ART QUOTES XIV
quotations about art
The idea of beauty is the fundamental idea of everything. In the world we see only distortions of the fundamental idea, but art, by imagination, may lift itself to the height of this idea. Art is therefore akin to creation.
LEO TOLSTOY
What Is Art?
Art is not imitation but illusion.
CHARLES READE
Christie Johnstone
Making art is dealing with people on your own terms. The ideal way of using people is using them like clay, but that being out of the question, except for lunatics and leaders, art is a good alternative.
LUCAS SAMARAS
"Another Autointerview", Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings
Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.
OSCAR WILDE
"The Decay of Lying", The Works of Oscar Wilde
Art is long, and the talk about it is even longer.
WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
Great works of art are only great because they are accessible and comprehensible to everyone.
LEO TOLSTOY
What Is Art?
The ordinary bloke will not voluntarily pay for "art" that leaves him unmoved--if he does pay for it, the money has to be conned out of him, by taxes and such.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
Stranger in a Strange Land
The life of reality is confused, disorderly, almost always without apparent purpose, whereas in the artist's imaginative life there is purpose. There is determination to give the tale, the song, the painting, form -- to make it true and real to the theme, not to life.
SHERWOOD ANDERSON
"A Note on Realism", The Literary Review, Oct. 25, 1924
The good qualities in our soul are most successfully and forcefully awakened by the power of art. Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.
MAXIM GORKY
Untimely Thoughts
It seems to me that the arts are rather flourishing. There's an awful lot of bad art about because of this, but that's true of every great era. I'm sure there was a lot dreadful art in the Renaissance that we fortunately don't see today.
LOUIS AUCHINCLOSS
The Atlantic, Oct. 15, 1997
Bullfighting can be an art
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art
Opening a can of sardines can be an art
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
New York Quarterly, 1985
It's frightening for one artist to see another one, any other one turn away from art.
SAMUEL R. DELANY
Dhalgren
It's not a bad thing for a man to have to live his life--and we nearly all manage to dodge it. Our first round with the Sphinx may strike something out of us--a book or a picture or a symphony; and we're amazed at our feat, and go on letting that first work breed others, as some animal forms reproduce each other without renewed fertilization. So there we are, committed to our first guess at the riddle; and our works look as like as successive impressions of the same plate, each with the lines a little fainter; whereas they ought to be--if we touch earth between times--as different from each other as those other creatures--jellyfish, aren't they, of a kind?--where successive generations produce new forms, and it takes a zoologist to see the hidden likeness.
EDITH WHARTON
"The Legend", Tales of Men and Ghosts
If they don't know what you're doin'
Babe it must be art.
U2
"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"
Art is two things: a search for a road and a search for freedom.
ALICE NEEL
"Art Is a Form of History", Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings
Art is the Mirror of our betrayed ideals.
DORIS LESSING
The Golden Notebook
Art is but a mirror, which gives back what is cast on its surface faithfully only while unsullied.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
If you are really creatively engaged with the thing we call ART, it is a 24/7 preoccupation. It can and does seep into all areas of your life.
JAMES GUPPY
"Judging art is a classic business", Echo Netdaily, March 16, 2016
The artist's path sometimes is slippery as well. I just have to stay on it.
KRISHNA MATHIAS
"With preparation, making art is inevitable", Press of Atlantic City, March 8, 2016
Computers creating art is an upsetting concept mostly because of what it means about humans.
JASON LEE MILLER
"Automated Content Will Unmake Existence"