Quotes on Art Is

Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.

I always wanted to show the world that art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind.

Art is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light of the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit.

Art is the pleasure of a spirit that enters nature and discovers that it too has a soul.

All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it.

A painting which does not take its inspiration from the heart is nothing more than futile juggling.

Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.

We must not confuse distortion with innovation; distortion is useless change, art is beneficial change.

Thou art beaten that thou mayest be better.

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

The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.

Art is really people asking the eternal question, "What is it all about?"

Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature.

It's not what you see that is art. Art is the gap.

There is no must in art because art is free.

But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn't declaim or explain, it presents.

Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

Design in art, is a recognition of the relation between various things, various elements in the creative flux. You can't invent a design. You recognize it, in the fourth dimension. That is, with your blood and your bones, as well as with your eyes.