Jacques Barzun: Quotes about art

Jacques Barzun was Historian. Explore interesting quotes on art.
Jacques Barzun: 92   quotes 0   likes

“Great works of art are great by virtue of being syntheses of the world; they qualify as art by fusing form and contents into an indivisible whole; what they offer is not "discourse about," nor a cipher to be decoded, but a prolonged incitement to finesse.”

Jacques Barzun

"Culture High and Dry" (1984), p. 14
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
Context: Scholarship has yielded to the irresistible pull that science exerts on our minds by its self-confidence and the promise of certified knowledge. But, to repeat, the objects of culture are not analyzable, not graspable by the geometric mind. Great works of art are great by virtue of being syntheses of the world; they qualify as art by fusing form and contents into an indivisible whole; what they offer is not "discourse about," nor a cipher to be decoded, but a prolonged incitement to finesse. So it is paradoxical that our way of introducing young minds to such works should be the way of scholarship.

World , Art

“A person is not a democrat thanks to his ignorance of literature and the arts, nor an elitist because he or she has cultivated them.”

Jacques Barzun

"Exeunt the Humanities" (1980), p. 117
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
Context: A person is not a democrat thanks to his ignorance of literature and the arts, nor an elitist because he or she has cultivated them. The possession of knowledge makes for unjust power over others only if used for that very purpose: a physician or lawyer or clergyman can exploit or humiliate others, or he can be a humanitarian and a benefactor. In any case, it is absurd to conjure up behind anybody who exploits his educated status the existence of an "elite" scheming to oppress the rest of us.

Art , Literature , Personality

“It defaces every type of mental activity — history, art, politics, science and social reform.”

Jacques Barzun

Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (1937)
Context: In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, race was already a weapon in the struggle between absolutism, aristocracy, and the middle class. The warfare spread to the arts and philosophy in the nineteenth century, by which time independent shoots in other cultures had also borne fruit, leaving the grand harvesting on a world-wide scale to our generation.
Viewed in the light of such facts, the race question appears a much bigger affair than a trumped-up excuse for local persecution. It becomes rather a mode of thought endemic in Western civilization. It defaces every type of mental activity — history, art, politics, science and social reform.

Art , History , Science

“Criticism will need an injection of humility — that is, a recognition of its role as ancillary to the arts, needed only occasionally in a temporary capacity. Since the critic exists only for introducing and explaining, he must be readily intelligible; he has no special vocabulary: criticism is in no way a science or a system.”

Jacques Barzun

"Culture High and Dry" (1984), p. 20
The Culture We Deserve (1989)

Art , Way , Intelligence , Science

“On reflection, moral judgment in the arts appears rather as a tribute to their power to influence emotion and possibly conduct. And reflecting further on what some critics do today, one sees that a good many have merely shifted the ground of their moralism, transferring their impulse of righteousness to politics and social issues.”

Jacques Barzun

"What Critics Are Good For" (1988), p. 69
The Culture We Deserve (1989)

Art , Appearance