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Art

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“The first and foremost critic of a work of art is the artist who created it. Give him every means to illustrate it and make it known. If an artist awaits celebrity or gratefulness for his work through other people, he will have the time to die a thousand times for sheer hunger.”
Fortunato Depero (1892–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, I knew I was an artist the moment I woke up in my mother's belly and, as an artist, I shouldn't have to give interviews.. ..in some parts of the world, you get scrutinized for saying the wrong thing about art and in other regions, you get scrutinized for saying nothing at all.”
Isa Genzken (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In every work of art the subject is primordial, whether the artist knows it or not. The measure of the formal qualities is only a sign of the measure of the artist's obsession with his subject; the form is always in proportion to the obsession.”
Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alberto Giacometti (1945), as cited in: Joel Shatzky, ‎Michael Taub (1999), Contemporary Jewish-American Dramatists and Poets. p. 302
“To love art is to embrace poverty and to be unafraid of the uncertainty of an artist’s lifestyle, to sacrifice security, material wealth, regular family, to become a dedicated filmmaker, a public servant at the beck and call of the artist as a citizen.”
Marilou Diaz-Abaya (1955–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is the reshaping of reality by man to present it in an understandable way. As the artist recreates the world around him, it is shaped by how he sees it and what he believes in. The Indian artist did not attempt to depict only the material reality around him. He wished to share the complete experience of the movement, not just the photographic presentation of the shapes around him.”
Benoy K. Behl (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.”
Pauline Kael (misattributed) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: John F. Kennedy, address at the dedication of the Robert Frost Library, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (October 26, 1963).
“Spirit: Do not be deceived by sophists and half philosophers; things do not appear to thee by means of any representatives. Of the thing that exists, and that can exist, thou art conscious immediately ; thou, thyself, art that of which thou art conscious. By a fundamental law of thy being thou art thus presented to thyself, and thrown out of thyself.”
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) said by 1814 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 53
“L'art pour l'art est un vain mot. L'art pour le vrai, l'art pour le beau et le bon, voilà la religion que je cherche....”
George Sand (1804–1876) first seen 1812 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Alexandre Saint-Jean, (19 April 1872), published in Calmann Lévy (ed.) Correspondance (1812-1876). Eng. Transl by Raphaël Ledos de Beaufort in Letters of George Sand Vol. III, p. 242
“Art is action, but it does not cause action: rather, it prepares us for thought. Art is intellectual, but it does not cause thought: rather, it prepares us for thought. Art is not a world, but a knowing of the world. Art prepares us. (p 25)”
Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of an abstract art. Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man.”
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Mondrian, 1914 from Wikipedia; as cited by Michel Seuphor, in 'Piet Mondrian: Life and Work;Abrams, New York, 1956, p. 117
“It must be said that an authentic work of art needs no philosophical justification. In principle, if Philosophical Treatises could explain a work of art then there would be no justification for the existence of that work art. Put it differently, a work of art precisely enters into the scene when philosophy and other experimental sciences are inept of representing or elucidating an artistic vision.”
Guity Novin (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Woody Allen says at the end of Annie Hall that we’re always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it’s so difficult in real life [...] if we can accept Allen’s as a definition of art, then sabermetrics is absolutely an art. And, just as Kalkman notes, it’s an art whose practitioners are bent on seeing justice done — in baseball, if nowhere else.”
Carson Cistulli (born 1979) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Long Hello: Some Notes on Luck (2009)
“It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cacher l’Art par l’Art lui même. Conceal Art by Art itself.”
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) first seen 1727 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lettre à Houdar de la Motte, 1727.
“Art. They think it’s a pretentious word from the giddyap. To me, words are only symbols, and the word art has never lost its vitality. It still has meaning to me. Love lost its meaning to me. God lost its meaning to me. But art never lost its meaning. I always knew what I meant by art.”
Joni Mitchell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, comformable.”
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Against Interpretation" (1964), p. 8
“We live in a time which has created the art of the absurd. It is our art. It contains happenings, Pop art, camp, a theater of the absurd … Do we have the art because the absurd is the patina of waste…? Or are we face to face with a desperate or most rational effort from the deepest resources of the unconscious of us all to rescue civilization from the pit and plague of its bedding?”
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When seen as a whole, art derives from a person's desire to communicate himself to another. I do not believe in an art which is not forced into existence by a human being’s desire to open his heart. All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart’s blood. Art is your heart’s blood.”
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) first seen 1891 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Manuscript (1891); as quoted in Edvard Munch and the Physiology of Symbolism (2002) by Shelley Wood Cordulack
“Someone famous once said 'It takes two people to make a piece of art. One person to make the art and another person to stop them from destroying it.' Which is a more poetic than saying: 'It takes two people to make a piece of art. One person to make the art and another person to come round later from the council and sand-blast it off.”
Banksy (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“my art cannot be understood primarily by thinking. My art touches people who are in tune with my mode of thinking. But it is clear that people cannot understand my art by intellectual processes alone, because no art can be experienced in that way.”
Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in interview with Willoughby Sharp, 1969; as quoted in Joseph Beuys and the Celtic Wor(l)d: A Language of Healing, Victoria Walters, LIT Verlag Münster, 2012, p. 212, note vii
“I always felt that my work hadn't much to do with art; my admirations for other art had very little room to show themselves in my work because I hoped that if I concentrated enough the intensity of scrutiny alone would force life into the pictures. I ignored the fact that art, after all, derives from art. Now I realize that this is the case.”
Lucian Freud (1922–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The one question, the one principle, the one crisis in art of the twentieth century centers in the uncompromising 'purity' of art, and in the consciousness that art comes from art only, not from anything else.”
Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The problem with artlike art, or even doses of artlike art that still linger in lifelike art, is that it overemphasizes the discourse within art.”
Allan Kaprow (1927–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in 'Journal of Contemporary Art', Inc. accessed 2008-04-28
“THE ORIGIN OF ART: The discrepancy between physical fact and psychic effect. THE CONTENT OF ART: Visual information of our reaction to life. THE MEASURE OF ART: The ratio of effort to effect. THE AIM OF ART: Revelation and evocation of vision.”
Josef Albers (1888–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our point of view on this question of the function of art is the same in all cases: there's no more an art of the insane than there is an art of dyspeptic people or the art of people with knee problems.”
Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Dubuffet on 'Art brut', in 'Art Brut Preferred to the Cultural Arts' (1949); (trans. Joachim Neugroschel), in Mildred Glimcher, Jean Dubuffet: Towards an Alternative Reality, New York: Abbeville Press, 1987, p.…
“So what, then, is the use of art — our art, Black art? Black art must expose the enemy, praise the people and support the revolution.… We do not need pictures of oranges in a bowl or trees standing innocently in the midst of a wasteland. If we must paint oranges and trees, let our guerrillas be eating those oranges for strength and using those trees for cover.”
Maulana Karenga (born 1941) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Black Cultural Nationalism" in The Black Aesthetic (1971)
“As poetry is a species of art, its essential principle must be a specific development of the principle essential to all art; and it will merely remain for us to determine what the specific addition is, which the peculiar conditions of the poet's art make to the principle of art in general.”
George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fundamental to this idea of art (conceptual art) is the understanding of the linguistic nature of all art propositions, be they past or present, and regardless of the elements used in their construction. (note: Without this understanding a 'conceptual' form of presentation is little more than a manufactured stylehood, and such art we have with increasing abundance.)”
Joseph Kosuth (born 1945) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Joseph Kosuth: Introductory note by the American editor', in Art-Language Vol.1 Nr.2, Art & Language Press, Chipping Norton (February 1970), p.3.
“Art before the modern period is as much art as Neanderthal man is man'. It is for this reason that around the same time I replaced the term "work" for art proposition. Because a conceptual work of art in the traditional sense, is a contradiction in terms.”
Joseph Kosuth (born 1945) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Joseph Kosuth. (1969), as cited in: Claude Gintz, ‎Musée d'Art Moderne Paris (1989). L'Art conceptuel, une perspective: exposition au Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 22 nov. 1989 - 18 fév. 1990. p. 42
“Concept art is first of all an art of which the material is concepts, as the material of e.g. music is sound. Since concepts are closely bound up with language, concept art is a kind of art of which the material is language.”
Henry Flynt (born 1940) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Henry Flynt: "Essay: Concept Art." (1961) In: La Monte Young (ed.) An Anthology, 1963.
“The old art depicted space as uniform and enclosed. The new art perceives space as organic and open. The old art was an object. The new art is a system. The configuration of the movement is more important than the shape of the object. The message of a kinetic and luminic work is the light and movement it produces. It has no other message. It has no meaning besides movement.”
Willoughby Sharp (1936–2008) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Willoughby Sharp, "Luminism and Kineticism," in: Minimal Art.- A Critical Anthology, Gregory Battcock, ed. (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1968), p. 358
“Pop Art, Op Art, Flop Art and Slop Art.. .I fall into the last two categories [her remark, in the mid 1970’s] .”
Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in Abstract Expressionism, Barbara Hess, Taschen, Köln, 2006, p. 78
“My thought is that if some art is imitation and some art is not, neither term belongs to the definition of art as philosophically understood. A property is part of the definition only if it belongs to every work of art there is.”
Arthur Danto (1924–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…I think Disney personifies some of the American ideals in art and in culture in total, because what he was trying to do and specifically with Fantasia. And it was the spirit of the thirties, I believe; it was the post-Depression period, where people were trying to think popular art, art that was consumable by the masses high art that could be put in a tin or another form, a package…”
Carlos Almaraz (1941–1989) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On being influenced by Disney productions in “Oral history interview with Carlos Almaraz, 1986 February 6-1987 January 29” (Smithsonian Archive of the Arts)
“…art infuses TV every day. Art produces culture, and hopefully new cultural ideas get expressed in the art world. I think you can see the influence of the art world everywhere on TV.”
Nao Bustamante (born 1969) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the limitations of Work of Art in “The Business of Art: An Interview with Nao Bustamante by Brian Sloan” in NYFA Current (2010)
“Thou, for whose love I've sacrifice existence, Art, yet art not, the sum of earth's existence, Earth lacks true Being, yet depends thereon— Thou art true Being, Thou art pure existence The Loved One is quite colourless, O heart, Be not engrossed with colours, then, O heart All colours come from what is colourless, And 'who can dye so well as God,' O heart?”
Jami (1414–1492) said by 1492 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is supposed to make our lives better. This is as true for the making of the art as it is for the art itself. If making your art is ruining anyone's life, including your own, it is not worth making.”
Austin Kleon (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art makes better humans, art is necessary in understanding the world and art makes people happy. Undeniably, art is not optional.”
Nathan Sawaya (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The decline in the intake of students into University art schools nationally, stems from the dearth of art teachers and adequate facilities in primary and Secondary schools. This invariably leads to improper art and ultimately excludes art from the curriculum at the foundational level. These teaching materials assist in filling this gap.”
Peju Layiwola (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When people think of music, they often think of art, and when they think of art, they tend to believe it is just a way to spend free time. However, art is not just art itself; it is a tool that helps people to search for and find themselves.”
Natsagiin Jantsannorov (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a joy to now be able to say that Yoruba art is a language like renaissance art in Europe. That Sango, god of fire is comparable to the Greek god Zeus and so on. To be able to have conversations about Yoruba mythology and Yoruba art on the same platform as other art from cultures that are better known globally brings me great contentment.”
Laolu Senbanjo wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is not lucrative”, they’d say. “Art is for the poor”, “Art is for the dumb”... so many wrong perception... but I’d not blame them, I’ll blame the society for the lack of knowledge and exposure, and the government for the lack of support to the Nigerian art scene.”
Ken Nwadiogbu (born 1994) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Below is a poem I composed in 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, on the eve of my art exhibit to mark the Grand opening of Gems Of Africa Fine Art & Sculpture Gallery . I intended to address the frequently asked question about me and my art and how long it takes me to complete a work of art.”
Nuwa Wamala Nnyanzi (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O heart, why art thou a captive in the earth that is passing away? Fly forth from this enclosure, since thou art a bird of the spiritual world; Thou art a darling bosom-friend, thou art always behind the secret veil; Why dost thou make thy dwelling-place in this perishable abode?”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A public that tries to do without criticism, and asserts that it knows what it wants or likes, brutalizes the arts and loses its cultural memory. Art for art's sake is a retreat from criticism which ends in an impoverishment of civilized life itself.”
Northrop Frye (1912–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The arts objectify subjective reality, and subjectify outward experience of nature. Art education is the education of feeling, and a society that neglects it gives itself up to formless emotion. Bad art is corruption of feeling.”
Susanne Langer (1895–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have always been fascinated with the arts. When I was in Iran in that position I was constantly concerned with promoting our Iranian traditional art but, at the same time, with introducing contemporary and modern art.”
Farah Pahlavi (born 1938) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Former queen of Iran on assembling Tehran's art collection, The Guardian, (August 1, 2012).
“I think human arts depend on the imaginative truths. The straight forward illustration of practicality cannot take the form of Art, not is photography any Art in my opinion.”
Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that all art is political. I think that art is always an expression of a human experience, and I very much believe that the arts are central to our society…”
Favianna Rodriguez (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are several challenges facing education generally in Nigeria. There has been a steady decline in standards in the visual arts, as in other disciplines. Today, there are very poor facilities for teaching art in almost all art schools in Nigeria.”
Peju Layiwola (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source