Quotes About Art

Last night, two men tried to force my shutters. I recognized them: they are two of Rodin's Italian models. He told them to kill me. I am in his way; he wants to get rid of me.

A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.

Take note that, before going any farther, I will give you the exact proportion of a man. Those of a woman I will disregard, for she does not have any set proportion.

The value of a canvas depends almost entirely on your mental attitude, not on your moral attitude; depends on what kind of a man you are, the way you observe.

What can be said about a man who is interested in nothing but his painting? It's a pity if a man can only interest himself in one thing. But I can't do any thing else. I have only one interest.

Gloom and solemnity are entirely out of place in even the most rigorous study of an art originally intended to make glad the heart of man.

The two World Wars came in part, like much modern literature and art, because men, whose nature is to tire of everything in turn... tired of common sense and civilization.

As refined fare serves a hungry man as well as and no better than coarser food, the more pretentious artist will not dream of inviting the hungry man to his meal.

Seraphs share with thee Knowledge; but Art, O Man, is thine alone!

There is no feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music,--that does not make a man sing or play the better.

The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is a disease which arises from men no having sufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being.

The artist is a man who finds that the form or shape of things externally corresponds, in some strange way, to the movements of his mental and emotional life.

Without artists, the sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed.

I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen.

People say 'Hofmann has different styles'. I have not. I have different moods; I am not two days the same man.

There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.

As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done.

Good poetry seems so simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

I don't want realism…. I'll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic!… I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth.

For love I make characters in plays.

I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!

Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.

They who love dancing too much seem to have more brains in their feet than in their head.

Perhaps believing in good design is like believing in God, it makes you an optimist.