Motivational Quotes

Art

I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

- Kennedy, John F.

Best Quotes about Art

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.

Davis, Angela Y.

The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.

Gide, Andre

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

Gutzkow

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

Barney, Natalie Clifford

Often while reading a book one feels that the author would have preferred to paint rather than write; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors.

Picasso, Pablo

The art of creation is older than the art of killing.

Voznesensky, Andrei

It is the cause, not the death that makes the martyr.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

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

Yu Cao

10.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

Baldwin, James

11.

Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost.

Isak Dineson

12.

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

Cather, Willa

13.

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

Wilson, Robert

14.

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

15.

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible.

Brancusi, Constantin

16.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

17.

I can't criticize what I don't understand. If you want to call this art, you've got the benefit of all my doubts.

Charles Rosin

18.

In any society, the artist has a responsibility. His effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is important.

Bunuel, Luis

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Wordsworth, William

23.

Fine art, that exists for itself alone, is art in a final state of impotence. If nobody, including the artist, acknowledges art as a means of knowing the world, then art is relegated to a kind of rumpus room of the mind and the irresponsibility of the artist and the irrelevance of art to actual living becomes part and parcel of the practice of art.

Carter, Angela

24.

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

25.

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

Driscoll, Louise

26.

Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

John Singer Sargent

27.

I am an artist I am here to live out loud.

Zola, Emile

28.

The way of the world is, to praise dead saints, and persecute living ones.

Howe, Nathaniel

29.

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

Cassady, Neal

30.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

Keller, Helen

31.

The first mistake of Art is to assume that it's serious.

Bangs, Lester

32.

Faint hearts never win fair ladies.

Proverb, Danish

33.

Art has never been made while thinking of art.

Niko Stumpo

34.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Pablo Picasso

35.

The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.

Chopra, Deepak

36.

This is the artist, then, life's hungry man, the glutton of eternity, beauty's miser, glory's slave.

Wolfe, Thomas

37.

Their is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

38.

Art has an enemy called ignorance.

Johnson, Ben

39.

Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision.

Penn Jillette

40.

No sheath shall hold what finds its home in flesh.

Proverb

41.

I can't work without a model. I won't say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.

Gogh, Vincent Van

42.

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

43.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Shakespeare, William

44.

Art, that great undogmatized church.

Key, Ellen

45.

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

46.

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

Edmond de Goncourt

47.

But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY.

Pound, Ezra

48.

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

Mencken, H. L.

49.

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

50.

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

Simonides