ART QUOTES V

quotations about art

Art quote

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An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

J. D. SALINGER
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Zooey


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Tags: J. D. Salinger, perfection


Art is not Nature, art is Nature digested. Art is a sublime excrement.

GEORGE MOORE

Confessions of a Young Man


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Tags: George Moore, nature


Art -- the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.

JAMES THURBER

Collecting Himself


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Tags: James Thurber


Keep doing what you like to do. That's all [art] is.

CORY ARCANGEL

interview with Stina Puotinen, Mar. 21, 2009


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Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

LEO TOLSTOY

What is Art?


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Tags: Leo Tolstoy


Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked out. The cause of production of real art is the artist's inner need to express a feeling that has accumulated, just as for a mother the cause of sexual conception is love. The cause of counterfeit art, as of prostitution, is gain. The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling into the intercourse of life, as the consequence of a wife's love is the birth of a new man into life. The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual strength.

LEO TOLSTOY

What Is Art?


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Tags: Leo Tolstoy


The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

NORMAN MAILER

Western Review, winter 1959


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Tags: Norman Mailer, morality


Art is the method of levitation, in order to separate one's self from enslavement by the earth.

ANAIS NIN

The Journals of Anais Nin


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Tags: Anais Nin


Whenever I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and four) I lift my spirits by remembering: The artists are on our side! I mean those poets and painters, singers and musicians, novelists and playwrights who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse.

HOWARD ZINN

"Artists of Resistance", The Historic Unfulfilled Promise


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Tags: Howard Zinn


The function of art is to bring people into greater touch with reality, and yet our movie houses and family rooms are jammed with people after as much reality-removal as they can get.

EDWARD ALBEE

Stretching My Mind


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Tags: Edward Albee, reality


Modernity is the transitory, fugitive, contingent, is but one half of art, of which the other half is the eternal and immutable.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

"La Modernite", La Peintre de la Vie Moderne


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Tags: Charles Baudelaire


The arts stop society going rotten and mad.

VANESSA REDGRAVE

interview, FT Magazine, Apr. 26, 2013


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Tags: Vanessa Redgrave, society


A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.

W. H. AUDEN

"A Poet of the Actual", Forewords and Afterwords


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Tags: W. H. Auden


The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

MICHELLE OBAMA

remarks at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Metropolitan Museum of Art American Wing, May 18, 2009


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Tags: Michelle Obama, history


Realism and art cannot live together.

JENNETTE LEE

The Ibsen Secret


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Tags: realism


All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up.

JAMES BALDWIN

Esquire, April 1960


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Tags: James Baldwin


That beauty which is meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a positive necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is to say unless we are content to be less than men.

OSCAR WILDE

"Art and the Handicraftsman"


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Tags: Oscar Wilde


When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears.

HENRY MILLER

Tropic of Cancer


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Tags: Henry Miller, chaos


When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


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Tags: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, nature


Art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex.

VLADIMIR NABOKOV

Strong Opinions


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Tags: Vladimir Nabokov