Art Quotes
More Art Quotes
Cicero is hardly to be reckoned ...for he delighted so much more in the practice, than in the theory, of his art, that he is perpetually drawn off from the rigid philosophical analysis of its principles, into discursive declamations, always eloquent indeed, and often highly interesting, but adverse to regularity of system, and frequently as unsatisfactory to the practical student as to the Philosopher.
Richard Whately— Elements of Rhetoric, Introduction (1828, p. 19)
It's sad that the art form is not appreciated in its place of origin, Lucknow, despite being popular across the globe.
Birju Maharaj— “Kathak faces fusion challenge”
Biological determinism, to paraphrase the great literary critic Roberto Schwarz, is a socially necessary illusion well-grounded in appearance. Much like art and literature, science "is historically shaped and? ... ?registers the social process to which it owes its existence." Scientists inherit the prejudices of the societies in which they live and work. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the modern incarnation of biological determinism with its decidedly neoliberal assumptions about humans and societies.
— Pankaj Mehta, There's a gene for that, Jacobin, February 2014
The single greatest influence on my work as a filmmaker has been the celebrated Interviews with Francis Bacon (1980) by David Sylvester. Sylvester is a master of the art of complicity: he knows how to manipulate and exploit it. Complicity requires being cautiously intellectual yet profoundly human in the sense that the interviewer must act as the concerned midwife, allowing the interviewee to express himself while at the same time guiding his thoughts to a satisfactory conclusion through sensitive provocation.
damian pettigrew— On Fellini’s favorite directors
His imperial fancy has laid all Nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art.
robert hall— On Burke; Apology for the Freedom of the Press, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Far from affording artists continuous inspiration, mass-media sources for art have become a dead end. They have combined with the abstractness of institutional art teaching to produce a fine-arts culture given over to information and not experience. This faithfully echoes the drain of concreteness from modern existence— the reign of mere unassimilated data instead of events that gain meaning by being absorbed into the fabric of imaginative life.
robert hughes— "Introduction: The Decline of the City of Mahagonny"
It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.
wolfgang amadeus mozart— Spoken in Prague, 1787, to conductor Kucharz, who led the rehearsals for Don Giovanni, from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906)
Disability is not a brave struggle or ‘courage in the face of adversity.’ Disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live.
— w:Neil Marcus, Storm Reading, 1993, quoted in p 23 Making an entrance: theory and practice for disabled and non-disabled dancers By Adam Benjamin
A writer and, I believe, generally all persons must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.
jorge luis borges— Jorge Luis Borges, Twenty Conversations with Borges, Including a Selection of Poems : Interviews by Roberto Alifano, 1981–1983 (1984)
Remember to be submissive, thou art analien, a fugitive, and in need.
Aeschylus— Supplices, l.202 (translated by H Weir Smyth).
Out of the debris of a statue thoroughly shattered a new art work is born: a naked foot unforgettably resting on a stone; a candid hand; a bent knee which contains all the speed of the foot race; a torso which has no face to prevent us from loving it.
Crayencour— Quoted in the NewYorkTimes,10 May1992.
Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
jesus christ— The Gospel of Matthew 16:23 (KJV), said to Peter.
In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.
Susan Sontag— "Against Interpretation" (1964), p. 14
Karanth made Yakshagana more popular through the ballet adaptation of the art.
— Prof B A Vivek Rai in . Deccan herald. 11 October 2013. Retrieved on 19 January 2014.
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
don marquis— Don Marquis, archy and mehitabel (1927), "certain maxims of archy"
Variant translation of Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artis : "It is of benefit to have improved life through discovered knowledge "; a paraphrase of this is inscribed on the Medicine and Physiology Nobel prize medals: Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes ("inventions enhance life which is beautified through art").
— The souls that throng the flood
Are those to whom, by Fate, are other bodies owed,
In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste,
Of future life secure, forgetful of the past.
— Lines 713–715 (translated by John Dryden).
By "Suprematism" I mean the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling.
kazimir malevich— The Non-Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism (1926), trans. Howard Dearstyne [Dover, 2003, ISBN 0-486-42974-1], part II: Suprematism (p. 67)
Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest-green, Married to green in all the sweetest flowers— Forget-me-not,—the blue bell,—and, that queen Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great, When in an Eye thou art alive with fate!
john keats— Answer to a Sonnet by J. H. Reynolds.
This is why we believe that a well-ordered idea of ecology and professionalism can stem only from art – art in the sense of the sole, revolutionary force, capable of transforming the earth, humanity, the social order etc.. ..art is, then, a genuinely human medium for revolutionary change in the sense of completing the transformation from a sick world to a healthy one. In my opinion only art is capable of doing it.
joseph beuys— In: Times Thermic Machine'’, 1982
Efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread. But there is something beyond a higher point, a subtle and unmistakable touch of love and pride beyond mere skill; almost an inspiration which gives to all work that finish which is almost art which is art.
joseph conrad— chap. 7 (The Mirror of the Sea (1906))
Each age finds its own technique …:;I mean, the strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.
— Jackson Pollock, as quoted in Jackson Pollock (1967) by Francis V. O'Connor, p. 79
There are two types of expression: the loka dharma and the natya dharma . Loka dharma is very natural, similar to the behavior of daily life, nitya dharma is an idealized behavior that is used in dance....one were a realistic behavior and the other stylized, saying that Indian art has always favoured idealism on stage.
— By Samjukta Panigrahi quoted in "New Theatre Quarterly 55", p.259
An exquisite invention this, Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss, This art of writing billet-doux In buds, and odors, and bright hues! In saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks; In puns of tulips; and in phrases, Charming for their truth, of daisies.
leigh hunt— Love-Letters Made of Flowers
art pales when compared to the workings of nature.
StThomas Aquinas— c.1272 Summa Theologia, bk. 3, question 66, article 4.
art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church above a bleached village.
derek walcott— Omeros, book 6, chapter 45, section 2 (1990)
