ART QUOTES V

quotations about art

Art quote

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

EMILY DICKINSON

letter to T. W. Higginson, 1876

Tags: Emily Dickinson, Nature


Whether it is the beautiful that brings to our hearts the love of truth and justice, or whether it is truth that teaches us how to find the beautiful in nature and how to love it, in either case art does a noble work. It drags out the soul from its everyday shell, and brings it under the spell of its own mysterious and wonderful power, so that a memory of this experience stays with the people, sustains them in their daily labors, and refines their minds.

HELENA MODJESKA

"Women and the Stage", The World's Congress of Representative Women

Tags: Helena Modjeska, soul


Every artist dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pictures.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

Tags: Henry Ward Beecher, soul


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

Tags: Fulke Greville, perfection


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

Tags: W. H. Auden


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

Tags: James Baldwin


The idea of a new art based upon science, in opposition to the art of the old world that was based on imagination, an art that should explain all things and embrace modern life in its entirety, in its endless ramifications, be, as it were, a new creed in a new civilization, filled me with wonder, and I stood dumb before the vastness of the conception, and the towering height of the ambition.

GEORGE MOORE

Confessions of a Young Man

Tags: George Moore, science


Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Art Like Morality Consists in Drawing the Line Somewhere

Tags: G. K. Chesterton, morality


All passes. Art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The Bust outlasts the throne,--
The Coin, Tiberius.

HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON

Ars Victrix

Tags: Henry Austin Dobson


One of the pleasures of art is that it enables the mind to move in unanticipated directions, to make connections that may be in some sense errors but are fruitful nonetheless.

DONALD BARTHELME

"Reifications"

Tags: Donald Barthelme


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

LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Speak

Tags: emotion


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

ROMAN PAYNE

Rooftop Soliloquy

Tags: madness, society


There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

PABLO PICASSO

Picasso on Art: A Selection of Views

Tags: Pablo Picasso, reality


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

Tags: Ermanno Bencivenga


Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

THEODOR WIESENGRUND ADORNO

Minima Moralia

Tags: Theodor W. Adorno


Art is a little subversive, very subversive; it gets underneath the surface and reveals what is there; it is a Geiger counter for truth.

PAT B. ALLEN

Art Is a Spiritual Path

Tags: Pat B. Allen, truth


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"

Tags: Donald Barthelme


Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

LEO TOLSTOY

What is Art?

Tags: Leo Tolstoy


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?

Tags: Leo Tolstoy


I always wanted to show the world that art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind.

LOUISE NEVELSON

"Dawns and Dusks", Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings

Tags: creativity, mind