ART QUOTES V

quotations about art

Art quote

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


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

GEORGE MOORE

Confessions of a Young Man

Tags: George Moore, nature


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

Tags: Fran Lebowitz


No art is possible without a dance with death.

KURT VONNEGUT

Slaughterhouse-Five

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut, death


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


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

LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Speak

Tags: emotion


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

Tags: Howard Zinn


Art ... is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM

interview, July 5, 2005

Tags: Stephen Sondheim, chaos


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


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"

Tags: Oscar Wilde


Never judge a work of art by its defects.

WASHINGTON ALLSTON

attributed, A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern

Tags: Washington Allston


That is one of the things a great work of art does. It stays there waiting for you to come back to it, and it shows you who you are now, each time a little different.

DANA SPIOTTA

Innocents and Others


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

Tags: love


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

Tags: Charles Baudelaire


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


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 function of art is to bring people into greater touch with reality, and yet our movie houses and family rooms are jammed with people after as much reality-removal as they can get.

EDWARD ALBEE

Stretching My Mind

Tags: Edward Albee, reality


Realism and art cannot live together.

JENNETTE LEE

The Ibsen Secret

Tags: realism