Motivational Quotes

Art

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.

- Chesterton, Gilbert K.

Best Quotes about Art

There is in every human heart Some not completely barren part, Where seeds of truth and love might grow, And flowers of generous virtue flow; To plant, to watch, to water there, This be our duty, be our care.

Bowring, Sir John

Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly I think, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. It is art which will take the great human themes --love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself --and render them fully human. It may also, though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme, one as great and as rich as those others --should we call it joy?

Dworkin, Andrea

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

Murdoch, Iris

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

Conrad, Joseph

Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go.

Driscoll, Louise

I shut my eyes in order to see.

Paul Gauguin

The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.

Franklin, Benjamin

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values.

Alvarez, A.

10.

Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

John Singer Sargent

11.

It is a weakness that I lead from my heart, and not my head?

Diana, Princess of Wales

12.

Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.

Rilke, Rainer Maria

13.

All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.

M. C. Richards

14.

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

Pablo Picasso

15.

As the unity of the modern world becomes increasingly a technological rather than a social affair, the techniques of the arts provide the most valuable means of insight into the real direction of our own collective purposes.

Mcluhan, Marshall

16.

I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.

Ben Shahn

17.

The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

18.

It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever -- the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it.

Lombardi, Vince

19.

The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.

Baudelaire, Charles

20.

Where are you searching for me, friend? Look! Here am I right within you. Not in temple, nor in mosque, not in Kaaba nor Kailas, but here right within you am I.

Kabir

21.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

22.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.

Connolly, Cyril

23.

It is either easy or impossible.

Dali, Salvador

24.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

25.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

Waugh, Evelyn

26.

Those who write for lucre or fame are grosser than the cartel robbers, for they steal the genius of the people, which is its will to resist evil.

Dahlberg, Edward

27.

The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

28.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

29.

Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.

Richter, Jean Paul

30.

If I spit, they will take my spit and frame it as great art.

Picasso, Pablo

31.

Use your head and your heart, its not everything but its a start.

32.

It's not your painting anymore. It stopped being your painting the moment that you finished it.

Jeff Melvoin

33.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

Tzara, Tristan

34.

It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture.

35.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

36.

Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.

Bierce, Ambrose

37.

Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed.

Yu Cao

38.

The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.

Klee, Paul

39.

Through art we express our conception of what nature is not.

Picasso, Pablo

40.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

41.

Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs.

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders

42.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

43.

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech.

Simonides

44.

If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master's presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole ofyour hour but bring your heart back and place it again in Our Lord's presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.

Francis De Sales, St.

45.

The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.

Berryman, John

46.

This grandiose tragedy that we call modern art.

Dali, Salvador

47.

No manager ever won no ballgames.

Anderson, Sparky

48.

Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?

Wordsworth, William

49.

Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.

Castaneda, Carlos

50.

Good art however immoral is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise.

Pound, Ezra