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Art

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“What interests me is to paint the kind of anti-sensitivity that impregnates modern civilization. I think art since Cezanne has become extremely romantic and unrealistic, feeding on art. It is Utopian. It has less and less to do with the world. It looks inward — neo-Zen and all that. Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn't look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.”
Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by G.R. Swenson (1963); as quoted in Painters on Painting, Eric Protter (1971) p. 263
“Schools have no use except for discerning the analytic procedures of art. No school is capable of pressing on to a synthesis in isolation. Painting can not, without falling into abstraction, let a partial aspect of art dominate, whether it be drawing, color, composition, or any other one of the extraordinary multiplicity of means the totality of which alone constitutes this art.”
Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'The most perfect art was Greek art. Raphael is the greatest of all masters in painting'. Such were the doctrines of every art teacher only twenty or thirty years ago.”
Emil Nolde (1867–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first impulse towards painting, or toward art in general, stems from the need to communicate, the effort to fix one's own vision, to deal with appearances (which are alien and must be given names and meanings.) Without this, all work would be pointless and unjustified, like Art for Art's Sake.”
Gerhard Richter (born 1932) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is video art? How does it differ from commercial television? Is video art linked to such traditional art forms as painting and sculpture? Is it a totally new phenomenon?”
Gregory Battcock (1937–1980) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gregory Battcock. New Artists’ Video, an anthology, (1978) p. xiii. Introduction:
“Art has always been a big part of my life, I can always remember sitting down and painting and drawing with my sisters, and art would always be spoken about. When I was studying the IB I then realised that all I wanted to do was make art and that’s when I decide to take a gap year and then apply for City and Guilds.”
Anna Woodward (1868–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have united all aspects of art which I practise under my discovered “Contemporary Barock Art” which has poetry and philosophy as the meeting point in my skill and inspiration in sculpture, painting, installation art, performance and music.”
Emmanuel Eni (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that it will be a great success, that all this painting [of Edouard Manet, shortly after his death], so fresh, so vital, will electrify the 'Palais des Beaux Arts' [in Paris], which is accustomed to dead art. It will be the revenge for so many rebuffs, but a revenge that the poor boy only in his grave.”
Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in a letter to her sister Edma Morisot, c. Jan 1884; as cited in: Impressionist quartet, ed. Jeffrey Meyers; publishers, Harcourt, 2005, p. 124
“It is curious that money, which is the most valuable thing in life, exceptis excipiendis, should be the most fatal corrupter of music, literature, painting and all the arts. As soon as any art is pursued with a view to money, then farewell, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all hope of genuine good work.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The role of the 'representational arts' - painting, sculpture, and even architecture.. ..has ended, as it is no longer necessary for the consciousness of our age, and everything art has to offer can simply be classified as a throwback.”
Lyubov Popova (1889–1924) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote, c. 1921; from Lyubov' Popova, in 'Commentary on Drawings', trans. ed. James West, in Art Into Life: Russian Constructivism, 1914-1932; catalogue for exhibition Rizzoli, New York: 1990, p. 69 (Popova's original te…
“The active life of Catholic Art (as developed in Architecture, Sculpture and Painting) must breathe and palpitate as well in Church Music and Plain Song, for it is universally acknowledged that all arts flourish hand in hand with the Church.”
Franz Xaver Haberl (1840–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition — otherwise life becomes impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence.”
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art leads to a more profound concept of life, because art itself is a profound expression of feeling. The artist is born, and art is the expression of his overflowing soul. Because his soul is rich, he cares comparatively little about the superficial necessities of the material world; he sublimates the pressure of material affairs in an artistic experience.”
Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The aesthetic is the sine qua none for art: if a work is not aesthetic, it is not art by definition.. .We feel through the senses, and everyone knows that the content of art is feeling; it is the creation of an object for sensing that is the artist’s task; and it is the qualities of this object that constitute its felt content.”
Mark Rothko (1903–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Robert Motherwell
“Outside the big idea that there is art I don't think of other's paintings. But I defend the idea of art and know that it is made up of all these paintings. Classic pictures are objects that may or may not influence what you're doing, just like anything else. Like the radio.. .But it hasn't anything to do with your own art or the artist's intention.”
Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s obviously always danger in making music or art for art’s sake. Even as Christians we can be guilty of that, being more about the art than the Artist who gave us this gift.”
Steven Curtis Chapman (born 1962) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Press conference after 2007 GMA Music Awards
“There is a reciprocal action between the work of art and the viewer. The river changes the work of art and criticism can also change the artist.. .There are so many ideas afloat; any of them could have triggered the work of art. It is impossible to determine exactly if the idea has been transmitted by the critic, or if the work itself has determined its outcome..”
Anselm Kiefer (born 1945) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1986) n.p.
“In my opinion Black art is a misnomer. There are black artists and they, like all others, draw from they experiences to produce artistic expressions. If this expression is non representational, it is difficult or not impossible to tell whether the artist is white or non white. There can be no doubt however of the impact traditional African art has had on the world of modern art.”
Alma Thomas (1891–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art isn't a statement or a question. If it was, the artist would just write it down. Art isn't philosophy with pictures. It's art!”
Abigail Thorn (born 1993) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Art & Objectivity | Philosophy Tube 19.08.2022
“I think I had been badly affected by ... the romance of Abstract Expressionism ... particularly as it filtered out to places like Princeton and around the country, which was the idea of the 'artist as a terrifically sensitive ever-changing, ever ambitious person', particularly [described] in magazines like Art News and Arts, which I read religiously.”
Frank Stella (1936–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Authenticity is important on many fronts. Forged works in the arts provide a distorted art-historical understanding of the artist’s oeuvre.”
Jehane Ragai (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“About Van Gogh.. a man who is on fire, a torch. His sincerity is absolute. His best painting is the grain field where he kills himself. There we find ourselves at the border of the art of painting. We cannot go further.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Je peins l'Impossibilité de peindre, by M. Nuridsany, newspaper Le Figaro, 24-10-1989, p. 35, as quoted in Bram van Velde, A Tribute, Municipal Museum De Lakenhal Leiden, Municipal Museum Schiedam, Museum de Wieger,…
“What are we supposed to do [reacting furiously on art-critic Jules Castagnary who proclaimed the so-called new School of Impressionism, 29 April 1874 in the Paris journal 'Le Siècle'] about these stupid literary people who will never understand that painting is a craft! You make it with materials, not ideas! The ideas come afterwards, when the painting is finished.”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists Sue Roe, Harper-Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, p. 127
“Shall the painter then.. ..decide upon painting? Shall he be the critic and sole authority? Aggressive as is this supposition, I fear that, in the length of time, his assertion alone has established what even the gentleman of the quill accept as the canons of art, and recognize as the masterpieces of work. Seurat's painting of the Grande Jatte proved extremely influential.”
James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quote of Whistler, (1892) In: Gentle Art of making Enemies, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1922, p. 30
“I am only interested in painting the actual person; in doing a painting of them, not in using them to some ulterior end of art. For me, to use someone doing something not native to them would be wrong.”
Lucian Freud (1922–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pop Art is not painting because painting must have content and emotion.”
Grace Hartigan (1922–2008) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Grace Hartigan, 86, Abstract Painter, Dies" in The New York Times (18 November 2008)
“This calls for an explanation and it may be this, that no painting, however good it seems to us is anything in itself, except chemicals smeared on a flat surface. The value in the work of art is in the spectator, you see, and a painting has no bigger value than the mental and intellectual forces it arouses in the spectator.”
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jorn's quote, from his speech at the library of Silkeborg, September l0th 1953 (translated from an unpublished Danish manuscript by Guy Atkins) ; as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum Articles by Jorn
“Unless we are to condemn all modern painting, we must regard cubism as legitimate, for it continues modern methods, and we should see in it the only conception of pictorial art now possible. In other words, at this moment cubism is painting.”
Albert Gleizes (1881–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Jean Metzinger
“Ken Noland has put things in the center [of the painting] and I'll use a symmetric pattern, but we use symmetry in a different way. It's non-relational. In the newer American painting [in contrast to European geometric art] we strive to get the thing in the middle, and symmetrical, but just to get a kind of force, just to get the thing on the canvas. The balance factor isn't important.”
Frank Stella (1936–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Clement Greenberg talked about the ideas or possibilities of painting in his - I think -, 'After Abstract Expressionism' article, and he allows a blank canvas to be an idea for a painting. It might not be a good idea, but it's certainly valid. Yves Klein did the empty gallery. He sold 'air', and that was a conceptualized art, I guess.”
Frank Stella (1936–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would recommend it to the Masters of the Art Painting... to establish a better Method for the Education of their Scholars, and to begin their Instructions with the Technical Parts of Painting, before they let them loose to follow the Inventions of their own uncultivated Imaginations.”
Brook Taylor (1685–1732) said by 1732 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't like my painting, you only want to help me. If you had given me one franc for my picture I would have taken it [when M. Castaing discovered his art for the very first time and offered him in advance 100 franc to make a new painting - circa 1917 – 1919]”
Chaim Soutine (1893–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Soutine, Monrou Wheeler, Museum of modern art, New York, 1950; p. 37
“Light and air, that's art! I can never give enough light in my paintings, especially in the skies. The air in a painting, that is really a thing! It is the main thing! Air and light are the great magicians. It is the sky which prescribes the painting. Painters never look enough at the sky. We must get it from above. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)”
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch (1824–1903) first seen 1824 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of J. H. Weissenbruch; as cited in J.H. Weissenbruch 1824-1903, ed. E. Jacobs, H. Janssen & M. van Heteren; exposition-catalog, Museum Jan Cunen / Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Zwolle 1999, pp. 227-233
“The new plastic idea thus correctly represents actual aesthetic relationships. To the modern artist, it is a natural consequence of all the plastic ideas of the past. This is particularly true of painting, which is the art least bound to contingencies. The picture can be a pure reflection of life in its deepest essence.”
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) said by 1944 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Studies in painting: Non. He learned to express himself by means of art in the same way as the child learns to talk. No teaching is needed for the one who is born an artist, and even the expression 'self-taught' is a phony, he thinks.”
Max Ernst (1891–1976) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in a questionnaire, Max Ernst filled out in 1948, the U.S; as cited in Max Ernst: a Retrospective, ed. Werner Spies & Sabine Rewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p. 7
“This book [full of linoleum prints] will be an alphabet of pictorial elements without text, which shall aim at establishing a larger scale of painting, a closer contact between the artist and the wall, and a new spirit of art accompanying architecture.”
Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In the introduction, (written in 1951) of his not published book: "Line Form and Color"; as quoted in "Ellsworth Kelly, a Retrospective", ed. Diane Waldman, Guggenheim museum, New York 1997, p. 22
“But you begin to feel as you go on working that unless painting proves its right to exist by being critical and self-judging, it has no reason to exist at all - or is not even possible. The canvas is a court where the artist is prosecutor, defendant, jury and judge. Art without a trial disappears at a glance.”
Philip Guston (1913–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To produce pure proletarian art the artist must be at one with the worker; this is impossible, not for political reasons, but because the artist never is at one with any public.”
William Empson (1906–1984) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Some Versions of Pastoral (London: Chatto & Windus, 1935), p. 15
“The idea that any art is achieved 'intuitively' is a dehumanization of the brains, effort, and the traditions of the artist, and a classification of said artist as subhuman. It is those supposed incapable of intelligence, training, or connection with a tradition who are described as working by instinct or intuition. (9. Lack of Models)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is ridiculous.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I really believe in empty spaces, although, as an artist, I make a lot of junk. Empty space is never-wasted space. Wasted space is any space that has art in it. An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he, for some reason, thinks it would be a good idea to give them.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Propylaea (1798) Introduction
“[You've said your material chooses you.] That's the difference between the serious artist and the craftsman—-the craftsman can take material and because of his abilities do a professional job of it. The serious artist, like Proust, is like an object caught by a wave and swept to shore. He's obsessed by his material; it's like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote.”
Truman Capote (1924–1984) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a 1968 interview
“A miracle worker is an artist of the soul. There’s no higher art than living a good life. An artist informs the world of what’s available behind the masks we all wear. That’s what we’re all here to do. The reason so many of us are obsessed with becoming stars is because we’re not yet starring in our own lives. The cosmic spotlight isn’t pointed at you; it radiates from within you.”
Marianne Williamson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The artist makes art not to save mankind but to save himself. Every benevolent comment by an artist is a fog to cover his tracks, the bloody trail of his assault against reality and others.”
Camille Paglia (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The usual criticism of a novel about an artist is that, no matter how real he is as a man, he is not real to us as an artist, since we have to take on trust the works of art he produces.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity; to all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.”
Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A museum that really wants to promote modern art might give the artist a guaranty, on certain conditions, so that he can get on with his life and his creations. Or do you believe that the museum is more interested in the artist's death, in order to see the price of his paintings go up?”
Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 45 : in a letter (11 November 1940) to Käthe Steinitz, sent from the internment camp on Isle of Man, England.
“The stuff of thought is the seed of the artist. Dreams form the bristles of the artist's brush. As the eye functions as the brain's sentry, I communicate my innermost perceptions through the art, my worldview.”
Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quote in Abstract Expressionism, Barbara Hess, Taschen, 2005, p. 10
“Art deals with profound and simple moods.. ..Let us suppose that the artist – in this instance [the artist] Picabia – gets a certain impression by looking at our skyscrapers, our city, our way of life, and that he tries to reproduce it.. ..he will convey it in plastic ways on the canvas, even though we see neither skyscrapers nor city on it.”
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quote from an interview in 'A Paris painter', H. Hapgood; in 'Globe and commercial Advertiser', 20 February 1913, p. 8 / 10