The Art Quotes

To do art, one thing should always remember - subjects of people in misery have deep meanings.

As artists, it's really important to take time to see what other art is happening and to know what's happening in the world.

Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-

Our biological rhythms are the symphony of the cosmos, music embedded deep within us to which we dance, even when we can't name the tune.

Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure.

I abhor the supreme folly of those who blame the disciples of nature in defiance of those masters who were themselves her pupils

Sometimes it is better not to talk about art by using the word "art". If we just act with awareness and integrity, our art will flower, and we don't have to talk about it at all.

Make your lives a masterpiece, you only get one canvas.

When you draw something it lives and when you photograph it it dies

The connection between art and Christ is like the connection between sunlight and the sun. It is, in fact, the connection between Sonlight and the Son.

In the world there exists no aesthetic plane, not even the aesthetic plane of goodness.

We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.

I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work — not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.

Art is a process, not a product.

I am an artist you know ... it is my right to be odd.

The motivation of all artists is 'Look at me, Mum'.

Dreams are what guide us, art is what defines us, math is what makes it all possible, and love is what lights our way.

Aren't maids the ultimate art critics?

What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.

It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology

If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread.

I thought clay must feel happy in the good potter's hand.

It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

It was odd to have something so personal out there in that way, but the good thing about art is that no one necessarily knows what you mean by it anyway.

This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That’s why everything is exactly the wrong way around.

A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods.

Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.

But an artist, he realized. Or rather so-called artist. Bohemian. That's closer to it. The artistic life without the talent.

I believe in walking out of a museum before the paintings you've seen begin to run together. How else can you carry anything away with you in your mind's eye?

At eight, he had once told his mother that he wanted to paint air.

We're artists too, but we do a good job hiding it, don't we?

... an artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist.

Art like life is an open secret.

Possible reality [is obtained] by slightly bending physical and chemical laws.

Art should make you think and feel. It doesn't have to match your couch.

Like a groupie incognito posing as a real singer, life imitates art.

What does one prefer? An art that struggles to change the social contract, but fails? Or one that seeks to please and amuse, and succeeds?

Art isn't a product. It's an experience

Sound unbound by nature becomes bounded by art.

You can be happy if you are willing to let go of your past and leave yourself unencumbered so you can fly freely.

I couldn’t decide whether it was better to be the art, or the artist.

All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation.

Why is joy not considered a fit subject for an artist?

What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of this business of making a picture.

Garry Shandling has always been a pioneer of… meta entertainment. He's always been a defender of the creative right to use the frame as part of the painting.

A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability.

Silent pictures show us how we lived and what our attitudes were. And as an art form, they can be wonderfully entertaining and often inspirational.

My mother was a teacher, and when she wanted to show me art and literature and science, she'd take me to museums, parks and free exhibitions.

I never studied sculpture, engineering or architecture. In fact, after college I applied to seven art schools and was rejected by all seven.