Quotes About Art

one expects poetry, if it is Poetry, to offend.

Well, said Madame Morrible in a carrying tone, one expects poetry, if it is Poetry, to offend. It is the Right of Art. I think she's bonders, said Elphaba.

Para mí, ése es el auténtico poder del arte. No amonestar, sino provocar y desafiar. De otro modo, ¿para qué molestarse?

The translator, we should know, is a writer too. As a matter of fact, he could be called the ideal writer because all he has to do is write; plot, theme, characters, and all other essentials have already been provided, so he can just sit down and write his ass off. (p. 8)

This interest in pattern and surprise gives us our love of both familiarity and novelty. When we experience something familiar—a song, a favorite snack, an episode of The Office—our brains process it more easily, which may make us like it more. Nevertheless, to enjoy ourselves, we usually try something new. Novelty is more work but also more interesting, which is why new forms of music, art, and fashion catch our attention.

It is by studying little things, that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

It is by studying little things," wrote Samuel Johnson, "that we attain the great art of having as little misery, and as much happiness as possible.

But perhaps the most acute sense of happiness from writing was the happiness of expressing a very complicated idea - the kind of idea that takes hundreds of pages to capture.

When man resolved to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. In doing this, he was practicing surrealism without knowing it.

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.

Bourgeois do not even suspect that we serve them our hearts. The race of gladiators has not died: every artist is one. He amuses the public with his afflictions.

I have the gift of neither the spoken nor the written word, especially if I have to say something about myself or my work. Whoever wants to know something about me -as an artist, the only notable thing- ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do.

Whoever wants to know something about me, they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.

A palavra falada, tal como a palavra escrita não me saem facilmente e muito menos quando tenho de me expressar sobre mim mesmo ou sobre o meu trabalho. (...) Aquele que pretende saber algo sobre mim - na qualidade de artista porque apenas esta minha faceta é digna de interesse - deve olhar atentamente para os meus quadros e tentar depreender deles o que sou e o que pretendo.

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

Étant la plus saisissante manifestation de l'art des constructions métalliques par lesquelles nos ingénieurs se sont illustrés en Europe, elle est une des formes les plus frappantes de notre génie national moderne. Being the most striking manifestation of the art of metal structures by which our engineers have shown in Europe, it [the Eiffel Tower] is one of the most striking of our modern national genius.

The public wants work which flatters its illusions.

Writing is a dog's life, but the only one worth living.

As humanity perfects itself, man becomes degraded. When everything is reduced to the mere counter-balancing of economic interests, what room will there be for virtue? When Nature has been so subjugated that she has lost all her original forms, where will that leave the plastic arts? And so on. In the mean time, things are going to get very murky.

Love art. Of all lies, it is the least untrue.

In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.

Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.

On certain occasions art can shake very ordinary spirits, and whole worlds can be revealed by its clumsiest interpreters.

Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.