Quotes About Art

It's no small matter to cross an ocean,Chagall said. More can be lost than canvas and paint. An artist must bear witness, Monsieur Fry. He cannot turn away, even if he wished to. An artist cannot bear witness if he's dead.

Philippe Starck.

When I saw the illustration a new idea came to me. Might it not be possible to have Satsuko's face and figure carved on my tombstone in the manner of such a Bodhisattva, to use her as the secret model for a Kannon or Seishi? After all, I have no religious beliefs, any sort of faith will do for me; my only conceivable divinity is Satsuko. Nothing could be better than to lie buried under her image.

El muchacho le explicó, como pronunciando un sermón, que el mundo de los hombres era vil y estaba lleno de mentiras. En él, solo el arte conducía a la vida verdadera y eterna, y él mismo era grande porque sabía lo que se encontraba más allá de las puertas del arte. La muchacha no podía dudar de la nobleza de sus palabras.

Wir sind der Meinung, Schönheit sei nicht in den Objekten selber zu suchen, sondern im Helldunkel, im Schattenspiel, das sich zwischen Objekten entfaltet.

Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.

It has been said of Japanese food that it is a cuisine to be looked at rather than eaten. I would go further and say that it is to be meditated upon, a kind of silent music evoked by the combination of lacquerware and the light of a candle flickering in the dark.

That's why I love entertainment, in all forms: it's connection disguised as escapism.

Se spune c? rima nu-?i atinge cre?terea complet?, decat dac? este stimulat?.

The whole surface of her body was covered with a coat of fine sand, which hid the details and brought out the feminine lines; she seemed a statue gilded with sand.

She seemed to be wearing frozen fish bladders for shoes. But

A naked body doing something is more completely naked than a simple nude.

The former were trompe l'œil doors painted on a wall, but the mask was like a door ajar, through which the fragrance of sunlight is wafted in.

a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation that helps us to make a painful rite of passage from one phase of life, one state of mind, to another. A novel, like a myth, teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our own self-interest.

If professional religious leaders cannot instruct us in mythological lore, our artists and creative writers can perhaps step into this priestly role and bring fresh insight to our lost and damaged role.

On 26 April 1937, at the height of the Spanish Civil War, Nazi planes, under the orders of General Franco, attacked the Basque capital of Guernica on its market-day, killing 1654 of its 7000 inhabitants. A few months later, Pablo Picasso exhibited Guernica at the International Exhibition in Paris. This modern, secular crucifixion shocked his contemporaries, and yet, like The Waste Land, it was a prophetic statement, and also a rallying cry against the inhumanity of our brave new world.

Like art, religion has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the suffering that flesh is heir to. Like any other human activity, religion can be abused, but it seems to have been something that we have always done.

Where, My Lord, is music bred—upon the instrument or within the ear that listens? The loveliness of woman is created in the eye of man.

to say that dust bunnies were the spirit animals of creatives.

The next day I lay out on the grass in our backyard and I looked straight into the sun, the way my mother had told me never to do because it would damage my eyes. I thought that I would grow up to be a famous artist and everything and everyone I saw, everything and everyone I painted, would be blinding to look at.

The tapestry of her life was a work of art created not with a needle but with duty, courage, and honor, sprinkled liberally with laughter and hope.

The tapestry of her life was dotted with threadbare spots, where grief or pain or loss had eaten through like hungry moths. But those faint traces, instead of detracting from the resplendent tones and rich hues of the intertwined threads, only intensified their splendor. It was a work of art created not with a needle but with duty, courage, and honor, sprinkled liberally with laughter and hope.

I wanted to be an artist, long time ago. But my hand was damaged, so I got into graphic design. Drawing faces was much easier with a mouse than a pen.

It was a triptych, three canvases hinged together to make one image when it was open, another image when it was closed. He had always assumed she liked the duplicity of the piece. It was just like Angie, one thing inside, another out.