ART QUOTES IX
quotations about art
It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries--to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction.
TONI MORRISON
interview with Don Swaim, 1987
That art is best which suggests most.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication.
CYRIL CONNOLLY
The Unquiet Grave
Art is a way of knowing what it is we actually believe.
PAT. B. ALLEN
Art Is a Way of Knowing
You're an artist ... that means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy--just different. There's nothing wrong with being different.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
The history of art is the history of revivals.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Note Books
Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it.... It's a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are a spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be an artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.
ANN PATCHETT
Bel Canto
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
BERTOLT BRECHT
attributed, Decade of Protest
Art is anything you can do well. Anything you can do with Quality.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
interview, NPR, Jul. 12, 1974
The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
ROBERT HENRI
"With preparation, making art is inevitable", Press of Atlantic City, March 8, 2016
Art is a vehicle that allows us to transcend linear time, to travel backward and forward into personal and transpersonal history, into possibilities that weren't realized and those that might be.
PAT B. ALLEN
introduction, Art Is a Spiritual Path
Art reminds us that in fact the world always exceeds our grasp and perception.
JEREMY BEGBIE
Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music
I want to meet a guy named Art. I'd take him to a museum, hang him on the wall, criticize him, and leave.
JAROD KINTZ
I Want
I think it would be a good stunt to get along without any art at all for a generation, and see what we miss.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
The Trail of the Hawk
The desire for bad art is the desire bred of habit: like the smoker's desire for tobacco, more marked by the extreme malaise of denial than by any very strong delight in fruition.
C. S. LEWIS
Of This and Other Worlds
Art exists with or without the market; exists without critics or museums. It exists everywhere ... in your backyard. It perseveres because some lucky few are inspired to create in spite of not being supported for their work, not recognized and often taken advantage of by schools and systems that pay lip service, but a minimum of support.
BEN PERRONE
"Freedom to create art is a wonderful thing", Buffalo News, March 22, 2016
Art isn't about following the rules. It's about breaking them.
DAVID SEDARIS
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Art respects the masses, by standing up to them for what they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Aesthetic Theory