness that characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm.
SAUL BELLOW
The Paris Review, winter 1966
An artist who dedicates his life to art, burdens his art with his life, and his life with his art.
AD REINHARDT
"Twelve Rules for a New Academy", Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings
We few, we happy few. No, we lucky few! Artists, wake up. Be gratified when our art is not taken by museums to rot in their storage vaults, probably never to be seen again. We should appreciate that we can and will survive without museums and the finely crafted words of those who will never know what it's like to create. Pick up some sand and run it through your fingers. Consider the long span of geological history and realize that our civilization won't last. All paintings and sculpture, including the great works of art, will be treated equally by time -- reduced to ashes and dust. This recognition puts me in my place but it is also a relief. Accepting mortality gives me the freedom to work without restraint, boundary or expectation.
BEN PERRONE
"Freedom to create art is a wonderful thing", Buffalo News, March 22, 2016
The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
ROBERT HENRI
"With preparation, making art is inevitable", Press of Atlantic City, March 8, 2016
For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction.
TONI MORRISON
interview with Don Swaim, 1987
Art is anything you can do well. Anything you can do with Quality.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
interview, NPR, Jul. 12, 1974
Art isn't about following the rules. It's about breaking them.
DAVID SEDARIS
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
What is Art, monsieur, but Nature concentrated?
HONORE DE BALZAC
Lost Illusions
The good thing about being an artist, is it's a legitimate way of looking at things cross-eyed.
JOHN CHAMBERLAIN
"Unshackled, Unconventional Sculptor", New York Times, Jun. 13, 1993
I think it would be a good stunt to get along without any art at all for a generation, and see what we miss.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
The Trail of the Hawk
In art there are two principal schools between which each aspirant has to choose--one distinguished by its close adherence to nature, and the other by its strenuous efforts to get above it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The forms of art reflect the history of man more truthfully than do documents themselves.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Philosophy of Modern Music
This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
Beauty today can have no other measure except the depth to which a work resolves contradictions. A work must cut through the contradictions and overcome them, not by covering them up, but by pursuing them.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
attributed, Architecture and Modernity: A Critique
Art respects the masses, by standing up to them for what they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Aesthetic Theory
The desire for bad art is the desire bred of habit: like the smoker's desire for tobacco, more marked by the extreme malaise of denial than by any very strong delight in fruition.
C. S. LEWIS
Of This and Other Worlds
Creating our own art is scary. We sensitive peeps have set some pretty high standards for ourself. We fear we are not good enough at it. How can we get the multitude of ideas in our head on a sheet of paper? All we can see is how flawed it will be.
ESTHER DE CHARON DE SAINT GERMAIN
"Why Art Is Important for Highly Sensitive Persons", Huffington Post, March 15, 2016
You're an artist ... that means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy--just different. There's nothing wrong with being different.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
Art exists with or without the market; exists without critics or museums. It exists everywhere ... in your backyard. It perseveres because some lucky few are inspired to create in spite of not being supported for their work, not recognized and often taken advantage of by schools and systems that pay lip service, but a minimum of support.
BEN PERRONE
"Freedom to create art is a wonderful thing", Buffalo News, March 22, 2016