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Art

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“For literary purposes, the art of writing poetry can be simply defined as: A creative act using language as a medium refined to an art.”
Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A sculpture, a map, a photograph; all the forms of my work are equal and complementary. The knowledge of my actions, in whatever form, is the art. My art is the essence of my experience, not a representation of it.”
Richard Long (born 1945) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Richard Long: Books, Prints, Printed Matter. Exhib cat New York Public Library, New York 1994
“European art [however] has developed from mimetic-ism and only today is arriving at an elementary plastic art.”
Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from van Doesburg's article: 'Great Masters of Art' in Dutch art-magazine Eenheid no. 357, 7 April 1917
“..art and life are no longer separate domains.. .The word 'art' no longer has anything to say to us. In place of that, we [=De Stijl-artists ] insist upon the construction of our surroundings according to creative laws, deriving from a fixed principle. (quote of 1918)”
Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in Abstract Art, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson 1990, p. 85
“Only a radical cleaning of social and artistic life as, in the domain of art, is already done by Dada, which is anti-sentimental and healthy to the core, since it is anti-art. Only unscrupulously striking down any systematically bred amateurism in any field, can prepare civilization for the 'New Vision's happiness which is greatly and purely alive in a dew people.”
Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Van Doesburg's article: 'Is a Universal Plastic Notion Possible Today?', as cited in 'Bouwkundig weekblad' [a Dutch architectural magazine], XLI 39, 1920, pp. 230–231
“The complete and definitive work of art is created beyond one's individuality.. .The universal transcends such a level. Mere spontaneity has never created a work of art which possesses a lasting cultural value. The method leading to universal form is based upon calculations of measure and number.”
Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his article 'Elementarism', as cited in De Stijl – Van Doesburg Issue, January 1932, pp. 17–19
“I have received a commission to make a poster against war. That is a task that makes me happy. Some may say a thousand times that this is not pure art.... but as long as I can work, I want to be effective with my art.”
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letters of Friendship and Acquaintance [Briefe der Freundschaft und Begegnungen] (1966), edited by Hans Kollwitz, p. 95; cited in Käthe Kollwitz: Woman and Artist (1976) by Martha Kearns, p. 172.
“My work is not, of course, pure art in the sense that Schmidt-Rottluff's is, but it is art nonetheless... It is all right with me that my work serves a purpose. I want to have an effect on my time, in which human beings are so confused and in need of help.”
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Käthe Kollwitz: Graphics, Posters, Drawings (1981) by Renate Hinz(Random House, , Introduction, p. xxiii
“The only way art lives is through the experience of the observer. The reality of art begins in the eyes of the beholder and gains power through imagination, invention, and confrontation.”
Keith Haring (1958–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is the pure realization of religious feeling, capacity for faith, longing for God.. .The ability to believe is our outstanding quality, and only art adequately translates it into reality. But when we assuage our need for faith with an ideology we court disaster.”
Gerhard Richter (born 1932) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes, 1988; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: 'on Art'
“The idea that art copies nature is a fatal misconception. Art has always operated against nature and for reason.”
Gerhard Richter (born 1932) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My concern is never art, but always what art can be used for.”
Gerhard Richter (born 1932) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou art the whisper in the gloom, The hinting tone, the haunting laugh: Thou art the adorner of my tomb, The minstrel of mine epitaph.”
Lionel Johnson (1867–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The art of biography seems to have fallen on evil times in England. … With us, the most delicate and humane of all the branches of the art of writing has been relegated to the journeymen of letters; we do not reflect that it is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one.”
Lytton Strachey (1880–1932) said by 1932 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Referring to her first interview on French television] The French know about two things: the art of food and the art of love. I told them how I always went each year to the Ritz in Paris with my husband. France is the only place where you can make love in the afternoon without people hammering on your door and asking: "Are you ill?”
Barbara Cartland (1901–2000) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary", Evening Standard (25 October 1984), p. 6
“As a society in turmoil, we are going to see more, and more various, attempts to simulate order through repression; and art is a historical target for such efforts. A distaste for the political dimensions of art, in this time and place, is a dangerous luxury. (p161, XIX: "The transgressor mother")”
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any truly revolutionary art is an alchemy through which waste, greed, brutality, frozen indifference, blind sorrow and anger are transmuted into some drenching recognition of the What if?-the possible...Revolutionary art dwells, by its nature, on edges. This is its power: the tension between subject and means, between the is and what can be. (XXVIII: "What if")”
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art and work and art and life are very connected and my whole life has been absurd. There isn't a thing in my life that has happened that hasn't been extreme - personal health, family, economic situations...absurdity is the key word...”
Eva Hesse (1936–1970) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Art since 1940, strategies of being, Jonathan Fineberg, copyright Prentice Hall, Inc. 1995.
“This latest skirmish in the high art/low art war has played out most fiercely over Mr. Tidwell, who shocked balletomanes when he left American Ballet Theater in 2005, then added insult to injury by joining the third season of “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Danny Tidwell (1984–2020) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: La Rocco Claudia. "TV Viewers Discover Dance, and the Debate Is Joined", The New York Times, September 21, 2007
“Those who try to combat the production of shoddy pictures are enemies of the best art today. Those woodland lakes in a thousand sitting-rooms with gold-tinted wallpaper belong to the profoundest inspirations of art. It always feels tragic to see people labouring to saw off the branch they are sitting on.”
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are not talking about a new cognition in relation to Abstract art, rather a new area of cognition.. .This is where abstract art steps in, in a stronger sense of life, a stronger contact with the growing life, a feeling of the pulsation of life and growth in oneself, an activation of deep-seated powers a staple vitality far deeper than our cognition, not instead of science but inspired by it.”
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote by Jorn, after Egill Jacobson's exhibition in Kunstforeningen (1945)
“It has been the giver's intention to create as complete a collection of European art as possible, with the aim of illuminating Surrealism and Spontaneous-Abstract art.”
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: refering to his art-gift Jorn made the Mmseum Jorn (1962); as quoted in Silkeborg Kunstmuseum — Jorn Samling by Troels Andersen (1973)
“We have defined art as the life form and aesthetic art as the life renewal: the stimulating, animating, agitating, inspiring, inspirational, fermenting, fascinating fanaticising, explosive and outrageous: the renewal of the unknown.”
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of 1963, as quoted in Asger Jorn (2002) by Arken Museum of Modern Art, p. 52
“It is said that my art has some typically Nordic features: the curving lines, the convolutions, the magical masks and staring eyes that appear in myths and folk art. This may be. My interest in the dynamics of Jugend style probably also comes into it.”
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Jorn, from: Tecken för liv, tecken till liv [Signs of life, the characters to life], interview by Marita Lindgren-Fridell, in Konstrevy (1963)
“A work of art is only of interest, in my opinion, when it is an immediate and direct projection of what is happening in the depth of a person's being.. ..It is my belief that only in this Art Brut can we find the natural and normal processes of artistic creation in their pure and elementary state.”
Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man's need for art is absolutely primordial, as strong as, and perhaps stronger than, our need for bread. Without bread, we die of hunger, but without art we die of boredom.”
Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Jean Dubuffet, Works, writings Interviews, ed. Valerie da Costa and Fabrice Hergott; Ediciones Polígrafa, Barcelona 2006, p. 14
“Fautrier's exhibition [in Paris 1945] made an extremely strong impression on me. Art had never before appeared so fully realised in its pure state. The word 'art' had never before been so loaded with meaning for me.”
Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My programme, The Art of Creative Expression, empowers young people with tools to express themselves. We teach photography, art and drama, but it's not just the medium that's important, it's about what you are trying to say.”
Dawud Wharnsby (born 1972) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Global citizen", interview in Scouts (July/August 2010), p. 41
“Art does not imitate, but interpret. It searches out the idea lying dormant in the symbol, in order to present the symbol to men in such form as to enable them to penetrate through it to the idea. Were it otherwise, what would be the use or value of art?”
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini (1864 translation), Preface (1861), Vol. II, p. vii
“Nature is for art the garb of the Eternal. The real is the finite expression and representation of the true ; forms are the limits affixed by time and space to the power of life. Nature, reality, and form, should, all of them, be so rendered and expressed by art, as to reveal to mankind some ray of the truth — a vaster and profounder sentiment of life.”
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini (1864 translation), Preface (1861) Vol. II, p. vii
“I think art has a right—not an obligation—to be difficult if it wishes. And, since people generally go on from this to talk about elitism versus democracy, I would add that genuinely difficult art is truly democratic.”
Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thought must be judged by something that is not thought, by its effect on production or its impact on social conduct, as art today is being ultimately gauged in every detail by something that is not art, be it box-office or propaganda value.”
Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is not life, but in a sense something contrary to life, since life is transient and changing, while art is permanent.”
Daniel Bell (1919–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The history of art and art’s condition at any time are pretty messy. They should stay that way. One can think about them as much as one likes, but they won’t become neater; neatness isn’t even a very good reason for thinking about them. A lot of things just can’t be connected.”
Donald Judd (1928–1994) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Donald Judd, "Local History" (1964); Quoted in: Judd (1975, p. 151); and cited in: David Raskin. Donald Judd. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.
“Society is basically not interested in art. Art has a purpose of its own.”
Donald Judd (1928–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chinati: Judd’s Concretes Re-open, AdobeAirstream.com, 9 October 2009
“Administration, which calls for the application of wide knowledge and many personal qualities, is above all the art of handling men, and in this art, as in many others, it is practice that makes perfect. This is one of the reasons why we should release our future engineers for practical work as early as possible; there are many drawbacks to staying too long at school.”
Henri Fayol (1841–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide, Like all created things, secrets from me, And stand a barrier to eternity.”
Alice Meynell (1847–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[W]hat is now and then attempted is perhaps "for art's sake." He that saveth his art shall lose it.”
Alice Meynell (1847–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The art of dying is part of the art of living.”
Tarık Günersel (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I need to stay as ignorant in the art of teaching as I want them to remain in the art of literature. The assignments I give are usually assignments I've given myself, problems that have defeated me, investigations I'm still pursuing.”
Grace Paley (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things — trout as well as eternal salvation — come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”
Norman Maclean (1902–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dominant tradition in the sociology of art... defines art as something more special, in which creativity comes to the surface and the essential character if the society expresses itself, especially in the great work of the genius.”
Howard S. Becker (1928–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Art worlds) consist of all the people whose activities are necessary to the production of the characteristic works which that world, and perhaps others as well, define as art.”
Howard S. Becker (1928–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[ Folk art, consists of] work done by ordinary people in the course of their lives, work seldom thought of by those who make or use it as art at all.”
Howard S. Becker (1928–2023) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 245 as quoted in: John Ross Hall, Mary Jo Neitz, Marshall Battani (2003) Sociology On Culture. p. 196.
“The art system operates on its own terms, but an observer of art can choose many different distinctions to indicate what he observes.”
Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Architecture is defined as the art and science of creating buildings. Systems engineering may be similarly defined as the art and science of creating systems.”
Derek Hitchins (born 1935) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 309; partly cited in: Kurt A. Richardson, Wendy J. Gregory, Gerald Midgley (2006) Systems Thinking and Complexity Science. p. 39
“Turner did not talk well, and never talked of his own art, or of the art of others.”
Charles Robert Leslie (1794–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whoe'er thou art, thy Lord and master see, Thou wast my Slave, thou art, or thou shalt be.”
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735) said by 1735 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inscription for a Figure Representing the God of Love", line 1, in The Genuine Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. I (London: J. and R. Tonson, 1736), p. 104.
“It should be said that such an art would be neither more false nor more true than classical art.”
Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, art is reality, art is a muse if it helps us to realise the truth. It is the major guiding element which helps you to realise the truth.”
S. H. Raza (1922–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source