Quotes About Art

Cinema which is well-made, for any kind of audience, is worthy of being watched by just about anybody who would like to watch a good story being told.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.

Art's everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

I won't call my work entertainment. It's exploring. It's asking questions of people, constantly. 'How much do you feel? How much do you know? Are you aware of this? Can you cope with this?' A good movie will ask you questions you don't already know the answers to. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?

Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I'm lucky enough to be in the position where I don't make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.

Etretat is becoming more and more amazing. Now is the real moment: the beach with all its fine boats; it is superb, and I am enraged not to be more skillful in rendering all this. I would need two hands and hundreds of canvases.

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

If you know somethin' well, you can always paint it but people would be better off buyin' chickens.

I am installed in a fairylike place. I do not know where to poke my head; everything is superb, and I would like to do everything, so I use up and squander lots of color, for there are trials to be made.

I remember being inspired myself when smaller films, whether it's 'Beasts' or 'Winter's Bone,' wound up in the Oscars lineup.

And I wound up in New Orleans for all those years and it was a great place, really a catalyst creatively.

There was a big drive when I was at art school to make you aware of the economy of meaning - after all, this was still during the tail end of minimalism. Being responsible for everything you put in your picture, and being able to defend it. Keeping everything clear around you so you know what is operating. To open the wound and keep it clean.

For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential - the imagination.

Most of the appearance of mirth in the world is not mirth, it is art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks under a disguise.

I can admire music where you feel the composer has everything organized and perfectly shaped, but it doesn't touch me. I like to feel that a composer is wounded, like all of us.

Melody's like tweezers that go into the infection and pull out the wounded part. You can almost not stay silent in the face of a melody that matches your emotion. You feel seen.

An artist wears his work in place of wounds.

Fashion is not separate from art. It is inextricably woven into how we open ourselves to the world and articulates the exchanges of power both real and imagined.

My work is on the one hand laboured, and on the other completely happenstance and intuitive. But that's the swish in the work, I think. It's really important to me that the work isn't just sitting on top of something, that the materials are woven together - that they are recognisable and from the world.

Choose paintings, sculptures, realistic or abstract or animal images woven into fabrics, rather than a faux zebra rug or a sullied Lion's head on the wall.

If you ask any of us which movie we were making when one of our kids was born, we'll be able to tell you instantly. It's like our family lives are permanently woven into the movies.

My tapestries are woven on a computer-controlled loom. I design them on Photoshop. I recently did some digitally-routed woodcuts because I wanted the woodcut look, but I didn't want to get the chisels out.

I remember when I saw 'King's Speech' or 'Girl With the Pearl Earring;' there are moments in my life where I was blown away and thought, 'Wow, that's why I chose to be a film composer.' These films are so beautiful and so strong, and the music can be very much part of the emotion.