Quotes about art (5831 quotes, page 35)

“[ Folk art, consists of] work done by ordinary people in the course of their lives, work seldom thought of by those who make or use it as art at all.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Source: Art Worlds (1982), p. 245 as quoted in: John Ross Hall, Mary Jo Neitz, Marshall Battani (2003) Sociology On Culture. p. 196.

People

“lf l am not mistaken, the words "art" and "artist" did not exist during the Renaissance and before: there were simply architects, sculptors, and painters, practicing a trade.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

1950's, On Being a Graphic Artist', 1953

“The slender, swift Bruce Lee was the Fred Astaire of martial arts, and many of the fights that could be merely brutal come across as lightning-fast choreography.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

"Enter the Dragon," p. 221.
5001 Nights at the Movies (1982)

Fight

“Before going any further may we take it that the object of art is to obtain a partial revelation of that which is beyond human senses and human faculties – of that, in fact, which is spiritual? And that the means which we employ to induce this revelation are those very senses and faculties themselves?”

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) English composer

"The Letter and the Spirit", in the journal Music and Letters, vol. 1 (1920) p. 88.

Sense

“.. it was the Cubist painters who created the new magic of space and color that everywhere today confronts our eyes in new architecture and design. Since then the various branches of modern art through exhaustive experiment and research have created a vast laboratory whose discoveries unveiled for all the secrets of form, line and color..”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Quote from Gorky's text: 'Camouflage', 1942; an announcement for a teaching program [set up by Gorky and the director of the Grand Central School of Art, Edmund Greasen]
1942 - 1948

Secret , Color

“The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”

Russell Lynes (1910–1991) American art historian

Reader's Digest, December 1954

“Let the picture imitate nothing; let it nakedly present its raison d'être. We should indeed be ungrateful were we to deplore the absence of all those things flowers, or landscape, or faces whose mere reflection it might have been. Nevertheless, let us admit that the reminiscence of natural forms cannot be absolutely banished; not yet, at all events. An art cannot be raised to the level of a pure effusion at the first step.”

Albert Gleizes (1881–1953) French painter

1910s, Du Cubisme (1912)

Flowers , Nature

“This art that we are all working in, we feel it has a long future before it, and one must have some settled base, like steady people, and not like decadents. Here my life will become more and more like a Japanese painter's, living close to nature like a petty tradesman.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, Autumn 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 540), pp. 22-23
1880s, 1888

Life , People , Feeling , Nature

“When Morris Louis showed in 1958, everybody [like in 'Art News', by Tom Hess ] dismissed his work as thin, merely decorative. They still do. Louis is the really interesting case... In every sense his instincts were Abstract Expressionist, and he was terribly involved with all of that, but he felt he had to move, too.”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Frank Stella in: The New York school – the painters & sculptors of the fifties, Irving Sandler, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1978, p. 319 note 68
quote of Stella, 1960's, concerning the position of stain painting
Quotes, 1960 - 1970

Sense

“In the human figure as it approaches perfection… is contained the sure guide for the determination of all true principles of design. …it was because the ancient Greeks… realized this truth that they excelled all others in art.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

Truth , Perfection

“Here is one of the best bits of advice every given about the fine art of human relationships. "If there is any one secret of success," says Henry Ford, "it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own."”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 42 (in 2016 edition)

Secret , Success , Personality

“In its whole sweep, therefore, information work includes: science, that helps us to understand our problems; technology, that helps us to solve them; and the art of participating in each delicate interpersonal communication into which we are invited. The fusion of these three aspects of the craft creates a “triple glow” of optimal service.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Information Systems (1973), p. 330.

Communication , Optimism , Understanding , Problem

“Don't give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can't express them. Don't analyze yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Reviewing World within World, the autobiography of Stephen Spender, in The Tablet (5 May 1951)

Life , History

“Third and finally, poetry originated as a form of vocal music. It began as a performative and auditory medium, linked to music and dance and associated with civic ceremony, religious ritual, and magic. (The earliest poetry almost certainly served a shamanistic function.) Most aboriginal cultures did not distinguish poetry from song because the arts were so interrelated as to be porous. Nor did the classical Greek or Chinese cultures two or three millennia ago differentiate poetry from song”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

10
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), Poetry as Enchantment (2015)

Music , Dance

“Art for Art's Sake means, for its adepts, the pursuit of pure beauty – without any other consideration.”

Théophile Gautier Paris

L'art pour l'art signifie, pour les adeptes, un travail dégagé de toute préoccupation autre que celle du beau en lui-même.
L'art moderne (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1856) p. 151; F. W. Ruckstull Great Works of Art and What Makes Them Great (New York: Putnam, 1925) p. 299

Beauty

“Art is (1) a messenger of discontent, yet (2) no teacher of new ideals, but rather (3) an inspiration to each it touches, himself to turn creator of a world-more-ideal.”

Edgar A. Singer, Jr. (1873–1954) American philosopher

Singer, Edgar A. "Esthetic and the Rational Ideal. II." The Journal of Philosophy 23.10 (1926): 258-268; Partly cited in: William Gerber. Anatomy of what We Value Most, Rodopi, 1997, p. 55

World , Teachers

“Thus we must carefully distinguish between two kinds of reality, one which has an individual character, and one which has a universal appearance... It is, however, wrong to think that the non-figurative artist finds impressions and emotions received from the outside useless, and regards it even as necessary to fight against them... It is equally wrong to think that the non-figurative artist creates through 'the pure intention of his mechanical process', that he makes 'calculated abstractions' and that he wish to 'suppress sentiment not only in himself but in the spectator'... It is thus clear that he has not become a mechanic, but that the progress of science, of technique, of machinery, of life as a whole, has only made him into a living machine, capable of realizing in a pure manner the essence of art.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in: 'Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art', Piet Mondrian (1937); in 'Documents of modern Art' ed. Robert Motherwell for Wittenborn, Schulz, New York 1945
1930's

Life , Thinking , Reality , Universe

“By Suprematism I mean the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

In 'The Non-Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism', 1926; trans. Howard Dearstyne [Dover, 2003, ISBN 0-486-42974-1], 'part II: Suprematism', p. 67
1921 - 1930

World , Feeling

“Because he attempted to tell [in his painting 'The Jewish Cemetery' painted by Ruisdael, ] that which is outside the reach of art…. there are ruins to indicate old age, a stream to signify the course of life, and rocks and precipices to shadow forth its dangers. But how are we to discover all this?”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 304
posthumous, undated

Life , Age , Painting

“The book rest upon tour assumptions. It assumes that administration is a - single process, substantially uniform in its essential characteristics whether observed and therefore avoids the study of municipal administration, state administration, or federal administration as such. It is assumed that the study of administration should start from the base of management rather than the foundation of law, and is therefore more absorbed in the affairs of the American Management Association than in the decisions of the courts. It assumes that administration is still primarily an art but attaches importance to the significant tendency to transform it into a science. It assumes that administration has become, and will continue to be, the hart of the problem of modern government.”

Leonard D. White (1891–1958) American historian

Source: Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, 1926, p. ix

Books , Law , Problem , Decision

“No sooner were the merits of Mr. Arkwright’s inventions fully understood, from the great increase of materials produced in a given time, and the superior quality of the goods manufactured; no sooner was it known, that his assiduity and great mechanical abilities were rewarded with success; than the very men, who had before treated him with contempt and derision, began to devise means to rob him of his inventions, and profit by his ingenuity. Every attempt that cunning could suggest for this purpose was made; by the seduction of his servants and workmen, (whom he had with great labour taught the business) a knowledge of his machinery and inventions was fully gained. From that time many persons began to pilfer something from him; and then by adding something else of their own, and by calling similar productions and machines by other names, they hoped to screen themselves from punishment. So many of these artful and designing individuals had at length infringed on his patent right, that he found it necessary to prosecute several: but it was not without great difficulty, and considerable expence, that he was able to make any proof against them; conscious that their conduct was unjustifiable, their proceedings were conducted with the utmost caution and secresy. Many of the persons employed by them were sworn to secresy, and their buildings and workshops were kept locked up, or otherwise secured. This necessary proceeding of Mr. Arkwright, occasioned, as in the case of poor Hargrave, an association against him, of the very persons whom he had served and obliged. Formidable, however, as it was, Mr. Arkwright persevered, trusting that he should obtain in the event, that satisfaction which he appeared to be justly entitled to.”

Richard Arkwright (1732–1792) textile entrepreneur; developer of the cotton mill

Source: The Case of Mr. Richard Arkwright and Co., 1781, p. 23-24

Men , Hope , Business , Knowledge

“Dear Mr. Rosenberg [art-dealer in Paris, then], - Many thanks for your good letters which are a great encouragement to me. I assure you that you are the man who has encouraged me the most so far. Please excuse the tone of declaration. I will also show my gratitude when I am in Paris by doing a good life-size portrait of you, or of a member of your family if you prefer, and I would like you to accept it as a gift. I intend to be in Paris around 15 November. My mother and my brother send their best wishes.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

Mr. Rosenberg, please accept my devotion, esteem and gratitude.
Quote from De Chirico's letter to Mr. Rosenberg, Rome, 13 Oct. 1925; from LETTERS BY GIORGIO DE CHIRICO TO LÉONCE ROSENBERG, 1925-1939 http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/wp-content/uploads/309-338-Rosenberg_Metaphysical_Art_ENG.pdf, p. 317
1920s and later

Life , Family , Gratitude

“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) Italian painter, writer, sculptor and graphic designer

p 97.
So I think, so I paint (1947)

Hunger , People , Time

“Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

The Writing of Fiction (1925), ch. I

“I am not a 'book of the month' artist, and I do not paint pretty pictures; but when I am no longer here my name will register forever in the history of American art.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

In a letter to his sister at the end of his life; as quoted in 'The return of the Native' by Joseph Phelan, Artcyclopedia online
1931 - 1943

Books , History , Painting

“Amrita Sher-Gill: Art and Life: A Reader (page xvii)”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

Life

“My collages are only ideas for things much larger – things to cover walls. In fact all the things that I have done I would like to see much larger. I am not interested in painting as it has been accepted for so long – to hang on walls of houses as pictures. To hell with pictures – they should be the wall – even better – on the outside wall – of large buildings. Or stood up outside as billboards or a kind of modern 'icon'. We must make our art like the Egyptians, the Chinese & the African and the Island primitives – with their relation to life. It should meet the eye direct.”

Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

Quote in a letter to John Cage, 4 September 1950; as quoted in "Ellsworth Kelly, a Retrospective", ed. Diane Waldman, Guggenheim museum, New York 1997, p. 11
1950 - 1968

Life , Idea , Hell , Painting

“There cannot be a greater error than to suppose that the poet does not feel what he writes. What an extraordinary, I might say, impossible view, is this to take of an art more connected with emotion than any of its sister sciences. What — the depths of the heart are to be sounded, its mysteries unveiled, and its beatings numbered by those whose own heart is made by this strange doctrine — a mere machine wound up by the clock-work of rhythm! No; poetry is even more a passion than a power, and nothing is so strongly impressed on composition as the character of the writer. I should almost define poetry to be the necessity of feeling strongly in the first instance, and the as strong necessity of confiding in the second.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Error , Feeling , Confidence , Sister

“The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. "What you doin' young man?"
"I'm paintin' flowers" he said
She said… "It's not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There's a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one."”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Flowers are Red
Song lyrics, Living Room Suite (1978)

School , Color , Way , Boy

“I paused, watching the swallows; for they seemed to me the symbol, in their swift, sure curvetting, all daring and balance and surprise, of the delicate poise and motion of Art, that visits no two men alike, in a world where no two things of all the things there be, are quite the same.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Vague Thoughts On Art (1911)

Men , World

“Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

“The whole concept of the avant-garde in art is meaningless. I can see what it means when applied to sport, for instance. But to apply it to art would be to accept the idea of progress in art; and though progress has an obvious place in technology — more perfect machines, capable of carrying out their functions better and more accurately — how can anyone be more advanced in art? How could Thomas Mann be said to be better than Shakespeare?”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 97

Idea , Sport , Perfection

“So much of every art is an expression of the subconscious that it seems to me most of all the important qualities are put there unconsciously, and little of importance by the conscious intellect. But these are things for the psychologist to untangle.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

Quote in Hopper's letter to Charles H. Sawyer, October 29, 1939; as cited in Edward Hopper, Lloyd Goodrich; New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1971, p. 164
1911 - 1940

“A creator is not in advance of his generation but he is the first of his contemporaries to be conscious of what is happening to his generation.
A creator who creates, who is not an academician, who is not someone who studies in a school where the rules are already known, and of course being known they no longer exist, a creator then who creates is necessarily of his generation. His generation lives in its contemporary way but they only live in it. In art, in literature, in the theatre, in short in everything that does not contribute to their immediate comfort they live in the preceding generation.”

Gertrude Stein Picasso

Picasso (1938)

School , Way , Literature , Study

“When a beautiful rose dies beauty does not die because it is not really in the rose. Beauty is an awareness in the mind. It is a mental and emotional response that we make. We respond to life as though it were perfect. When we go into a forest we do not see the fallen rotting trees. We are inspired by a multitude of uprising trees... The goal of life is happiness and to respond to life as though it were perfect is the way to happiness. It is also the way to positive art work.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

In 'Beauty Is the Mystery of Life', 1989; a lecture by Agnes Martin, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 1989. Printed in Agnes Martin, eds. Morris and Bell, pp. 158–59
1980 - 2000

Life , Beauty , Way , Tree

“As I understand it, your policemen are chosen by their height and weight; they must meet certain requirements as to heft—as thought the only crimes they had to cope with were riots and gang feuds. Bulk—the great American ideal, whether in art, architecture, table d‘hôte meals, or detectives. An entrancin‘ notion.”

S. S. Van Dine book The Benson Murder Case

Ch 25
The Benson Murder Case (1926)

Understanding

“For more than twenty-five years we have monitored beach nourishment projects around the United States. In order to secure federal funding and justify the enormous costs of these projects, anyone undertaking one must make a prediction of how long the sand will last on the replenished beach. The predictions are based on mathematical models that are said to be sophisticated and state of the art, and yet are consistently, dramatically wrong—always in an optimistic direction. In the rare instances when communities questioned the models after the predictions of a long healthy replenished beach clearly failed, the answer typically was that an unusual and unexpected storm caused the error. Well, the occurrence of storms at any beach is neither unusual nor unexpected. Eventually we became interested in how models were used in other fields. When you start looking into it, you find that a lot of global and local decisions are made based on modeling the environment. There are some fascinating (and discouraging) stories of model misuse and misplaced trust in models in the book.”

Orrin H. Pilkey (1934) American ecologist

Interview with Orrin Pilkey & Linda Jarvis-Pilkey https://web.archive.org/web/20080105132439/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/publicity/pilkeyinterview.html.
Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future (2007)

Books , Error , Communication , Mathematics

“Our political life favors the extremes of speech; the man who is gifted in the arts of abuse is bound to be a notable, if not always a great figure.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VI https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Things Become More Serious, Section II, p 110
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

Life

“Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

1982, quoted in John Cage Visual Art: To Sober and Quiet the Mind, ISBN 1891300164
1980s

“The Mathematics which effectually exercises, not vainly deludes or vexatiously torments studious Minds with obscure Subtilties, perplexed Difficulties, or contentious Disquisitions; which overcomes without Opposition, triumphs without Pomp, compels without Force, and rules absolutely without Loss of Liberty; which does not privately overreach a weak Faith, but openly assaults an armed Reason, obtains a total Victory, and puts on inevitable Chains; whose Words are so many Oracles, and Works as many Miracles; which blabs out nothing rashly, nor designs anything from the Purpose, but plainly demonstrates and readily performs all Things within its Verge; which obtrudes no false Shadow of Science, but the very Science itself, the Mind firmly adheres to it, as soon as possessed of it, and can never after desert it of its own Accord, or be deprived of it by any Force of others: Lastly the Mathematics, which depend upon Principles clear to the Mind, and agreeable to Experience; which draws certain Conclusions, instructs by profitable Rules, unfolds pleasant Questions; and produces wonderful Effects; which is the fruitful Parent of, I had almost said all, Arts, the 47 unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to human Affairs.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

"Ration before the University of Cambridge on being elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics," (1660), reported in: Mathematical Lectures, (1734), p. 28

Faith , Exercises , Mathematics , Question

“.. Your Lordship [Dartmouth], I am sure, will be sensible of the dress thus far, but I defy any but a painter of some sagacity (and such you see I am, my Lord) to be well aware of the different effects which one part of a picture has upon another, and how the eye may be cheated as to the appearance of size, &c., by an artful management of the accompaniments. A tune may be so confused by a false bass that if it is ever so plain, simple, and full of meaning it shall become a jumble of nonsense, and just so shall a handsome face be overset by a fictitious bundle of trumpery of the foolish painter's own inventing.... Lady Dartmouth's [second/repainted] picture will look more like and not so large when dressed properly..”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainborough's letter to Lord Dartmouth, 18 April 1771, after critic on the first portrait he made of Lady Dartmouth; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 74
1770 - 1788

Appearance , Parting , Cheating , Falseness

“The aim of art is to create space - space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Quoted in: Alan D. Bryce (2007) Art Smart: Art Smart: The Intelligent Guide to Investing in the Canadian Art Market. p. 55
Quotes, 1971 - 2000

Painting

“The arts alone give direct access to experience. To eliminate them from education - or worse, to tolerate them as cultural ornaments - is antieducational obscurantism. It is foisted on us by the pedants and snobs of Hellenistic Greece who considered artistic performance fit only for slaves…”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959), p. 144

Education

“Talk not so much, then, young artist, of the great old masters, who but painted and chisell’d. Study not only their productions. There is a still higher school for him who would kindle his fire with coal from the altar of the loftiest and purest art. It is the school of all grand actions and grand virtues, of heroism, of the death of patriots and martyrs — of all the mighty deeds written in the pages of history — deeds of daring, and enthusiasm, devotion, and fortitude.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

"Talk to an Art-Union (A Brooklyn fragment)" (1839)

Death , School , History , Study

“Two pictures painted in the year 1907 can conveniently be taken as the starting point of twentieth-century art. They are Matisse's Blue Nude and Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon; and both these cardinal, revolutionary pictures represent the nude. The reason is that the revolt of twentieth-century painters was not against academicism: that had been achieved by the impressionists. It was a revolt against the doctrine, with which the impressionists implicitly agreed, that the painter should be no more than a sensitive and well-informed camera. And the very elements of symbolism and abstraction that made the nude an unsuitable subject for the impressionists commended it to their successors. When art was once more concerned with concepts rather than sensations, the nude was the first concept that came to mind.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. IX: The Nude As an End in Itself

Painting

“The filmed interview is an art extemporized under difficult conditions and successful only when the interviewee hasn't prepared his replies beforehand.”

Damian Pettigrew book I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon

I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon (2003)

Success

“I have already spoken of the effects which the solitary and ascetic life of the early monks produced upon their imagination. The same thing took place amongst the recluses of the convents, but particularly nunneries. “The imaginations of women,” says a celebrated author whom I have already quoted, “as their feelings are more keen and exquisite, are more susceptible and ungovernable than those of men; more obnoxious to the injurious influence of solitude; more easily won upon by the arts of delusion, and inflamed by the contagion of the passions.” Hence we may account for the rapidity with which in orphan houses, cloisters, and other institutions, where numbers of the sex are [122] intimately connected with each other, the sickness, humour, habits, of one, if conspicuous and distinguished, become those of all. I remember to have read in a medical writer of considerable merit, that in a French convent of nuns, of more than common magnitude, one of the sisters was seized with a strange impulse to mew like a cat, in which singular propensity she was shortly imitated by several other sisters, and finally, without a solitary exception, by the whole convent, who all joined at regular periods in a general mew that lasted several hours”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Source: A Treatise of Relics (1543), p. 93

Life , Women , Men , Sex

“All art is but imitation of nature.”
Omnis ars naturae imitatio est.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXV: On the first cause, Line 3.

Nature

“The Kropotkins, the Perovskayas, the Breshkovskayas, and hosts of others repudiated wealth and station and refused to serve King Mammon. They went among the people, not to lift them up but themselves to be lifted up, to be instructed, and in return to give themselves wholly to the people. That accounts for the heroism, the art, the literature of Russia, the unity between the people, the mujik and the intellectual. That to some extent explains the literature of all European countries, the fact that the Strindbergs, the Hauptmanns, the Wedekinds, the Brieux, the Mirbeaus, the Steinlins and Rodins have never dissociated themselves from the people.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Intellectual Proletarians (1914)

People , Literature , Country , Wealth

“Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. It is terribly simple. In French it means 'hobby horse'. In German it means 'good-bye', 'Get off my back', 'Be seeing you sometime'. In Romanian: 'Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely, right.”

Hugo Ball (1886–1927) German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists

And so forth.
1916, Dada Manifesto (1916)

Horse

“[An artist must apply] his personal faculties to the ideas and the events of the times in which he lives... [A]rt in painting should consist only of the representation of things which that are visible and tangible to the artist. Every age should be represented only by its own artists, that is to say, by the artist who have lived in it. I also maintain that painting is an essentially concrete art form and can exist only of the representation of both real and existing things... An abstract object, not visible, nonexistent, is not within the domain of painting.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote in an open letter ('Credo'), (Paris, end of December 1861), published in the 'Courier du Dimanche', (addressed to prospective students); as quoted in Letters of Gustave Courbet, transl. & ed. Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, University of Chicago Press 1992, pp. 203-204
1860s

Age , Idea , Time , Painting

“Recognition that art was located in an interactive system rather than residing in a material object… provid[ed] a discipline as central to an art of interactivity as anatomy and perspective had been to the renaissance vision.”

Roy Ascott (1934) British academic

“Interactive Art,” unpublished manuscript, 1994, p. 3; as cited in: Edward A. Shanken. " Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s http://www.responsivelandscapes.com/readings/CyberneticsArtCultConv.pdf." 2002

“A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.”

Beverly Sills (1929–2007) opera soprano

Lionel Trilling, in his introducton to Beyond Culture (1976) by Edward T. Hall
Misattributed

Sense

“I started reading Flaubert's 'Salambô'. The first chapter was very strong. I prefer Flaubert above Zola, the Concourt even more. No doubt you know the Concourts, Edm. and Jules, two brothers. 'Manette Salomon' is one of their most beautiful creations. If you could read that, I believe you do me and yourself a great pleasure. The type of Chassagnol, the man who understands so much about Art - yes, he has the purest ideas on art of all - I find [him] adorable. He understands everything and that's why he can not be an artist himself or the greatest. I recommend that book to anyone, layman or painter and I will buy it myself.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Ik ben begonnen met Flaubert's Salambô te lezen. 't eerste hoofdstuk was verduveld kranig. Flaubert bevalt me beter dan Zola, de Concourt nog meer. Zonder twijfel kent U de Concourt, Edm. en Jules, twee broers. Manette Salomon vind ik een van hun mooiste scheppingen. Als U dat eens las zou U mij en Uzelf geloof ik een groot genoegen doen. De type van Chassagnol de man die zooveel begrijpt van Kunst, ja er 't zuiverste denkbeeld over heeft van allen, vind ik aanbiddelijk. Hij begrijpt alles en kan daardoor zelf geen kunstenaar zijn of de grootste. Ik beveel dat boek aan iedereen aan, leek of schilder en zal 't me koopen.
Quote of Breitner in his letter to A.P. van Stolk, 15 Nov. 1881; as cited in Breitner en Parijs – master-thesis 9928758 https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/8382], by Jacobine Wieringa, Faculty of Humanities Theses, Utrecht, (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek) pp. 10-11
before 1890

Pleasure , Books , Beauty , Idea

“Music would probably go. A lot of art would. That’s what I’m saying – I’m really into comics and movies and video games, and I don’t want to give that stuff up. At the same time, I think it’s filling the void for the stuff we’re missing.”

Andrew Hurley (1980) American musician

On if rock bands would ruin civilization
The Boys With the Car-Crash Hearts (March 8, 2007)

Music , Game , Thinking , Time

“Artists have, for the most part, bound themselves down to follow a blind routine. Noble exceptions, however, have presented themselves. Nicholas Poussin, one of the most profound thinkers, whom the arts have produced, took care to correct and regulate by the antique the proportions which Leon Baptista Alberti and Albert Durer had given from the living model.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Parting

“The great sixteenth century divorce between art and science came with accelerated calculators.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 205

Science

“The time of the often criticized art without real subject [l'art pour l'art] and the art without object [ Abstract art ] seems to be over. We are experiencing a new return to the meaningful subject, which the common people can understand”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Fernand Léger - The Later Years, catalogue ed. Nicolas Serota, published by the Trustees of the Whitechapel Art gallery, London, Prestel Verlag, 1988, p. 12
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1980's

People , Understanding , Time

“The problem is that we are living now with the consequences of the others people mistake. It would be nice to make our own and learn from them. That is the art of democracy. That is the art of citizenship.”

Raj Patel (1972) British academic

About democracy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dV7N-QGV_w (Retrieved on July 20, 2010.)

People , Democracy , Problem , Learning

“Much melancholy has devolved upon mankind, and it is detestable to me that might will triumph in the end … Art must not serve might.”

Karel Čapek (1890–1938) Czech writer

Statement to S. K. Neumann, as quoted Karel Čapek: Life and Work (2002) by Ivan Klima

“The pleasure that painting as a dumb art give us, is like what we have from misic, its beautiful forms, vlour and harmony are to the eye what sounds and the harmony are to the ear.”

Jonathan Richardson (1667–1745) English painter

Essay on the Theory of Painting (1725)

Pleasure , Beauty , Painting

“Everyone should be able to build, and as long as this freedom to build does not exist, the present-day planned architecture cannot be considered art at all.”

Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) Austrian artist

Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture (1958)

Freedom

“How certain human beings are able to create works of art is a mystery, and why they should wish to do so, at a great cost to themselves usually, is another mystery. Works are not created by one's life; every life is rich in material.”

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) Novelist, short story writer, literary critic

"Katherine Anne Porter" (p. 300)
American Fictions (1999)

Life

“I think that I say those things that make people so angry, not because I really mean them, but because I simply thought of a clever way to say them. It's a kind of art, to think of the perfect way to say an idea, and when you think of it then you have to say it, because words don't exist until you say them."
"A pretty feeble kind of art, Nyef, and I say you should give it up before it gets you killed.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Memory Of Earth (1992)

People , Way , Idea , Thinking

“I see a face of love,
Fair as sweet music when my heart was strong:
Yea — art thou come again to me, great Song?"
The face bent over him like silver night
In long-remembered summers; that calm light
Of days which shine in firmaments of thought,
That past unchangeable, from change still wrought.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

The Legend of Jubal (1869)

Love , Music , Light , Strong

“.. we didn't have the intention at all of founding a new style... What we wanted, was a refusal of the outmoded, overly-cultivated art practices.”

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976) German artist

as quoted in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner und Die 'Brücke: Selbstbildnisse, Künstlerbildnisse, Jutta Hülsewig-Johnen & Egging Björn; Kerber, Bielefeld 2005, p. 174; as quoted by Louise Albiez https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272168564Claire (incl. translation), Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus; submitted to the Division of Humanities New College of Florida, Sarasota, Florida, May, 2013 p. 9

“I was invited to come here to speak about my idea of art, which is to enlarge the effectivity of art beyond the idea of art as coming out of art history — an art idea which contains the well-known disciplines like sculpture, architecture, painting, music, dancing, poetry and so on. I would like to declare why I feel that it's now necessary to establish a new kind of art, able to show the problems of the whole society, of every living being — and how this new discipline — which I call social sculpture — can realize the future of humankind. It could be a guarantee for the evolution of the earth as a planet, establish conditions for other planetarians too, and you can control it with your own thinking.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Source: 1970's, Joseph Beuys... Public Dialogue' 1974, p. 5; Lead paragraph of article

Feeling , Thinking , Idea , Problem

“How little inventiveness there is in man,
Grave copier of copies, I give thanks
For a new relish, careless to inquire
My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please,
Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art.
The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness,
Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained,
The one thing finished in this hasty world,
Forever finished, though the barbarous pit,
Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout
As if a miracle could be encored.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

The Cathedral, st. 9

Pleasure , World , Perfection

“My activism is a part of me. If my art has anything to do with me, then my activism is part of my art.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

“Ai Weiwei’s Year of Living Dangerously.” Art in America, September 2009, 28.
2000-09, 2009

Parting

“In speaking of agricultural management, the French say, I'economie rurale, and the English, rural economy; and yet neither the one nor the other intend thereby to signify the absolute execution of agricultural operations, but only the division and circumstances or appurtenances of agriculture. In Germany, where a Latin or Greek name has lately been thought to give dignity to a science, and has, consequently, been introduced into the title of most of the scientific works, some authors have begun to term, not only the science of agriculture, but agriculture itself, the oekonomie; and the word is used exclusively in this sense by many persons. It is for this reason that those who are supposed to practise the art with the greatest skill and science, are termed oekonomen (economists); and that some of those who are employed in superintending the labourers, even though they frequently have not the least idea of the actual principles of agriculture, chose to be designated by this title.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

Source: The Principles of Agriculture, 1844, Section II. The Economy, Organization and Direction of an Agricultural Enterprise, p. 55.

Idea , Sense , Science , Personality

“De arte characteristica ad perficiendas scientias ratione nitentes in C. I. Gerhardt (ed.), Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (7 vols. 1875–1890) VII 125.”
quando orientur controversiae, non magis disputatione opus erit inter duos philosophus, quam inter duos computistas. Sufficiet enim calamos in manus sumere sedereque ad abacos, et sibi mutuo (accito si placet amico) dicere: calculemus

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

"[...] if controversies were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two calculators. For it would suffice for them to take their pencils in their hands and to sit down at the abacus, and say to each other (and if they so wish also to a friend called to help): Let us calculate."
The famous calculemus of Leibniz appears in several places of his writing; this is the most frequently quoted; variants are found in the Preface to his New Essays on Human Understanding, and in Dissertatio de Arte Combinatoria (1666). See R. Chrisley, Artificial Intelligence (2000), p. 14 https://books.google.ch/books?id=dLQ3bDy2tgYC&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false; H. Busche, Leibniz' Weg ins perspektivische Universum (1997), p. 134 https://books.google.ch/books?id=xAI4Wtp0GBoC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134.

“A fairly clear line separated advertisement from art. … The first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we allow him to triumph) will be that that line of demarcation will entirely disappear. There will be no art that might not just as well be advertisement.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Source: Utopia of Usurers (1917), p. 6

“Art is man’s metaphysical mirror; what a rational man seeks to see in that mirror is a salute; what an irrational man seeks to see is a justification – even if only a justification of his depravity, as a last convulsion of his betrayed self-esteem.”

Ayn Rand book The Romantic Manifesto

Source: The Romantic Manifesto (1969), Chapter 3 ("Art and Sense of Life")

“What is this creature, Music, save the Art,
The Rhythm that the planets journey by?
The living Sun-Ray entering the heart,
Touching the Life with that which cannot die?”

John Masefield (1878–1967) English poet and writer

" Where does the uttered Music go? http://www.williamwalton.net/works/choral/where_does_the_uttered_music_go.html" (1946)

Life , Music , Sun , Heart

“The reverse process is extremely important to me — that artistic images can inspire to words and different myths, and that in certain cultures this process has been the normal relation between images and words. It is known as a rule in the so-called Germanic art, and through the middle ages heaps of such stories are directly inspired by fantastic images.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Quote in Jorn's letter to anthropologist Francis Huxley (1970) - on the relation between words and images
1959 - 1973, Various sources

Age

“In Abstract Expressionism the paintings symbolize the idea of ground-directedness as opposed to object-directedness. You put something down, react to it, put something else down, and the painting itself becomes a symbol of this. The difference is that rather than symbolize this ground-directedness I do an object-directed appearing thing. There is humor here. The work is still ground-directed; the fact that it's an eyebrow or an almost direct copy of something is unimportant. The ground-directedness is in the painter's mind and not immediately in apparent in the painting. Pop Art makes the statement that ground-directedness is not a quality that the painting has because of what it looks like…”

Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) American pop artist

Source: 1960's, What is Pop Art? Interviews with eight painters' (1963), pp. 25-27

Idea , Appearance , Painting

“Art is like a fart for the soul. Better out than in.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

on the topic of public art, quoted at franceinlondon.com (September 2004).

Soul

“They [the younger woman artists in American Abstract Expressionism: Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell, ] are the next generation and it is another scene, another story. You forget that in my generation Paris was still the leading school of painting and this situation was being changed by a tiny handful of artists to a scene called New York, America, which never before had a leading role in the art world. That didn’t happen just by reading a newspaper. Now the next generation comes in and they may think it is rough for them but it is a pie... We broke the ground.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 80.

World , School , Thinking , Change

“Art is no longer a purely visual experience.... it is a work of our intellect triggered by nature.... the imagination again become the queen of our strengths and we liberate our sensitivity.”

Maurice Denis (1870–1943) French painter

Nouvelles théories sur l'art moderne..., 1922

Imagination , Nature

“When the creative imagination sees new dreams rising above from imitation and maneuvers its works in its own manner, there Art springs.”

Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) Nepali poet

कला र जीवन (Art and Life)
Art and Life

Dreams , Imagination , Spring

“My drawings for the art exhibition don't get finished and time is running out. 15 or 16 Dec. I believe. Of course they show soldiers once again and of course the people say that it looks like Neuville, although that man doesn't see any color.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Mijn teekeningen voor de kunstbeschouwing willen maar niet klaar komen en de tijd dringt. De 15 of 16 Dec. geloof ik. 't Zijn natuurlijk weer soldaten en natuurlijk zeggen de lui weer dat 't op Neuville lijkt. hoewel die man geen spat kleur ziet.
quote of Breitner in a letter to his Maecenas A.P. van Stolk, 8 Dec. 1881; original text in RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/594
before 1890

People , Color , Time , Drawing

“SHELLEY JACKSON: You began as a writer, moved to performance art, then architecture. I’d like to follow the traces of writing through your career, and see whether your late work could be rethought as a radically materialist practice of writing. What made you want to write?
VITO ACCONCI: I wanted to be involved with the making of some kind of parallel world. I thought, there’s no reason to go to different parts of our world, because you can write them. You can stay home, stay in a little room, and imagine all these worlds. And I wanted to do that. Why did I want to do that, I’m not sure if I can tell.”

Vito Acconci (1940–2017) Designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist

Shelley Jackson talks with Vito Acconci http://www.believermag.com/issues/200612/?read=interview_acconci, in: The Believer, Nr. 12. 2006.

World , Home , Imagination , Parting

“How few people, even among the supposedly well educated, can give an intelligent explanation of the qualities of a design! …the essential ones …are necessary in order that the design may be worthy to be classed at all as a work of art. Among the essential qualities are reason, unity, harmony, clarity, and variety. Among the desirable qualities are imagination, interest, refinement, simplicity, dignity, and style.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

People , Education , Imagination , Intelligence

“Creativity is not limited to people practising one of the traditional forms of art, and even in the case of artists, creativity is not confined to the exercise of their art. Each one of us has a creative potential, which is hidden by competitiveness and success-aggression. To recognize, explore and develop this potential is the task of the School. Creation – whether it be a painting, sculpture, symphony or novel – involves not merely talent, intuition, powers of imagination and application, but also the ability to shape material that could be expanded to other socially relevant spheres.”

Heinrich Böll (1917–1985) German author, novelist, and short story writer

Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll (1972), cited in: Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys, exh.cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979. p. 278.

People , School , Exercises , Imagination

“id is both a technology and an art company, so we try to push the art and the technology to its edge on each game, and when you're into high-tech you want to make sure your game can run on several platforms, and you have some room to experiment with several architectures. We don't want to have a basic product, get it out the door, sell as many copies as we can, and then just do the next one. Everyone's putting a lot of soul into the games, and id has got enough money overhead to decide that they can afford to have game ports to show that technology is good on Linux and on Apple hardware.”

Timothee Besset French software programmer

Quoted in Dustin Reyes, "Interview with id Software's Timothee Besset" http://web.archive.org/web/20040924113843/http://www.linuxgames.com/?dataloc=articles/ttimo/ LinuxGames (2004-08-22).

Money , Soul , Game

“Every act is political and, whether one is conscious of it or not, the presentation of one's work is no exception. Any production, any work of art is social, has a political significance. We are obliged to pass over the sociological aspect of the proposition before us due to lack of space and consideration of priority among the questions to be analysed.”

Daniel Buren (1938) sculptor from France

" Beware!" ("Mise en garde!") http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/buren1.pdf, in Konzeption/Conception, translated by Charles Harrison and Peter Townsend (Leverkusen: Stadtischer Museum, 1969.
1960s

Question

“Creativity is not limited to people practising one of the traditional forms of art, and even in the case of artists, creativity is not confined to the exercise of their art. Each one of us has a creative potential, which is hidden by competitiveness and success-aggression. To recognize, explore and develop this potential is the task of the School. Creation – whether it be a painting, sculpture, symphony or novel – involves not merely talent, intuition, powers of imagination and application, but also the ability to shape material that could be expanded to other socially relevant spheres.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Quote of Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll (1972), as cited in Joseph Beuys, exh. cat., Caroline Tisdall, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979. p. 278
1970's

People , School , Exercises , Imagination

“Great literature, past or present, is the expression of great knowledge of the human heart; great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within…”

Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) American teacher and writer

Source: The Greek Way (1930), Ch. 1

World , Literature , Knowledge , Past

“You know the funny thing about child pornography: […] the lack of credits at the end. No ego on that side of Hollywood, is there? “Who did the editing on this film, it's seamless! I want to use him on my independent documentary”— but no names. Not even a nom de plume. Some people are in it just for the art.”

Doug Stanhope (1967) American stand-up comedian, actor, and author

From Across The Street (2009)

People

“Transforms old print
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 363.

Cheating

“The aim of art is to get us to dream, just like music, for it expresses a mood projected onto the canvas, which arouses identical sensations in the viewer.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

two short quotes of Picabia, in 'A Paris painter', by Hapgood, published in 'The Globe and Commercial Advertiser', 20 Febr. 1913, p. 8
1910's

Dreams , Music , Mood

“A culture is no better than its woods,” Auden writes. Fortunately for him, a book of poetry can be better than its poems. Two-thirds of The Shield of Achilles is non-Euclidean needlepoint, a man sitting on a chaise longue juggling four cups, four saucers, four sugar lumps, and the round-square: this is what great and good poets do when they don’t even bother to write great and good poems, now that they’ve learned that—it’s Auden’s leitmotif, these days—art is essentially frivolous. But a little of the time Auden is essentially serious, and the rest of the time he’s so witty, intelligent, and individual, so angelically skillful, that one reads with despairing enthusiasm, and enjoys Auden’s most complacently self-indulgent idiosyncrasy almost as one enjoys Sherlock Holmes’s writing Victoria Rex on the wall in bullet holes.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Books , Angels , Intelligence , Learning

“Art is something given, not reproduced… the painter paints what he sees with his innermost senses, the expression of his being.. every other impression becomes, for him, an inner expression.”

Herwarth Walden (1878–1941) German artist

Erster Deutscher Herbstsalaon (1913)

Sense , Painting

“Here we have been hearing terrible rumours about torture of the Jews [by the Nazis], but it's all surely untrue. I'm a little tired and sad about the situation up there. There is a war in the air. In the museums, the hard-won cultural achievements of the last 20 years are being destroyed, and yet the reason why founded the Brücke was to encourage truly German art, made in Germany. And now it is supposed to be un-German [Degenerated Art / Entartete Kunst]. Dear God. It does upset me.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

Letter to Karl Hagemann, May 1933; as quoted in the biography-pdf http://www.kirchnermuseum.ch/data/media/downloads/Biography.pdf of the Kirchner museum, Davos
1930's

God , War , Sadness