Motivational Quotes

Art

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

- Frida Kahlo

Best Quotes about Art

What of us lies in the hearts of others is our truest and deepest self.

Herder, Johann Gottfried Von

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion --I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more --I could be martyred for my religion --Love is my religion --I could die for that.

Keats, John

The object of art is to give life a shape. [Midsummer Nights Dream]

Shakespeare, William

Art is too serious to be taken seriously.

Reinhardt, Ad

The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.

Beck

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.

Poe, Edgar Allan

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

Mailer, Norman

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

10.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Shakespeare, William

11.

One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.

French, Marilyn

12.

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.

Hockney, David

13.

If the wolf had ever come to our back door, he'd have had to bring a picnic lunch.

Anderson, Bill

14.

You're confusing product with process. Most people, when they criticize, whether they like it or hate it, they're talking about product. That's not art, that's the result of art. Art, to whatever degree we can get a handle on (I'm not sure that we really can) is a process. It begins in the heart and the mind with the eyes and hands.

Jeff Melvoin

15.

All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart!

Castaneda, Carlos

16.

The artist belongs to their work, not the work to the artist.

Novalis

17.

What we play is life.

Louis Armstrong

18.

All great art, and today all great artlessness, must appear extreme to the mass of men, as we know them today. It springs from the anguish of great souls. From the souls of men not formed, but deformed in factories whose inspiration is pelf.

Trocchi, Alexander

19.

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

Motherwell, Robert

20.

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

Picasso, Pablo

21.

The focus should be on the players. I'm here a long time. You can call me in the summer. Our seniors will be gone.

Smith, Dean

22.

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.

23.

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

Tynan, Kenneth

24.

A heart in love with beauty never grows old.

Proverb, Turkish

25.

Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

26.

An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.

Kooning, Willem De

27.

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

28.

Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.

Latimer, Bishop Hugh

29.

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

30.

Each painting has its own way of evolving...When the painting is finished, the subject reaveals itself.

William Baziotes

31.

Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

32.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

33.

If we keep an open mind, too much is likely to fall into it.

Barney, Natalie Clifford

34.

Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it. Advanced art today is no longer a cause --it contains no moral imperative. There is no virtue in clinging to principles and standards, no vice in selling or in selling out.

Rosenberg, Harold

35.

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Jefferson, Thomas

36.

There must be hearts which know the depths of our being, and swear by us, even when the whole world forsakes us.

Gutzkow

37.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Orson Welles

38.

The artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

39.

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

40.

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.

W. Somerset Maugham

41.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

Shaw, George Bernard

42.

If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens.

Moses, Grandma

43.

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

44.

There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist's relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist's concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.

Rich, Adrienne

45.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

46.

Fortunately art is a community effort --a small but select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh.

Ginsberg, Allen

47.

The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.

Beecher, Henry Ward

48.

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

Wilson, Robert

49.

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure

Baryshnikov, Mikhail

50.

In free society art is not a weapon. Artists are not engineers of the soul.