Quotes on Art Is

The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that art can go beyond the finest specimens of art that are now in the world is not knowing what art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the spirit.

Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? Why do photographers bother with the deception, especially since it so often requires the hardest work of all? The answer is, I think, that the deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace.

Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.

'By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible true, that thou art beauteous truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal.

Teaching is a sacred profession. And art is a form of teaching.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

Art is born out of an ill-designed world.

When we free ourselves we are not freed into a void. When we free ourselves we are freed into a dimension in which Art is an obligation.

When we accept bad art because it's good politics, we're killing the swan to feed the chickens.

Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music "for" their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that's the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place.

One of the great functions of art is to help us imagine what it is like to be not ourselves, what it is like to be someone or something else, what it is like to live in another skin, what it is like to live in another body, and in that sense to surpass ourselves, to go out beyond ourselves.

A work of art is a confession.

Behind all these manifestations is the one radiance, which shines through all things. The function of art is to reveal this radiance through the created object.

Every authentic work of art is a gift offered to the future.

Art is what we do when we're truly alive.

Art is not about objects of high monetary exchange. It's about reasserting our firsthand experience in present time.

I think art is sublimated libido. You can’t be a eunuch priest, and you can’t be a eunuch artist.

The Difference Between Art and Life is that Art is More Bearable

Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.

This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.

Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don’t feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy.