ART QUOTES XI

quotations about art

Art quote

It is difficult to prove that any age has been propitious for the artist; Socrates was condemned to death, so were Seneca and Petronius, Dante was exiled, the age of Louis XIV was one of both civil and religious persecution; the nineteenth century, as the lawsuits against Flaubert, Baudelaire, Hugo, etc., show, was not much better; and in the twentieth century there are whole tracts of Europe where to be a writer is to invite a firing-squad. "Silence, exile, and cunning" are the artist's lot, and, exquisite though his happiness will be when his public, educated at last, mobs him like a film-star, we may be wiser to assume that, for our lifetime, "silence, exile, and cunning" it will remain.

CYRIL CONNOLLY

The Condemned Playground

Tags: Cyril Connolly


Art is my spiritual path.... Art is my prayer, my ritual, my remembrance of the Divine. Art is the way I knit together the beliefs and practices that guide my life.

PAT B. ALLEN

introduction, Art Is a Spiritual Path

Tags: Pat B. Allen


Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.

OSCAR WILDE

The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Tags: Oscar Wilde, custom


Art is a means to enter, to play with, to dance with, to wrestle with anything that intrigues, delights, disturbs, or terrifies us.

PAT B. ALLEN

introduction, Art Is a Spiritual Path

Tags: Pat B. Allen


They say that art should stand the test of time. Life lasts a limited amount of time. Mountains and trees and earth will outlive human beings, but we don't know if they will be here always. Art does outlast the life span of its maker. Art should communicate to an increasing circle of strangers--people who do now know the artist, but come to know the work, and through the work, come to know something about the humanity of the artist that rings with their own humanity.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH

Letters to a Young Artist

Tags: Anna Deavere Smith


There's no art where there's no fee.

ARISTOPHANES

Plutus

Tags: Aristophanes


The swing of art is circular, from form to formalism, from formalism to formlessness, from formlessness to form again.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

OSCAR WILDE

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Tags: Oscar Wilde, painting


If the world were clear, art would not exist.

ALBERT CAMUS

The Myth of Sisyphus

Tags: Albert Camus


The particulars of life do not matter to the artist; they merely provide him with the opportunity to lay bare his genius.

MARCEL PROUST

Within a Budding Grove

Tags: Marcel Proust, genius


Art is never chaste. We forbid it to the ignorant innocents, never allow a contact with it to those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. And, if it's chaste it isn't art.

PABLO PICASSO

Picasso on Art: A Selection of Views

Tags: Pablo Picasso


Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

speech to Royal Academy of Art, 1953

Tags: Winston Churchill, tradition


In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;
Sad patience--joyous energies;
Humility--yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

HERMAN MELVILLE

"Art"

Tags: Herman Melville


It's a great life except for the money. If you are into STUFF, being an artist is probably not your thing unless you can marry yourself off to a financier. But as an artist, you get to do what you love doing and has meaning for you.

JAMES GUPPY

"Judging art is a classic business", Echo Netdaily, March 16, 2016


The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Thoughts on Art and Life

Tags: Leonardo da Vinci, artists


There's nothing like drawing a thing to make you really see it.

MARGARET ATWOOD

The Year of the Flood

Tags: Margaret Atwood


Surely to root politics out of art is a highly necessary undertaking: for the freedom of art, like that of science, depends entirely upon its objectivity and non-practical, non-partisan passion.

WYNDHAM LEWIS

"My Bill of Rights", The Diabolical Principle


The only original part in a work of art is the infusion of the artist's own character, if he has one.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley, artists


An artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.

CHINUA ACHEBE

The Massachusetts Review, Summer, 1987

Tags: Chinua Achebe


How do you turn catastrophe into art? Nowadays the process is automatic. A nuclear plant explodes? We'll have a play on the London stage within a year. A President is assissinated? You can have the book or the film or the filmed book or booked film. War? Send in the novelists. A series of gruesome murders? Listen for the tramp of the poets. We have to understand it, of course, this catastrophe; to understand it, we have to imagine it, so we need the imaginative arts. But we also need to justify it and forgive it, this catastrophe, however minimally. Why did it happen, this mad act of Nature, this crazed human moment? Well, at least it produced art. Perhaps, in the end, that's what catastrophe is for.

JULIAN BARNES

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

Tags: Julian Barnes