Motivational Quotes

Art

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

- Edmond de Goncourt

Best Quotes about Art

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.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Einstein, Albert

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling Kilroy was here on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.

Faulkner, William

I suppose no matter what I'm drawing, there will always be some sort of question in my mind about it. A work of art (even cartoon art)is never really finished; it is abandoned.

Brooke McEldowney

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

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

Picasso, Pablo

He bores me. He ought to have stuck to his flying machine. [On Leonardo Da Vinci]

Renoir, Pierre Auguste

Art forms of the past were really considered elitist. Bach did not compose for the masses, neither did Beethoven. It was always for patrons, aristocrats, and royalty. Now we have a sort of democratic version of that, which is to say that the audience is so splintered in its interests.

David Cronenberg

If your heart were sincere and upright, every creature would be unto you a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine.

Kempis, Thomas

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

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

13.

As noble Art has survived noble nature, so too she marches ahead of it, fashioning and awakening by her inspiration. Before Truth sends her triumphant light into the depths of the heart, imagination catches its rays, and the peaks of humanity will be glowing when humid night still lingers in the valleys.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Yu Cao

18.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a better idea.

Ciardi, John

19.

Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.

Adorno, Theodor W.

20.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

21.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

Twain, Mark

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.

Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp.

Dubuffet, Jean

24.

Whether joy or sorrowful, the heart needs a double, because a joy shared is doubled and a pain that is shared is divided.

Ruckett

25.

Art is a form of catharsis.

Parker, Dorothy

26.

Whether you call my heart affectionate, or you call it womanish: I confess, that to my misfortune, it is soft.

Ovid

27.

Seek not good from without: seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it.

Suttner, Bertha Von

28.

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

Cather, Willa

29.

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

Elizabeth Bowen

30.

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

Wilson, Robert

31.

[Abstract art is] a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.

Al Capp

32.

Balance is the enemy of art.

Eyre, Richard

33.

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

34.

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

Moses, Grandma

35.

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

Driscoll, Louise

36.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Andre Gide

37.

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

Isak Dineson

38.

Art never improves, but the material of art is never quite the same.

Eliot, T. S.

39.

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

Capp, Al

40.

Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.

Thurber, James

41.

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

42.

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.

Joseph Chilton Pearce

43.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

Kael, Pauline

44.

Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.

Byron, Lord

45.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

46.

The great artist is a slave to his ideals.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

47.

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

Godard, Jean-Luc

48.

If that's art, I'm a Hottentot!

Truman, Harry S

49.

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

50.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.