Motivational Quotes

Art

Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature.

- Rand, Ayn

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

In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men.

Beauvoir, Simone De

Wealth and want equally harden the human heart, like frost and fire both are alien to human flesh.

Parker, Theodore

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.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Paul Gauguin

Abstract Art: A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.

Capp, Al

Art is the signature of civilizations.

Sills, Beverly

I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark would burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

London, Jack

I say that good painters imitated nature; but that bad ones vomited it.

Miguel de Cervantes

10.

Of all the arts in which the wise excel, nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Buckingham, Duke of

11.

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

12.

Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake.

E. M. Forster

13.

With an apple I will astonish Paris.

Cezanne, Paul

14.

Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

Rumi, Jalal-Uddin

15.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

16.

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

Picasso, Pablo

17.

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.

Shaw, George Bernard

18.

When I am finishing a picture I hold some God-made object up to it -- a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand -- as a kind of final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it is bad art.

Chagall, Marc

19.

Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

20.

By the time a partnership dissolves, it has dissolved.

Updike, John

21.

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.

22.

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

23.

Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven't been cut off.

Cioran, E. M.

24.

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.

Proust, Marcel

25.

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

Picasso, Pablo

26.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, while the heart of the fool is in the house of entertainment.

Bible

27.

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

Connolly, Cyril

28.

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

29.

Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood... will contribute to the growth of this nation and to make it strong and dynamic.

Gandhi, Indira

30.

Two things are bad for the heart -- running up stairs and running down people.

Baruch, Bernard M.

31.

It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.

Midler, Bette

32.

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

Mailer, Norman

33.

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe; he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.

Miller, Henry

34.

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

Stephen Nachmanovitch

35.

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

Berle, Adolf

36.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need. [when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues.]

Rodin, Auguste

37.

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

Yu Cao

38.

Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.

Novalis

39.

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

40.

The heart is the best reflective thinker.

Phillips, Wendell

41.

I'm still an artist. I'm never gonna do a shit movie, because I've got my modeling to support me.

Jovovich, Milla

42.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

The idea of a mass audience was really an invention of the Industrial Revolution.

David Cronenberg

44.

Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.

Cicero

45.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Pablo Picasso

46.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

47.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

48.

Experiment is necessary in establishing an academy, but certain principles must apply to this business of art as to any other business which affects the artistic tic sense of the community. Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language.

Menzies, Robert

49.

Enjoyed it! One more drink and I'd have been under the host.

Parker, Dorothy

50.

Balance is the enemy of art.

Eyre, Richard