Quotes About Art

Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear on our lives.

He inspected himself glumly in the rearview mirror, probing tentatively at the full-blown shiner that now graced his left eye socket. Deep reds and purples adorned it in bold, splashy strokes; and the moisture from his icepack gave it the appearance of a high-gloss finish. He briefly considered turning it in as his next art project, then stifled the thought.

In China our professional artists or craftsman used to carve large pieces of white ivory into models of famous buildings, such as the Peking Palace or the Temple of Heaven, with streets and people to the minutest detail. I have been fortunate enough to see a few of theses, and the snow-covered Oxford High, with its yellow stone, resembled one of these exquisite ivory carvings, yellowed with age. I was happy to have discovered such affinity between Oxford and Ancient China.

The Spider is a lovely lady. She knows just what to do. She weaves a dainty web to catch the morning dew...

A poet dips words into springtime to season her poems with beauty.

After God perfected the sunrise, he created photographers, artists, and poets to ensure his feat remained immortal.

Good tattoos aren't cheap and cheap tattoos aren't good.

He was as tempestuous of exterior, as hearty of manner and as stormy of voice as ever, — and just as good a man as exists anywhere. His legs, and arms, and back, and breast, were just as splendid as ever with grand red and blue anchors, and ships and flags, and goddesses of liberty, done in the perfection of the tattooing art.

Tattoos are walking artwork.

Beauty is skin deep, unless you have really bad tattoos.

For index now as he stretched forth Derwent, arrested, cried, "Dost bleed?" Touching the naked skin: "Look here— A living fresco!" And indeed, Upon the fore-arm did appear A thing of art, vermil and blue, A crucifixion in tattoo, With trickling blood-drops strange to see...

Tattoo the pristine flesh What is permanent anyway? This ink only lasts 'til the grave, Time will decompose That which we did compose.

Theatre is life. Cinema is art. Television is furniture.

I never get tired of the blue sky..

Here there are very beautiful fields with olive trees, which are grey and silvery green, like pollard willows. And I never get tired of the blue sky..

Moonlight is sculpture: sunlight is painting.

The sun is not only a painter but a sculptor.

The Art of getting Riches consists very much in Thrift. All Men are not equally qualified for getting Money, but it is in the Power of every one alike to practise this Virtue.

But men are so serious. Why? Why violence? Why hatred? Why war? If people want to make war, they should make a colour war, and paint each others city up during the night in pinks and greens.

Weeds are nature's graffiti.

A vineyard is planted poetry.

Icicles: fossilized raindrops.

When I glimpse the backs of women's knees I seem to hear the first movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.

The traditional sacrifices of a writer are soul and sleep.