Quotes About Art

What any true painting touches is an absence - an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss.

The only happy people in the world are those who do not have to write long poems

[M]ovie-making is the process of turning money into light. All they have at the end of the day is images flickering on a wall.

Occasionally, we may even use something special, like the Gustav Holst Hymns from the Rig Veda.

Literature does not grow wild in the woods. Every artist does something more than copy Nature; more comes out in his account than goes into the original experience.

Gudda Gudda

I'm only interested in fiction that in some way or other voices the very imagination which is conceiving it.

And how can poetry stand up against its new conditions? Its position is perfectly precarious.

For no art and no religion is possible until we make allowances, until we manage to keep quiet the enfant terrible of logic that plays havoc with the other faculties.

Pan marks Flying Down to Rio as the first time full dance numbers were seen on the screen, that is, a complete dance sequence that demanded the viewers' attention from beginning to end. Prior to that, dance had most often been relegated to background scenery or brief interludes or served as backup for vocal numbers.

I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard.

I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.

If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound.

I want my writing to be as clear as water I can see through so that what I experienced is told without my being in any way in the way.

The usefulness of the useless is good news for artists, for art serves no useful purpose. It has to do with changing minds and spirits.

I needed another basis for musical structure. This I found in sound's duration parameter, sound's only parameter which is present even when no sound is intended.

The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.

Now we have come to the end of the part about structure. However, it occurs to me to say more about structure.

Composing's one thing, performing's another, listening's a third. What can they have to do with one another?

I have attempted briefly here to set forth a view of the arts which does not separate them from the rest of life, but rather confuses the difference between Art and Life.

It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of "culture.

I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry.

I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I need it.

When you start working, everybody is in your studio- the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas- all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave.