Quotes About Art

I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure.

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.

But every writer, especially every novelist, has a 'message,' whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda.

The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.

Few people have the guts to say outright that art and propaganda are the same thing.

For a creative writer possession of the truth is less important than emotional sincerity.

ÅžiirmiÅŸ! Nedir ÅŸiir? Alt taraf? bir ses, havada küçük bir girdap. Bir de-Tanr?m!- makineli tüfeklere kar?? ne faydas? olabilirdi?

There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed.

We see a man cutting down a tree, and we make sure that he is filling a social need, just because he uses his muscles; it does not occur to us that he may only be cutting down a beautiful tree to make room for a hideous statue.

And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality.

He would read King Lear and forget this filthy century.

The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.   It

Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and æsthetically disgusting. It is better to start by admitting that, and then to try to find out why it is that he survives while the refined people who have sniggered at him seem to wear so badly.

It reminded us that propaganda in some form or other lurks in every book, that every work of art has a meaning and a purpose — a political, social and religious purpose — that our aesthetic judgements are always coloured by our prejudices and beliefs

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking' in meaning.2 Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader.

You can only create if you can care

For you can only create if you care.

We lost Klimmt, Schiele and Moll

Satire is what closes on Saturday night

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.

The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

J'ai un but, une tâche, disons le mot, une passion. Le métier d'écrire en est une violente et presque indestructible. (I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one.) [Letter to Jules Boucoiran, 4 March 1831]

L'art de voyager, c'est presque la science de la vie.

Nous croyons que la mission de l'art est une mission de sentiment et d'amour