Quotes About Art

so meer Poets and meer Musicians, are as sottish as meer Drunkards are, who live in a continuall mist without seeing, or judgeing any thing clearly. A man should be learn'd in severall Sciences, and should have a rea?sonable Philosophicall, and ni some measure a Mathematicall head; to be a compleat and excellent Poet

Music is the exultation of Poetry. Both of them may excel apart but... are most excellent when they are joined.

But O! what art can teach, What human voice can reach, The sacred organ's praise?

Given the way creation unfolds, how it builds to ever higher and higher works of art, can there be any doubt that Eve is the crown of creation?

Beautiful things, as Matisse shows, always carry greetings from other worlds within them.

Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color

We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people. When the creative impulse cannot flourish, when it cannot freely select its methods and objects, when it is deprived of spontaneity, then society severs the root of art.

When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

Jika politik itu kotor, puisi akan membersihkannya. Jika politik bengkok, sastra akan meluruskannya.

The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state… In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role…

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.

When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.

You must make, always. You must act, if you believe something. Talking about acting is like boasting about pictures you're going to paint. The most terrible bad form.

Art's cruel. You can get away with murder with words. But a picture is like a window straight through to your inmost heart.

Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?

8. You hate the political buisness of nationality. You hate everything, in politics and art and everything else, that is not genuine and deep and necessary. You don't have time for silly trivial things. You live seriously. You don't go to silly films, even if you want to; you don't read cheap newspapers; you don't listen to trash on the wireless and the telly; you don't waste time talking about nothing. You use your life.

It's rather like your voice. You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts. It's what distinguishes all great art from the other kind.

But however good you get at translating personality into line or paint it's no go if your personality isn't worth translating.

They pay thousands and thousands for the Van Goghs and Modiglianis they'd have spat on at the time they were painted. Guffawed at. Made coarse jokes about.

I hate people who collect things and classify things and give them names and then forget all about them. That's what people are always doing in art. They call a painter an impressionist or a cubist or something and then they put him in a drawer and don't see him as a living individual painter any more.

He said, I suppose there are people who are purely moved by great art. I never met a painter who was. I'm not. All I think of when I see that picture is that it has the supreme mastery I have spent all my life trying to attain. And shall not. Ever.

I mean most women just want to be good at something, they've got good-at minds, and they mean deftness and a flair and good taste and what-not. They can't ever understand that if your desire is to go to the furthest limits of yourself then the actual form your art takes doesn't seem important to you. Whether you use words or paint or sounds.