art quotes

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way that I feel in the mornings.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

Really I don’t like human nature unless all candied over with art.

I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed – it is a process of elimination.

A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

There are many things I do where the centre of it is… It’s almost more my humanitarian work than art.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.

No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.

Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force.

I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don’t think they’re doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.

I believe in sketching because there is something very sensitive in sketching, you know, in sketches that you don’t have out of a computer that looks the same like everybody even if, later on, the dresses are OK, but I like to sketch, and I like to see trails made after my sketches that look the same. It is you know, what I like.

All good art is an indiscretion.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that’s always nice. And if they don’t like them, then too bad.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

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.‘

Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

The X is an amazing car, but we kind of got carried away with the art and technology. Obviously, you want great art. You want great technology. But we did get a little distracted from our mission, which was to advance the cause of electric vehicles. And it probably delayed us a little bit with the Model 3 as well.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

I have Dalinian thought: the one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.

When I do a picture and it’s 90% black, like ‚Bird,‘ I use 90% black people.

Every picture has its own demands, and every picture stimulates something within you to tell it a certain way. I don’t know what that is; I don’t think too much about that.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.