Quotes About Art

Leroi-Gourhan écrit que, dans l'art des cavernes, signe féminin et blessure sont interchangeables : pour signifier la même idée, l'artiste, le penseur, l'écrivain paléolithique pouvait indifféremment figurer une vulve, une vache transpercée, le sang qui dégoutte d'une flèche. La vulve, le dol, la bête sous le merlin, le sang, sont synonymes ("Corps du roi", 40).

Literature might be called the art of story, and story might in turn be called a universal language, for every culture we know of has a tradition of storytelling. No doubt stories have touched your life, too, from bedtime stories you may have heard as a child to news stories you see on TV or read in a newspaper. We might even say that a major goal of living is to created the story of our own lives, a story we hope to take pleasure and pride in telling.

Music touches the soul, it stirs passion, it moves us and can make us better people. It's no coincidence that 2000 years ago a famous Roman politician, Cato the Younger, warned that soldiers shouldn't listen to music because it would make them unfit to wage war!

A Dancer Dosn't Need a Stage Only a Soul

and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.

Dance is a place I go to know myself and the world experientially and intellectually.

A technically perfect photograph can be the world's most boring picture.

I am Goyaof the bare field, by the enemy's beak gougedtill the craters of my eyes gapeI am griefI am the tongueof war, the embers of citieson the snows of the year 1941I am hunger

The "normal" family is, after all, the source of what the Devil enjoys most: anxiety, mental illness, violence, evil thoughts, fear, and social unrest. What the devil hates are attempts to escape the quotidian horror of ordinariness. These escapes into art, into otherness, must give him headaches because they might, just might, lead to innocence.

It is a sad fact that all flesh must die, but there is no reason why one's story, as well as one's soul, should be slighted after the passage. The attraction artists feel for our cemeteries is only partly aesthetic; much of it is gossip, a continual whisper intended for the delighted ear. Marble without a story is just marble. A true monument leans over and murmurs in your ear.

Our ancestors had fought and murdered one another, married and forged alliances, founded countries. At their best - but only for selfish reasons - they patronized art, literature, and music. But their worlds had to be overthrown by revolutions, because there was room in them only for themselves.

Money undergoes a conversion when one has more of it than is strictly necessary. When there is enough of it to move beyond the strict survival mode, money goes in search of beauty. That is to say, in search of the abstract and the imaginary. Just like poetry, which is the distillation of an excess of language. Too much money and too many words tend toward the poetic.

Some sort of pressure must exist; the artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn't look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world.

Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.

I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman.

What is art? (...) Like a declaration of love: the consciousness of our dependence on each other. A confession. An unconscious act that none the less reflects the true meaning of life—love and sacrifice.

The director's task is to recreate life, its movement, its contradictions, its dynamic and conflicts. It is his duty to reveal every iota of the truth he has seen, even if not everyone finds that truth acceptable. Of course an artist can lose his way, but even his mistakes are interesting provided they are sincere. For they represent the reality of his inner life, of the peregrinations and struggle into which the external world has thrown him.

When less than everything has been said about a subject, you can still think on further. The alternative is for the audience to be presented with a final deduction (...) no effort on their part. What can it mean to them when they have not shared with the author the misery and joy of bringing an image into being?

Lean your body forward slightly to support the guitar against your chest, for the poetry of the music should resound in your heart.

I don't write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords.

Ama hayat bir romandan ibaret de?ildir; kendini sanatsal bir varl?k, bir sanat eseri sayacak kadar kibirli insanlar aksini dü?ünebilirler ancak.

My words were Egyptian hieroglyphics before the discovery of the Rosetta stone; my words were wounded soldiers limping home, guns spent, from a lost battle; my words were dying fish, flipping hysterically as the net is opened and the pile spreads across the boat deck like a slippery mountain trying to become a prairie. My words were, and are, unworthy of Marianne Engel.

She worked diligently to develop her understanding of breath; for she knew that with breath she could create a world. She imagined herself breathing life into the glass and, with every week that passed, Sei came closer to realizing the loveliness of the objects that she could picture in her imagination.

The urge is always with me to retouch yesterday's canvas with today's paintbrush and cover the things that fill me with regret