Quotes About Art

What is essential in a work of art is that it should rise far above the realm of personal life and speak from the spirit and heart of the poet as man to the spirit and heart of mankind.

A great work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent obviousness it does not explain itself and is never unequivocal. A dream never says: "You ought", or: "This is the truth." It presents an image in much the same way as nature allows a plant to grow, and we must draw our own conclusions. If a person has a nightmare, it means either that he is too much given to fear, or else that he is too exempt from it;

But we must not forget that only a very few people are artists in life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts. Who ever succeeded in draining the whole cup with grace?

Only in our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole and complete.

Expressionism in art prophetically anticipated this subjective development, for all art intuitively apprehends coming changes in the collective unconsciousness.

A purely causalistic psychology is only able to reduce every human individual to a member of the species Home sapiens, since its range is limited to what is transmitted by heredity or derived from other sources. But a work of art is not transmitted or derived–it is a creative reorganization of those very conditions to which a causalistic psychology must always reduce it.

Art has a way of anticipating future changes in man's fundamental outlook.

We find this in everyday life, where dilemmas are sometimes solved by the most surprising new propositions; many artists, philosophers, and even scientists owe some of their best ideas to inspirations that appear suddenly from the unconscious. The ability to reach a rich vein of such material and to translate it effectively into philosophy, literature, music, or scientific discovery is one of the hallmarks of what is commonly called genius.

I found sometimes, that it is of great help in handling such a case, to encourage them, to express their peculiar contents either in the form of writing or of drawing and painting. There are so many incomprehensible intuitions in such cases, phantasy fragments that rise from the unconscious, for which there is almost no suitable language. I let my patients find their own symbolic expressions, their "mythology.

How can we doubt that it is his art that explains the artist, and not the insufficiencies and conflicts of his personal life? These are nothing but the regrettable results of the fact that he is an artist—that is to say, a man who from his very birth has been called to a greater task than the ordinary mortal. A special ability means a heavy expenditure of energy in a particular direction, with a consequent drain from some other side of life.

What nature leaves imperfect, the art perfects

But without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

Paul Klee, who may be regarded as the poet among modern painters, says: "It is the artist's mission to penetrate as far as may be toward that secret ground where primal law feeds growth.

A work of art is produced that contains what may truthfully be called a message to generations of men. So Faust touches something in the soul of every German. So also Dante's fame is immortal, while The Shepherd of Hermas just failed of inclusion in the New Testament canon. Every period has its bias, its particular prejudice and its psychic ailment.

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What defines a perfect photo is entirely up to you. Otherwise, this wouldn't be an art. It would be just another commodity, subject to a checklist written long ago. There is no checklist. Be wary of anyone trying to sell you access to one.

Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field." — Peter Adams

This fashion for symbolic designs that people have to puzzle out, it tires me. There are enough real mysteries in the world.' 'But you paint, sir.' 'If ever I find time I do. But I try in my poor way to show people directly and clearly, like Master Holbein. Art should resolve the mysteries of our being, not occlude them further.

This is the wisdom of art, the knowledge that beauty perhaps is the one undeniably unique attribute of the human.

Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

Quando se deseja realmente dizer alguma coisa, as palavras são inúteis. Remexo o cérebro e elas vêm, não raras, mas toneladas. Deixam sempre um gosto de poeira na boca - a poeira do que se tentava expressar, e elas dissolveram. Quanto mais palavras ocorrem para vestir uma idéia, mais essa idéia resiste a ser identificada. As sucessivas roupas sufocam a sua nudez. E todas as palavras são uma grande bolha de sabão, às vezes brilhante, mas circundando o vazio.

To remain valuable in our economy, therefore, you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things.

In the end, he settled on posting one picture every week of whatever personal art project he happens to be working on. "It's a great way for me to have a visual archive of my projects," he explained. He also follows only a small number of accounts, all of which belong to artists whose work inspires him—making the experience of checking his feed both fast and meaningful.