“To understand a saint, you must hear the devil's advocate; and the same is true of the artist.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
The Sanity of Art: An Exposure of the Current Nonsense about Artists being Degenerate (1908)
1900s
Diary entry (21 February 1916).
The Diary and Letters of Käthe Kollwitz (1955)
Context: There must be understanding between the artist and the people. In the best ages of art that has always been the case. Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius — and I count myself among these — have to restore the lost connection once more.
“To understand a saint, you must hear the devil's advocate; and the same is true of the artist.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
The Sanity of Art: An Exposure of the Current Nonsense about Artists being Degenerate (1908)
1900s
“Detachment and involvement: the artist must have both. The link between them is compassion.”
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
Section 1.16 <!-- p. 50 -->
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: Detachment and involvement: the artist must have both. The link between them is compassion. It has taken me over fifty years to get a glimmer of what this means.
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor
Attributed to Rodin in: Southwestern Art Vol. 6 (1977). p. 20; Partly cited in: A Toolbox for Humanity: More Than 9000 Years of Thought (2004) by Lloyd Albert Johnson, p. 7
1930s and later
Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet
Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990) not-paged
Mohammad Khatami (1943) Iranian prominent reformist politician, scholar and shiite faqih.
UNESCO 1999
Attributed
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)
“Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are the artists of one kind or another.”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) American artist
“Serial Project #1, 1966,” Aspen 5/6 (Fall/Winter 1967)
Quotes of Sol Lewitt