Quotes About Art

If drawing had value even when practiced by those with no talent, it was, Ruskin believed, because it could teach us to see -- that is, to notice rather than to merely look. In the process of re-creating with our own hands what lies before our eyes, we seem naturally to evolve from observing beauty in a loose way to possessing a deep understanding of its constituent parts and hence more secure memories of it.

We require such 'sensuous' arts, Hegel suggested, because many important truths will impress themselves upon our consciousness only if they have been moulded from sensory, emotive material.

The great works of art have about them the quality of a reminder.

Eroticism is therefore seemingly most clearly manifest at the intersection between the formal and the intimate.

There are lessons for long-term relationships in the way that Manet approached asparagus.

If a traveller was to feel personally involved with (rather than guiltily obedient towards) 'the walls and ceilings of the church decorated with nineteenth-century frescoes and paintings...', he or she would have to be able to connect these facts--as boring as a fly--with one of the large, blunt questions to which genuine curiosity must be anchored.

Although we belong to a species which spends an alarming amount of its time blowing things up, every now and then we are moved to add gargoyles or garlands, stars or wreaths, to our buildings for no practical reason whatever.

what Ruskin judged to be the twin purposes of art: to make sense of pain and to fathom the sources of beauty.

The development of the artist provides a profound model of the process of maturation.

Tânjim dup? opere de art? care s? ne compenseze sl?biciunile È™i s? ne ajute s? g?sim calea cea mai viabil?. Consider?m frumoase operele de art? care ne compenseaz? virtuÈ›ile deficitare, respingându-le ca urâte pe cele care ne induc anumite st?ri sau motive de a ne simÈ›i fie ameninÈ›aÈ›i, fie copleÈ™iÈ›i din start. Arta deÈ›ine promisiunea integrit??ii noastre interioare.

Good relationships, elegant cities, work that is honourable and emotionally satisfying, as well as financially rewarding, are the true works of art, to which the objects we call art are only pointers and partial guides.

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm, nor does it arise from sentiments of which nonartists are devoid; it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

But why would readers seek to be the readers of their own selves? Why does Proust privilege the connection between ourselves and works of art, as much in his novel as in his museum habits? One answer is because it is the only way in which art can properly affect rather than simply distract us from life

And insofar as we travel in search of beauty, works of art may in small ways start to influence where we would like to travel to.

Ideal ar fi ca arta s? ne dea r?spunsurile pe care nu le primim de la oameni.

Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.

Art compensates us for certain inborn weaknesses, in this case of the mind rather than the body, weaknesses that we can refer to as psychological frailties

Life is crueller than art, for the latter usually assures that physical surroundings reflect characters' mental states.

The foregrounding of health may be one part of the mission of fashion, but on a more ambitious level, this art form also provides women with clothes that support a range of views about what it means to be an interesting and desirable human being.

the great fortunes of our day have rarely been accumulated through the sale of the most meaningful items and services, such as poetry or relationship counselling.

Des mots tordus, des mots décousus, des mots sans queue ni tête, j'écrirais comme les mots me viendraient, je commencerais maladroitement et je finirais maladroitement comme j'avais commencé, je m'en foutrais de la raison pure, de la méthode, de la phonétique, de la prose (...), ça serait alors l'écriture ou la vie. [Verre Cassé, p. 198]

HEADMASTER: I was a geographer. I went to Hull. IRWIN: Oh. Larkin. HEADMASTER: Everybody says that. 'Hull? Oh, Larkin.' I don't know about the poetry...as I say, I was a geographer...but as a librarian he was pitiless. The Himmler of the Accessions Desk. And now, we're told, women in droves. Art. They get away with murder.

I'm even a fool at the flower arrangement. I ought to have a Ph.D. in the subject the number of classes I've been to but still my efforts show as much evidence of art as walking sticks in an umbrella stand.

Design Is a Big Word