A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence university education. George Bernard Shaw
The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
To find a form that accommodates the mess: that is the task of the artist now. Samuel Beckett, Proust, 1961
Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it. Bertolt Brecht
There ought to be moments of tranquillity in great works, as in life after the experience of passions, but not moments of disgust. Voltaire
A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual. Vladimir Nabokov
Life is short, the art long. [Ars longa, vita brevis] Hippocrates
Art is meant to disturb, science reassures. Georges Braque
The artist brings something into the world that didn’t exist before, and he does it without destroying something else. John Updike
Professionalism in art has this difficulty: to be professional is to be dependable, to be dependable is to be predictable, and predictability is aesthetically boring – an anti-virtue in a field where we hope to be astonished and startled and at some deep level refreshed. John Updike
If art does not enlarge men’s sympathies, it does nothing morally. George Eliot
An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation. Joseph Conrad
There are only two styles of portrait painting: the serious and the smirk. Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Miss La Creevy
Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: ‘It’s pretty, but is it Art?’ Rudyard Kipling, The Conundrum of the Workshops
Art is a revolt against fate. Andre Malraux, Le Voix du silence, 1951
God help the minister that meddles with art! (Art & Minister) William Lamb, Lord Melbourne, 1779-1848
Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature. Susanne Langer, Mind, 1967
There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall. Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise, 1938
It is closing time in the gardens of the West and from now on an artist will be judged only by the resonance of his solitude or the quality of his despair. Cyril Connolly, cited BBC Horizon December 1949-January 1950
An artist is his own fault. John O’Hara
Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.
Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of ‘meanings’. It is to turn the world into this world. (‘This world!’ As if there were any other.)
The world, our world, is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have. Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays
Through her unscripted personal journeys Sontag was taking a far more informal view of the arts. Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words III: Culture Wars, BBC 2011
[Edward] Said investigated the art of the world’s empires. And what he found was nothing less than cultural hijack. ibid.
Orientalism revealed the dark side of civilisation. Argued that imperial powers had used art to create poisonous myths about the people they colonised. ibid.
Art is only Nature operating with the aid of the instruments she has made. Baron d’Holbach, Systeme de la Nature, 1780
It is through Art, and through Art only, that we can realise our perfection; through Art, and through Art only, that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence. Oscar Wilde, Intentions, 1891
All art is immoral. ibid.
Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life. ibid.
The artist is the creator of beautiful things
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray preface
The moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. ibid.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. ibid.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. ibid.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. ibid.
All art is quite useless. ibid.
Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. ibid.
Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious. Oscar Wilde
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. Oscar Wilde
Art is constant tension and release. That is where artists live, between the two, or at times, submerged in either. Dave Liebman
Art is born of humiliation. W H Auden
Art is the proper task of life. Friedrich Nietzsche
Art raises its head where creeds relax. Friedrich Nietzsche
We have art in order not to die of the truth. Friedrich Nietzsche
A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Al Capp, re abstract art
The sign of a good painting, Dud, with their bottoms towards you is if the bottoms follow you round the room. Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, Not Only But Also
Art is significant deformity. Roger Fry
Do not judge this movement kindly. It is not just another amusing stunt. It is defiant – the desperate act of men too profoundly convinced of the rottenness of our civilization to want to save a shred of its respectability. Herbert Read, International Surrealist Exhibition July 1936
Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. Saul Bellow
Works of art are of an infinite solitariness, and nothing is less likely to bring us near to them than criticism. Only love can apprehend and hold them, and can be just towards them. Rainer Maria Rilke, Briefe an Einen Jungen Dichter, German Poet
Real art belongs to everyone. Lee Hall, The Pitmen Painters, Broadway 2010
You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it. Gustave Flaubert, 1821-80
The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him. Gustave Flaubert
Human life is a sad show, undoubtedly: ugly, heavy and complex. Art has no other end, for people of feeling, than to conjure away the burden and bitterness. Gustave Flaubert
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues, 1954
The history of art is the history of revivals. Samuel Butler, 1835-1902, English novelist
I paint not the things I see but the feelings they arouse in me. Franz Kline
A limited mass of paint on a canvass is nobler than an acre of decorations in a rich man’s mansion. Clifford Steel