ART QUOTES IX
quotations about art
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
THOMAS MERTON
No Man Is an Island
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
BERTOLT BRECHT
attributed, Decade of Protest
I think it would be a good stunt to get along without any art at all for a generation, and see what we miss.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
The Trail of the Hawk
For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction.
TONI MORRISON
interview with Don Swaim, 1987
There was a lot of time between early artists doing cave painting and the Sistine Chapel and more time until the first art museum was created. During this time and until the development of the press, not a lot was written about art, yet artists persevered and they were probably more appreciated.
BEN PERRONE
"Freedom to create art is a wonderful thing", Buffalo News, March 22, 2016
I want to meet a guy named Art. I'd take him to a museum, hang him on the wall, criticize him, and leave.
JAROD KINTZ
I Want
The good thing about being an artist, is it's a legitimate way of looking at things cross-eyed.
JOHN CHAMBERLAIN
"Unshackled, Unconventional Sculptor", New York Times, Jun. 13, 1993
Art is anything you can do well. Anything you can do with Quality.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
interview, NPR, Jul. 12, 1974
The forms of art reflect the history of man more truthfully than do documents themselves.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Philosophy of Modern Music
The artist is justified by his art.
LEWIS FOREMAN DAY
Stained Glass
An artist who dedicates his life to art, burdens his art with his life, and his life with his art.
AD REINHARDT
"Twelve Rules for a New Academy", Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings
Art respects the masses, by standing up to them for what they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Aesthetic Theory
Beauty today can have no other measure except the depth to which a work resolves contradictions. A work must cut through the contradictions and overcome them, not by covering them up, but by pursuing them.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
attributed, Architecture and Modernity: A Critique
Creating our own art is scary. We sensitive peeps have set some pretty high standards for ourself. We fear we are not good enough at it. How can we get the multitude of ideas in our head on a sheet of paper? All we can see is how flawed it will be.
ESTHER DE CHARON DE SAINT GERMAIN
"Why Art Is Important for Highly Sensitive Persons", Huffington Post, March 15, 2016
Art isn't about following the rules. It's about breaking them.
DAVID SEDARIS
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
In art there are two principal schools between which each aspirant has to choose--one distinguished by its close adherence to nature, and the other by its strenuous efforts to get above it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
You're an artist ... that means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy--just different. There's nothing wrong with being different.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
The desire for bad art is the desire bred of habit: like the smoker's desire for tobacco, more marked by the extreme malaise of denial than by any very strong delight in fruition.
C. S. LEWIS
Of This and Other Worlds
Art exists with or without the market; exists without critics or museums. It exists everywhere ... in your backyard. It perseveres because some lucky few are inspired to create in spite of not being supported for their work, not recognized and often taken advantage of by schools and systems that pay lip service, but a minimum of support.
BEN PERRONE
"Freedom to create art is a wonderful thing", Buffalo News, March 22, 2016