Quotes about art
page 39

Michel Seuphor photo
André Maurois photo
Lewis Mumford photo
Berthe Morisot photo
John Cheever photo

“Art is the triumph over chaos.”

John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

The Stories of John Cheever Knopf (1978).

Jacoba van Heemskerck photo

“This evening the Anthroposophical Society invited me to give a lecture about modern art, on 13 March. They start to wake up here [in the Netherlands]… Please, tell me something, what I should emphasize, what you find most important. I shall also read something from 'The Spiritual in Art' by Kandinsky… But we still have other views on the whole, isn't it. I don't always agree with Kandinsky, and often more with your views. So please write a little much… You know, for me it is always easier to paint my principles.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from German, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(original version, written by Jacoba in German:) Heute abend bin ich durch den Anthroposophischen Verein eingeladen (worden) am 13. März einen Vortrag über moderne Kunst zu halten. Man fängt hier an zu erwachen.. .Bitte, sage mir einiges, was ich speziell betonen soll, was Du am wichtigsten findest. Ich werde dann auch aus 'Das Geistige in der Kunst' von Kandinsky.. ..etwas vorlesen. Aber wir haben doch in Ganzen noch andere Ansichten. Ich stimme nicht immer met Kandinsky überein, und oft mehr mit Deinen Ansichten. Also bitte schreibe ein bisschen viel.. .Du weisst, ich finde es immer einfacher, meine Prinzipien zu malen.
in a letter to Herwarth Walden, 28 Feb. 1916; from the 'Sturm'-Archive, Berlin
1910's

Eugène Fromentin photo

“Interpreting the Orient through the arts would destroy it, the artistic exploitation might eventually prove as harmful as military or political adventurism.”

Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) French painter

Quote from Three Nineteenth-Century French Writer/Artists & the Maghreb; Günther Narr, Verlag Tübingen, 1994, p. 51

Robert Rauschenberg photo
Franz Marc photo
George Henry Lewes photo
Otto von Bismarck photo

“Politics is the art of the possible.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Franklin says this line in the HBO miniseries John Adams, but it is actually a quote of Otto von Bismarck.

(de) Die Politik ist die Lehre vom Möglichen. Interview (11 August 1867) with Friedrich Meyer von Waldeck of the St. Petersburgische Zeitung: Aus den Erinnerungen eines russischen Publicisten. 2. Ein Stündchen beim Kanzler des norddeutschen Bundes.

In: Die Gartenlaube (1876) p. 858 de.wikisource. Reprinted in Fürst Bismarck: neue Tischgespräche und Interviews, Vol. 1, p. 248 http://books.google.com/books?id=UpUBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA248&dq=%22die+Politik+ist+die+Lehre+vom+Möglichen%22
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Otto von Bismarck / Quotes / 1860s
Misattributed

Walter Winchell photo

“Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.”

Walter Winchell (1897–1972) American gossip journalist

Attributed

Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet photo
Eugène Delacroix photo
Jackson Pollock photo
Sviatoslav Richter photo
Joyce Kilmer photo
Marc Chagall photo
Democritus photo

“In the weightiest matters we must go to school to the animals, and learn spinning and weaving from the spider, building from the swallow, singing from the birds,—from the swan and the nightingale, imitating their art.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Nadine Gordimer photo
Hermann Hesse photo

“The world of art was less fortunate. Many of the younger men barely lived through the first flush of youth. Destroying Death is the worst enemy to the arts.”

Wynford Dewhurst (1864–1941) British artist

Source: Impressionist Painting: its genesis and development. (1904), p. 1.

Thomas Carlyle photo

“The Working Man as yet sought only to know his craft; and educated himself sufficiently by ploughing and hammering, under the conditions given, and in fit relation to the persons given: a course of education, then as now and ever, really opulent in manful culture and instruction to him; teaching him many solid virtues, and most indubitably useful knowledges; developing in him valuable faculties not a few both to do and to endure,—among which the faculty of elaborate grammatical utterance, seeing he had so little of extraordinary to utter, or to learn from spoken or written utterances, was not bargained for; the grammar of Nature, which he learned from his mother, being still amply sufficient for him. This was, as it still is, the grand education of the Working Man. As for the Priest, though his trade was clearly of a reading and speaking nature, he knew also in those veracious times that grammar, if needful, was by no means the one thing needful, or the chief thing. By far the chief thing needful, and indeed the one thing then as now, was, That there should be in him the feeling and the practice of reverence to God and to men; that in his life's core there should dwell, spoken or silent, a ray of pious wisdom fit for illuminating dark human destinies;—not so much that he should possess the art of speech, as that he should have something to speak!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

Franz Marc photo
Alexander Calder photo
Ellen Terry photo

“Tall, slender, with beautiful flaxen hair, grey eyes, full red lips, finely framed features, graceful of carriage and movement, fresh and always young, Ellen Terry was as much an art object as an actress.”

Ellen Terry (1847–1928) English actress

Katharine Cockin, quoted in Spartacus biography http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ACterry.htm
About

Henri Matisse photo
Charles Stross photo
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner photo

“.. art is made by man. His own figure is the center of all art... Therefore one must begin with the man himself.”

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

c. 1910; as quoted in: Der Blick auf Fränzi und Marcella: Zwei Modelle der Brücke-Künstler Heckel, Kirchner und Pechstein, Norbert Nobis; Sprengel Museum Hannover und Stiftung Moritzburg, 2011, p 17
1905 - 1915

Michael Polanyi photo
Auguste Rodin photo

“Were this thoroughly understood, industrial art would be entirely revolutionized — industrial art, that barbarous term, an art which concerns itself with commerce and profit.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Rodin : the man and his art, with leaves from his notebook, 1917, p. 125

Willoughby Sharp photo
Daniel Webster photo
Ferruccio Busoni photo

“Music is the art of sounds in the movement of time.”

Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and piano teacher

The Essence of Music (1923)

Paul Klee photo
Joseph Stella photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Art always opts for the individual, the concrete; art is not Platonic.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"Gauchesque Poetry" ["La poesía gauchesca"]
Discussion (1932)

Jean Metzinger photo
Max Pechstein photo

“We [the artists of Die Brücke ] were overjoyed to discover our complete unison in the urge for liberation, for an art surging forward, unrestricted by convention.”

Max Pechstein (1881–1955) German artist

from a note of Pechstein; as quoted in Expressionism, a German Intuition, 1905-1920, [exhibition-catalogue 1980-81]; Paul Vogt, Horts Keller, Martin Urban, Wolf-Dieter Dube, and Eberhard Roters; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1980, p. 5

Jean Tinguely photo

“The relationship of art and play: to play is art - consequently I play. I play enraged.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

Jean Tinguely (1959), quoted in: ACM multimedia 2000: proceedings. ACM. Special Interest Group on Multimedia (2000). p. 19.
Quotes, 1950's

Ai Weiwei photo

“Contemporary art and the [Communist] Party are an impossible situation. It’s like oil and water—they can never mix.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Truth to Power, 2008

James Jeffrey Roche photo

“All loved Art in a seemly way
With an earnest soul and a capital A.”

James Jeffrey Roche (1847–1908) American journalist

The V-a-s-e, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“The computer's most profound aesthetic implication is that we are being forced to dismiss the classical view of art and reality which insists that man stand outside of reality in order to observe it, and, in art, requires the presence of the picture frame and the sculpture pedestal. The notion that art can be separated from its everyday environment is a cultural fixation [in other words, a mythic structure] as is the ideal of objectivity in science. It may be that the computer will negate the need for such an illusion by fusing both observer and observed, "inside" and "outside."”

Jack Burnham (1931) American art historian

It has already been observed that the everyday world is rapidly assuming identity with the condition of art.
Jack Burnham (1969). "The Aesthetics of Intelligent Systems" in Edward F. Fry, ed. (1970). On the Future of Art. New York: The Viking Press, p. 103; as cited in: Edward A. Shanken. "The House That Jack Built: Jack Burnham's Concept of 'Software' as a Metaphor for Art" http://www.artexetra.com/House.html in Leonardo Electronic Almanac 6:10 (November, 1998)

Fali Sam Nariman photo
Stella Gibbons photo
Kamal Haasan photo
Germaine Greer photo
William Wordsworth photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“To further the appreciation of culture among all the people, to increase respect for the creative individual, to widen participation by all the processes and fulfillments of art — this is one of the fascinating challenges of these days.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"The Arts in America" in LOOK magazine (18 December 1962), p. 110; also reported in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962 http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx, p. 907 and inscribed on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.
1962

Edward Bouverie Pusey photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Hans Haacke photo

“The art world as a whole, and museums in particular, belong to what has aptly been called the "consciousness industry."”

Hans Haacke (1936) conceptual political artist

1980s, "Museums, Managers of Consciousness," 1983

Emil Nolde photo

“Every true artist creates new values, new beauty... When you notice anarchy, recklessness, or licentiousness in works of contemporary art, when you notice crass coarseness and brutality, then occupy yourself long and painstakingly precisely with these works, and you will suddenly recognize how the seeming recklessness transforms itself into freedom, the coarseness into high refinements. Harmless pictures are seldom worth anything.”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

Quote of Nolde's letter to Hans Fehr, 1905; published in 'Aus Leben und Werkstatt Emil Noldes', 'Das Kunstblatt' no. 7 (1919), p. 208; as cited in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 40
Hans Fehr expressed in a letter to Nolde his concern about the 'recklessness' and 'licentiousness' of some prints by Nolde. Fehr published Nolde's response in 1919
1900 - 1920

Ben Croshaw photo

“Evoking fear is, in itself, an art form – and nothing in the entire history of storytelling has explored it better than video games.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

http://web.archive.org/web/20081015182445/http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,24493980-5014239,00.html
Other Articles

Bill Clinton photo

“Someone should tell him that part of the art of politics is smiling when you feel like you’re swallowing a turd.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

To Alastair Campbell on David Trimble according to Campbell's diaries, The Blair Years (2007) http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XAUVWij78oQC&pg=PA320&lpg=PA320&dq=%22Someone+should+tell+him+that+part+of+the+art+of+politics+is+smiling+when+you+feel+like+you%E2%80%99re+swallowing+a+turd%22&source=bl&ots=NeSrq9ZCGr&sig=hXsgQneQqkODxOnpvNE1yWfmPto&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DSWBUriUFI6jhgfd9YDYCQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Someone%20should%20tell%20him%20that%20part%20of%20the%20art%20of%20politics%20is%20smiling%20when%20you%20feel%20like%20you%E2%80%99re%20swallowing%20a%20turd%22&f=false
Attributed

Edward Steichen photo

“Today, I am no longer concerned with photography as an art form. I believe it is potentially the best medium for explaining man to himself and his fellow man.”

Edward Steichen (1879–1973) American photographer, artist and curator

Edward Steichen (1967),, cited in: National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution), ‎Carolyn Kinder Carr, ‎National Portrait Gallery (Great Britain) (2003). Americans: paintings and photographs from the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, Deel 3. p. 207

Anna Sui photo

“I love history. I love art. I like to mix it all together, but in the end it somehow has to all make sense.”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

Interview Magazine (December 15, 2010)

Jackson Pollock photo
W. S. Gilbert photo

“Art stopped short at the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine.”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Patience (1881)

Richard Stallman photo
Donald J. Trump photo
James Shirley photo
Marcel Duchamp photo
Aga Khan III photo

“There is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism to which every sincere and believing Mahomedan belongs--that is, the theory of the spiritual brotherhood and unity of the children of the Prophet. It is a deep, perennial element in that Perso-Arabian culture, that great family of civilisation to which we gave the name Islamic in the first chapter. It connotes charity and goodwill towards fellow-believers everywhere…It means an abiding interest in the literature of Islam, in her beautiful arts, in her lovely architecture, in her entrancing poetry. It also means a true reformation -- a return to the early and pure simplicity of the faith, to its preaching by persuasion and argument, to the manifestation of a spiritual power in individual lives, to beneficent activity for mankind. This natural and worthy spiritual movement makes not only the Master and His teaching but also His children of all climes an object of affection to the Turk or the Afghan, to the Indian or the Egyptian. A famine or a desolating fire in the Moslem quarters of Kashgar or Sarajevo would immediately draw the sympathy and material assistance of the Mahomedan of Delhi or Cairo. The real spiritual and cultural unity of Islam must ever grow, for to the follower of the Prophet it is the foundation of the life of the soul.”

Aga Khan III (1877–1957) 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community

p. 156; a variant of this begins "This is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism…", but is otherwise identical.
/ India in Transition (1918)

Géza Révész photo
Dorothy Parker photo

“In short, there is everything about this season’s entertainment to make the Hippodrome what it always is—a Temple of the Arts to all those who hang pennants on their automobiles, use “Shake hands with my friend” as a formula for introduction, and sprinkle powdered sugar on their sliced tomatoes. p. 106”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 2: 1919

Sarah Chang photo
William Carlos Williams photo
Piet Mondrian photo

“You must have heard that last autumn I almost got married, but I am glad I realized in time that it had been an illusion, all those beautiful things. Although I have always lived for art, I am also attracted to the beautiful in life and so I sometimes do things that seem strange for me.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in an undated letter to Alleta de Jongh, Paris, c. Spring 1912; as cited in Mondrian, - The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 243, note 61
1910's

Margot Fonteyn photo

“Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”

Margot Fonteyn (1919–1991) English ballerina

Source: Margot Fonteyn : Autobiography‎ (1975), p. 81

Joseph Dietzgen photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge photo
Charles Darwin photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Edward Hirsch photo
André Maurois photo
William Harvey photo

“As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known.”

William Harvey (1578–1657) English physician

Introduction.
De Generatione Animalium (1651)

Susan Sontag photo
Michael Moorcock photo
Alexej von Jawlensky photo
Paul Klee photo
Mark Tobey photo
Stella Vine photo