Quotes on Art

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

Art is a form of supremely delicate awareness and atonement — meaning atoneness, the state of being at one with the object.

Voyeurism is a director's job description. It's an artist's, too.

In the creative state a man is taken out of himself. He lets down as it were a bucket into his subconscious, and draws up something which is normally beyond his reach. He mixes this thing with his normal experiences and out of the mixture he makes a work of art.

It is essential that we enable young people to see themselves as participants in one of the most exciting eras in history, and to have a sense of purpose in relation to it.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As mans ingratitude Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho sing, heigh-ho unto the green holly Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then heigh-ho the holly This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend rememberd not.

Layer by layer art strips life bare.

Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.

The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.

Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also experience them.

I believe it is no wrong Observation, that Persons of Genius, and those who are most capable of Art, are always fond of Nature, as such are chiefly sensible, that all Art consists in the Imitation and Study of Nature. On the contrary, People of the common Level of Understanding are principally delighted with the Little Niceties and Fantastical Operations of Art, and constantly think that finest which is least Natural.

It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.

Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual...

The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.

An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty.

Fine art is knowledge made visible.

You don't always have to show art in what's called a white box; you can have a kind of complexity within an exhibit which actually respects the art as well.

After all, the supreme virtue in all art is soul, perhaps it is the only thing which gives art a right to be.

Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.

What is nature? Art thou not the living government of God? O Heaven, is it in very deed He then that ever speaks through thee, that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me?

Mystery is the essential element of every work of art.