Quotes About Art

All poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.

Do for God what you do for your ambitious projects, what you do in consecrating yourself to Art, what you have done when you loved a human creature or sought some secret of human science. Is not God the whole of science, the all of love, the source of poetry? Surely His riches are worthy of being coveted! His treasure is inexhaustible, His poem infinite, His love immutable, His science sure and darkened by no mysteries.

The Italian school has lost sight of the high mission of art. Instead of elevating the crowd, it has condescended to the crowd; it has won its success only by accepting the suffrages of all comers, and appealing to the vulgar minds which constitute the majority. Such a success is mere street juggling.

Tone is light in another shape. In music, instruments perform the functions of the colors employed in painting.

Talent in love, as in every other art, consists in the power of forming a conception combined with the power of carrying it out.

If a man would have the right to make stepping-stones of all the heads which crowd a drawing-room, he must be the lover of some artistic woman of fashion.

What is Art, monsieur, but Nature concentrated?

That's what it's like when you're creating things. On the one hand, it really seems like you're keeping it all moving on your own, and you can tell yourself that you've got inspiration raining down on you, but ultimately you can't make anything happen on your own. I

In the theater there are players who can make a production out of eating an apple.

Acting is a form of confusion.

I've played Private Lives everywhere except underwater.

For all its flaws and demands, for all its stupidities, the theater will outlive all the mechanical contraptions schemed to ape it.

Some people want to make the world a better place. I just wanna make the world a better-looking place. If you don't like it, you can paint over it!

I pretty much use sketchbooks to note down great ideas of somebody else's I've just had. A good sketchbook means you don't actually need to bother with having a memory yourself. You can get away with a fair bit of substance abuse if you always carry a notepad and a sharp pencil around with you.

Writing graffiti is about the most honest way you can be an artist. It takes no money to do it, you don't need an education to understand it and there's no admission fee.

People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish. But that's only if it's done properly.

T.V. has made going to the theatre seem pointless, photography has pretty much killed painting but graffiti has remained gloriously unspoilt by progress.

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they're having a piss.

There's obviously nothing wrong with selling your art - only an idiot with a trust fund would tell you otherwise. But it's confusing to know how far you should take it.

It's a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department.

I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said, 'That's clever. It's an anagram of art,' and I had to pretend I'd known that all along.

Graffiti ultimately wins out over proper art because it becomes part of your city, it' s a tool; "I'll meet you in that pub, you know, the one opposite that wall with a picture of a monkey holding a chainsaw". I mean, how much more useful can a painting be than that?

Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal.

Remember crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.