Quotes about art

"Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother's face, her aspect and her attitude."

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth on art   

"The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people."

Mailer, Norman on art
4 fans of this quote   

"There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted."

Matisse, Henri on art   

"Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century."

Mcluhan, Marshall on art   

"Art at its most significant is a distant early warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen."

Mcluhan, Marshall on art   

"As the unity of the modern world becomes increasingly a technological rather than a social affair, the techniques of the arts provide the most valuable means of insight into the real direction of our own collective purposes."

Mcluhan, Marshall on art   

"Experiment is necessary in establishing an academy, but certain principles must apply to this business of art as to any other business which affects the artistic tic sense of the community. Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language."

Menzies, Robert on art   

"Caricature is rough truth."

Meredith, George on art   

"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands."

Michelangelo on art   

"The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe; he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life."

Miller, Henry on art
4 fans of this quote   

"Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life."

Miller, Henry on art
4 fans of this quote   

"Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself."

Miller, Henry on art
5 fans of this quote   

"Art is man's expression of his joy in labor."

Morris, William on art   

"If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens."

Moses, Grandma on art   

"The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with."

Motherwell, Robert on art   

"Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods."

Murdoch, Iris on art   

"To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination."

Nathan, George Jean on art   

"Art raises its head where creeds relax."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on art
3 fans of this quote   

"Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on art   

"We have art in order not to die of the truth."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on art
8 fans of this quote   

"The artist belongs to their work, not the work to the artist."

Novalis on art   

"Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life."

Novalis on art   

"There is no true expertise in the humanities without knowing all of the humanities. Art is a vast, ancient interconnected web-work, a fabricated tradition. Over-concentration on any one point is a distortion."

Paglia, Camille on art   

"Art is a form of catharsis."

Parker, Dorothy on art   

"What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism."

Paz, Octavio on art   

"Wherever art appears, life disappears."

Picabia, Francis on art   

"Often while reading a book one feels that the author would have preferred to paint rather than write; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors."

Picasso, Pablo on art   

"The people who make art their business are mostly impostors."

Picasso, Pablo on art   

"Through art we express our conception of what nature is not."

Picasso, Pablo on art   

"If I spit, they will take my spit and frame it as great art."

Picasso, Pablo on art   

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

Picasso, Pablo on art
4 fans of this quote   

"Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."

Picasso, Pablo on art
3 fans of this quote   

"We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies."

Picasso, Pablo on art
4 fans of this quote   

"Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul. The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of Artist."

Poe, Edgar Allan on art   

"The hidden harmony is better than the obvious."

Pope, Alexander on art   

"But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY."

Pound, Ezra on art   

"Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts."

Pound, Ezra on art   

"Good art however immoral is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise."

Pound, Ezra on art   

"A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left."

Proust, Marcel on art   

"The perfection of art is to conceal art."

Quinet, Edgar on art