ART QUOTES VI

quotations about art

Art quote

Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 27

Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our mind into contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.

JAMES JOYCE
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 37

Ulysses


Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 63


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 69

Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: James Joyce, ideas


Perhaps art is a quest for the perfect, or even the imperfect. Reality always falls short on both sides.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH

Letters to a Young Artist


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Anna Deavere Smith, perfection


Realism and art cannot live together.

JENNETTE LEE

The Ibsen Secret


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: realism


Now the culture is made of old things, it's a collage. Art made out of art is not art. You're supposed to make art out of life.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

interview, Paper Magazine, September 17, 2014


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Fran Lebowitz


But art not only exploits the variety of appearances, it also affirms the validity of individual outlook and thereby admits a further dimension of variety. Since the shapes of art do not primarily bear witness to the objective nature of the things for which they stand, they can reflect individual interpretation and invention.

RUDOLF ARNHEIM

Visual Thinking


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject.

GEORGE SANTAYANA

The Life of Reason


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: George Santayana


Like most art students, I expect I'll find that there is no demand for what I've learned so I'll teach other students so that one day they can teach as well.

GUY BELLAMY

The Secret Lemonade Drinker


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Guy Bellamy


Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.

TONI MORRISON

Sula


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Toni Morrison, artists


Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.

LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Speak


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: emotion


Every artist joins a conversation that's been going on for generations, even millennia, before he or she joins the scene.

JOHN BARTH

attributed, Writers Dreaming


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness that characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm.

SAUL BELLOW

The Paris Review, winter 1966


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Saul Bellow, chaos


Art ... is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Art Objects


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


Art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex.

VLADIMIR NABOKOV

Strong Opinions


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Vladimir Nabokov


I have never found anywhere, in the domain of art, that you don't have to walk to. (There is quite an array of jets, buses and hacks which you can ride to Success; but that is a different destination.) It is a pretty wild country. There are, of course, roads. Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction -- you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Language of the Night


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Ursula K. Le Guin


All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Ideas of Good and Evil


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: William Butler Yeats


All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art.

ROMAN PAYNE

Rooftop Soliloquy


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: madness, society


Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the songs of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them.

PABLO PICASSO

Picasso on Art: A Selection of Views


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Pablo Picasso, understanding


Art -- the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.

JAMES THURBER

Collecting Himself


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: James Thurber


The perfection of art is to conceal the sources.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Austin O'Malley


When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65


Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 70

Tags: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, nature