Quotes on Art

Art really has its source in the transcendent, the unmanifest field of pure consciousness, which is the non-changing, immortal field of all possibilities...When the awareness of the artist is in tune with this center of infinite creativity, his piece of art breathes fullness of life, nourishes the creator, the artist, and inspires his admirers with waves of bliss.

Do your art. But don't wreck your art if it doesn't lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.

The highest art is no art. The best form is no form.

We possess art lest we perish of the truth.

One learns the art of dying by learning the art of living: how to become master of the present moment.

The black artist is dangerous. Black art controls the 'Negro's' reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.

I think of making love and making art as being very parallel. Even the most amateur attempt can be thrilling.

The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.

Self-knowledge is the basis of jeet kune do because it is effective not only for the individual's martial art but also for his life as a human being.

Art...is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person...Passion is caring enough about your art that you will do almost anything to give it away, to make it a gift, to change people.

I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.

No government can exist without taxation. The money must necessarily be levied on the people; and the grand art consists of levying so as not to oppress.

A great work of art is one that truly moves and inspires you. You yourself must be moved. Don't look at art with others' eyes. Don't listen to music with others' ears. You must react to art with your own feelings, your own heart and mind.

W]hat makes a work of art ‘good’ for you is not something that is already ‘inside’ it, but something that happens inside you.

Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument.

Pop art is about liking things.

A portrait, to be a work of art, neither must nor may resemble the sitter... one must paint its atmosphere.

Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.

Art cannot be modern. Art is primordially eternal.

I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.