Quotes About Art

She found herself, for the first moment, looking at the mysterious portrait through tears. Perhaps it was her tears that made it just then so strange and fair ... the face of a young woman, all splendidly drawn, down to the hands, and splendidly dressed ... And she was dead, dead, dead

Art lives upon discussion, upon experiment, upon curiosity, upon variety of attempt, upon the exchange of views and the comparison of standpoints.

I suspect that the age of letters is waning, for our time. It is the age of Panama Canals, of Sandra Bernhardt, of Western wheat raising, of merely material expansion. Art, form, may return, but I doubt I shall live to see them--I don't believe they are as eternal as the poets say.

Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance.

That was originally what I had loved him for: that at a period when our native land was nude and crude and provincial, when the famous 'atmosphere' it is supposed to lack was not even missed, when literature was lonely there and art and form akmost impossible, he had found the means to live and write like one of the first; to be free and general and not at all afraid; to feel, understand, and express everything.

You're like a picture; you ought to be enclosed in a gilt frame and stand against the wall.

He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others; but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as Madame de Mauves?

He was distinguished to the tips of his polished nails, and there was not a movement of his fine perpendicular person that was not noble and majestic. Newman had never yet been confronted with such an incarnation of the art of taking oneself seriously; he felt a sort of impulse to step backward, as you do to get a view of a great facade.

Quote of the day: Quote of the day: We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. [info][add][mail][note] Henry James (1843 - 1916)

The infirmity of art was the candour of affection, the grossness of pedigree the refinement of sympathy; the ugliest object in fact as a general thing were the bravest, the tenderest mementoes, and, as such, figured in glass cases apart, worthy doubtless of the home but not worthy of the temple – dedicated to the grimacing, not to the clear-faced gods. She

Art is long. If we work for ourselves of course we must hurry. If we work for her we must often pause.

We work in the dark. We do what we can. We give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion our task. The rest is the madness of art.

We must allow the artist his subject. It is only what he makes of it that we can judge.

She's a contemporary of the Medici; she must have been present at the burning of Savonarola, and I'm not sure she didn't throw a handful of chips into the flame.

that's the delightful thing about art, that there's always more to learn and more to do;it grows bigger the more one uses it and meets more questions the more they come up...

Art indeed in our day has taken on so many honors and emoluments that the recognition of its importance is more than a custom, has become on occasion almost a fury: the line is drawn--especially in the English world--only in the importance of heeding what it may mean.

Opera in English, is about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist. To make living itself an art, that is the goal.

To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.

Paint what you like and die happy

This is not a book in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will.

Writing is its own reward.

The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.

Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.