ART QUOTES IX
quotations about art
Art functions pyramidally: all new achievements are based on the utilization of everything that has been accumulated below, at the foundations of the pyramid. Revolutions do not occur here; this field, more than any other, is governed by evolution. And we must know what has been done before us in the field of verbal art. This does not mean that you must follow in trodden paths: you must contribute something of your own. A work of art is of value only when it is original, both in content and in form. But in order to leap upward, it is necessary to take off from the ground. It is essential that there be a ground.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Psychology of Creative Work
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
BERTOLT BRECHT
attributed, Decade of Protest
Art reminds us that in fact the world always exceeds our grasp and perception.
JEREMY BEGBIE
Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music
For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction.
TONI MORRISON
interview with Don Swaim, 1987
Truth as philosophy is a gas; as art, it is visible steam.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Beauty today can have no other measure except the depth to which a work resolves contradictions. A work must cut through the contradictions and overcome them, not by covering them up, but by pursuing them.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
attributed, Architecture and Modernity: A Critique
The artist is justified by his art.
LEWIS FOREMAN DAY
Stained Glass
Art is a way of knowing what it is we actually believe.
PAT. B. ALLEN
Art Is a Way of Knowing
The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
ROBERT HENRI
"With preparation, making art is inevitable", Press of Atlantic City, March 8, 2016
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication.
CYRIL CONNOLLY
The Unquiet Grave
You're an artist ... that means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy--just different. There's nothing wrong with being different.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
Art is a vehicle that allows us to transcend linear time, to travel backward and forward into personal and transpersonal history, into possibilities that weren't realized and those that might be.
PAT B. ALLEN
introduction, Art Is a Spiritual Path
I think it would be a good stunt to get along without any art at all for a generation, and see what we miss.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
The Trail of the Hawk
Art is anything you can do well. Anything you can do with Quality.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
interview, NPR, Jul. 12, 1974
I want to meet a guy named Art. I'd take him to a museum, hang him on the wall, criticize him, and leave.
JAROD KINTZ
I Want
Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it.... It's a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are a spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be an artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.
ANN PATCHETT
Bel Canto
Art respects the masses, by standing up to them for what they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Aesthetic Theory
The desire for bad art is the desire bred of habit: like the smoker's desire for tobacco, more marked by the extreme malaise of denial than by any very strong delight in fruition.
C. S. LEWIS
Of This and Other Worlds
Art exists with or without the market; exists without critics or museums. It exists everywhere ... in your backyard. It perseveres because some lucky few are inspired to create in spite of not being supported for their work, not recognized and often taken advantage of by schools and systems that pay lip service, but a minimum of support.
BEN PERRONE
"Freedom to create art is a wonderful thing", Buffalo News, March 22, 2016
In art there are two principal schools between which each aspirant has to choose--one distinguished by its close adherence to nature, and the other by its strenuous efforts to get above it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought