ART QUOTES V

quotations about art

Art quote

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

JAMES THURBER
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Collecting Himself


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Tags: James Thurber


Whenever I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and four) I lift my spirits by remembering: The artists are on our side! I mean those poets and painters, singers and musicians, novelists and playwrights who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse.

HOWARD ZINN

"Artists of Resistance", The Historic Unfulfilled Promise


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Tags: Howard Zinn


There are many brave artists who dare to reveal what's most precious to them. Who dare to step into the world without protective layer. Open. Vulnerable. Exposed.

ESTHER DE CHARON DE SAINT GERMAIN

"Why Art Is Important for Highly Sensitive Persons", Huffington Post, March 15, 2016


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The meaning of a work of art is what the artist wants to communicate to his public through the work, by using a specific language. Since every language has its limitations and its problems of expression, there will be obstacles to communicating certain contents: a work's value is to be found in the ingenuity, the originality, and perhaps the economy of the solutions the artist finds to overcome these obstacles.

ERMANNO BENCIVENGA

Philosophy in Play


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Tags: Ermanno Bencivenga


Our mistake has been to categorize things as art by considering certain phases of the process of creation. But logically this can make all man-made objects art. It is more useful to categorize art by what has become its social function. It functions as property.

JOHN BERGER

Selected Essays of John Berger


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Tags: John Berger


Modernity is the transitory, fugitive, contingent, is but one half of art, of which the other half is the eternal and immutable.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

"La Modernite", La Peintre de la Vie Moderne


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Tags: Charles Baudelaire


If they who understand the utmost refinement of any art will enjoy the perfection of it in a manner superior to other men, will they not amply pay for that advantage in feeling more than other men the imperfection of it, which in the natural course of things must so much oftener fall in their way?

FULKE GREVILLE

Maxims, Characters, and Reflections


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Tags: Fulke Greville, perfection


Art is not Nature, art is Nature digested. Art is a sublime excrement.

GEORGE MOORE

Confessions of a Young Man


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Tags: George Moore, nature


Art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex.

VLADIMIR NABOKOV

Strong Opinions


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Tags: Vladimir Nabokov


All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up.

JAMES BALDWIN

Esquire, April 1960


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Tags: James Baldwin


A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.

W. H. AUDEN

"A Poet of the Actual", Forewords and Afterwords


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Tags: W. H. Auden


The perfection of art is to conceal the sources.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


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Tags: Austin O'Malley


That beauty which is meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a positive necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is to say unless we are content to be less than men.

OSCAR WILDE

"Art and the Handicraftsman"


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Tags: Oscar Wilde


Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked out. The cause of production of real art is the artist's inner need to express a feeling that has accumulated, just as for a mother the cause of sexual conception is love. The cause of counterfeit art, as of prostitution, is gain. The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling into the intercourse of life, as the consequence of a wife's love is the birth of a new man into life. The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual strength.

LEO TOLSTOY

What Is Art?


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Tags: Leo Tolstoy


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


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Tags: Anna Deavere Smith, perfection


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


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Tags: George Santayana


Nature is a haunted house -- but Art -- a House that tries to be haunted.

EMILY DICKINSON

letter to T. W. Higginson, 1876


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Tags: Emily Dickinson, Nature


But art consists not so much in the knowledge of principles, as in the manner of applying them; to reveal them to ignorant people is to put a razor in the hand of a monkey.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology


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Tags: Honoré de Balzac


Art is always aimed (like a rifle, if you wish) at the middle class. The working class has its own culture and will have no truck with fanciness of any kind. The upper class owns the world and thus needs know no more about the world than is necessary for its orderly exploitation. The notion that art cuts across class boundaries to stir the hearts of hoe hand and Morgan alike is, at best, a fiction useful to the artist, his Hail Mary. It is the poor puzzled bourgeoisie that is sufficiently uncertain, sufficiently hopeful, to pay attention to art. It follows (as the night the day) that the bourgeoisie should get it in the neck.

DONALD BARTHELME

"On the Level of Desire"


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Tags: Donald Barthelme


Art and love are the same thing: It's the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

Killing Yourself to Live


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Tags: love