Quotes About Art

Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect.

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

She has form, he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove - that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks merely of music, and everybody knows that arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

The work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to dominate the work of art.

You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Everything falls into the hands of music eventually. The only thing that ever rescued me was listening to a big voice.

I think literature totally fails when it has an agenda. - From an interview on the podcast Starship Sofa, December 2010.

Love art in yourself, and not yourself in art.

Creative work is often driven by pain. It may be that if you don't have something in the back of your head driving you nuts, you may not do anything. It's not a good arrangement. If I were God, I wouldn't have done it that way. [Interview, The Wall Street Journal , Nov. 20, 2009]

Suttree stood among the screaming leaves and called the lightning down. It cracked and boomed about and he pointed out the darkened heart within him and cried for light. If there be any art in the weathers of this earth. Or char these bones to coal. If you can, if you can. A blackened rag in the rain.

She knew that in the end you really cant know. You cant get hold of the world. You can only draw a picture. Whether it's a bull on the wall of a cave or a partial differential equation it's all the same thing.

Writing is very subconscious and the last thing I want to do is think about it.

He had a tattoo of a bird on his neck done by someone with an ill-formed notion of their appearance.

What you write down becomes fixed. It takes on the constraints of any tangible entity. It collapses into a reality estranged from the realm of its creation. It's a marker. A roadsign. You have stopped to get your bearings, but at a price. You'll never know where it might have gone if you'd left it alone to go there.

The facade of the building bore an array of saints in their niches and they had been shot up by American troops trying their rifles, the figures shorn of ears and noses and darkly mottled with leadmarks oxidized upon the stone.

So where does music come from?

If you stretched a piece of music—so to speak—as the tone drew away the color would fade.

This is what Great Art does. It becomes more real than the real, more true than the truth.

What seems inconsequential to us by reason of usage is in fact the founding notion of civilization. Language, art, mathematics, everything. Ultimately the world itself and all in it.

It cracked and boomed about and he pointed out the darkened heart within him and cried for light. If there be any art in the weathers of this earth. Or char these bones to coal. If you can, if you can. A blackened rag in the rain. He sat with his back to a tree and watched the storm move on over the city. Am I a monster, are there monsters in me?

It's certainly possible that the imaginary is best. Like a painting of some idyllic landscape. The place you would most like to be. That you never will.

All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain.