ART QUOTES III
quotations about art
Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.
TONI MORRISON
Sula
Art is the Godhead as revealed in the works of man.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
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
When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears.
HENRY MILLER
Tropic of Cancer
Take a quart of nature, boil it down to a pint, and the residue is art.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The work of art still has something in common with enchantment: it posits its own, self-enclosed area, which is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which special laws apply.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Dialectic of Enlightenment
The transcendental face of art is always a form of prayer.
JOHN BERGER
The Sense of Sight
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
Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term "Art," I should call it "the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul." The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of "Artist".
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"Marginalia"
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"
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
We are all artists. We just have to believe it.
WILL GOMPERTZ
Think Like an Artist: and Lead a More Creative, Productive Life
There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.
REBECCA WEST
The Strange Necessity
Art -- the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.
JAMES THURBER
Collecting Himself
All passes. Art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The Bust outlasts the throne,--
The Coin, Tiberius.
HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON
Ars Victrix
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Art Like Morality Consists in Drawing the Line Somewhere
Art as Magic is a forbidden and illegitimate pleasure, and ... what we are ashamed of wanting most are our wishful apprehensions. The big secret about Art is that no one wants it to be true. Apart, that is, from the artist.
ADAM PHILLIPS
On Balance
I believe that economic prosperity and cultural wealth go hand in hand. This is why it is important to even further promote the cultural arts during times of economic slowdown.
OH SEUNG-JE
"All That Korean Art Is There for a Reason", New York Times, March 16, 2016
Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON
Speak
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