Motivational Quotes

Art

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

- Duke Ellington

Best Quotes about Art

As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

Goncourt, Edmond and Jules De

Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.

Amy Lowell

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

Cather, Willa

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

By the time a partnership dissolves, it has dissolved.

Updike, John

Painting is an attempt to come to terms with life. There are as many solutions as there are human beings.

George Tooker

Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

Ambrose Bierce

All God wants of man is a peaceful heart.

Eckhart, Meister

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

Miller, Henry

10.

We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now,by suffering. This is the easier victory.

Eliot, T. S.

11.

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.

Pablo Picasso

12.

The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn't make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.

Stein, Gertrude

13.

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

14.

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.

Ruskin, John

15.

I will soon be going out to shape all the singing tomorrows.

Peri, Gabriel

16.

Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more -- more unseen forms become manifest to him.

Rumi, Jalal-Uddin

17.

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

Geldzahler, Henry

18.

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.

Picasso, Pablo

19.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

Tynan, Kenneth

20.

The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.

Jackson Pollock

21.

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

22.

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

Frost, Robert

23.

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

Wordsworth, William

24.

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

Aristophanes

25.

Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

26.

Art is the signature of civilizations.

Sills, Beverly

27.

One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.

Scott, Sir Walter

28.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

29.

Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that you live, if you do.

Elizabeth Bowen

30.

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted. [Henry Iv]

Shakespeare, William

31.

A painting in a museum probably hears more foolish remarks than anything else in the world.

Goncourt, Edmond and Jules De

32.

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

33.

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

Pablo Picasso

34.

The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.

Motherwell, Robert

35.

The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.

Berle, Adolf

36.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

37.

The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure.

Connolly, Cyril

38.

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

Picasso, Pablo

39.

The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.

Piet Mondrian

40.

Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.

Novalis

41.

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.

42.

Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.

Cassady, Neal

43.

If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.

Trotsky, Leon

44.

Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected.

Wilde, Oscar

45.

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

Picasso, Pablo

46.

Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart.

47.

An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why.

Faulkner, William

48.

Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's womb.

Arp, Jean