The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.
Jean CocteauRead
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Artists often express their work in ways that are beyond verbal explanation, similar to how a plant cannot articulate its own growth and care.
This quote highlights the intrinsic challenge of articulating the creative process and emotional landscape of art. Just as a plant is rooted in its nature and does not possess the capacity or need to discuss horticulture, artists convey their experiences and emotions through their art rather than in words, making verbal explanations sometimes insufficient or even inappropriate.
Themes
ArtistArtCreativityExpressionCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker discussing the role of art in emotional expression during a conference.
More from Jean Cocteau
All quotes →One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
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All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
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Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
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Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.
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Watch yourself all your life in a mirror and you'll see Death at work like bees in a glass hive.
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Similar quotes
In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.
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C'est véritablement utile puisque c'est joli. It is truly useful since it is beautiful.
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They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
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If you talk to any filmmaker, and if you said to them, 'I guarantee you x amount of money per month for the rest of your life, and it's not a big amount of money, but I can also guarantee that you will work continually, you will get to make what you want to make,' any filmmaker on the planet will make that kind of deal. I would have made it.
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If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession.
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France is not poetic; she even feels, in fact, a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse, those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic.
Charles BaudelaireRead