Quotes about art (5831 quotes, page 55)

“So, too, in the Vedanta the whole world is seen as the lila and the maya of the Self, the first word meaning "play" and the second having the complex sense of illusion (from the Latin ludere, to play), magic, creative power, art, and measuring—as when one dances or draws a design to a certain measure. From this point of view the universe in general and playing in particular are, in a special sense, "meaningless": that is, they do not—like words and symbols—signify or point to something beyond themselves, just as a Mozart sonata conveys no moral or social message and does not try to suggest the natural sounds of wind, thunder, or birdsong.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 94

World , Nature , Sense , Universe

“The great thing about art on any level is that it can speak to all people if it’s achieved properly.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

As quoted in "In conversation with Kate Bush" by Elio Iannacci in MacLeans (28 November 2016)
Context: The great thing about art on any level is that it can speak to all people if it’s achieved properly. When I’ve heard a piece of music or seen a painting that moves me, it gives me something. That’s such an incredibly special experience. I have intentions as a writer, but people — when they’re listening to a track — will take from it what they interpret. Sometimes people mishear my lyrics and think a song’s about something it isn’t. That doesn’t matter. If it speaks to them and they get something positive from it, it’s great.

People

“There is no discredit, though there is at times much discomfort, in this everlasting perhaps with which we have to preface so much connected with the practice of our art. It is, as I said, inherent in the subject.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

On the Educational Value of the Medical Society (1903)
Context: Surrounded by people who demand certainty, — and not philosopher enough to agree with Locke that "Probability supplies the defect of our knowledge and guides us when that fails, and is always conversant about things of which we have no certainty," the practitioner too often gets into a habit of mind which resents the thought that opinion, not full knowledge, must be his stay and prop. There is no discredit, though there is at times much discomfort, in this everlasting perhaps with which we have to preface so much connected with the practice of our art. It is, as I said, inherent in the subject.

Time

“In science and in art and in self-knowledge we explore and move constantly by turning to the world of sense to ask, Is this so?”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

Part 2: "The Habit of Truth", §11 (p. 45–46)
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)
Context: In effect what Luther said in 1517 was that we may appeal to a demonstrable work of God, the Bible, to override any established authority. The Scientific Revolution begins when Nicolaus Copernicus implied the bolder proposition that there is another work of God to which we may appeal even beyond this: the great work of nature. No absolute statement is allowed to be out of reach of the test, that its consequence must conform to the facts of nature.
The habit of testing and correcting the concept by its consequences in experience has been the spring within the movement of our civilization ever since. In science and in art and in self-knowledge we explore and move constantly by turning to the world of sense to ask, Is this so? This is the habit of truth, always minute yet always urgent, which for four hundred years has entered every action of ours; and has made our society and the value it sets on man.

World , Knowledge , Sense , Science

“Facts are but the Play-things of lawyers, — Tops and Hoops, forever a-spin… Alas the Historian may indulge no such idle Rotating. History is not Chronology, for that is left to lawyers, — nor is it Remembrance, for Remembrance belongs to the People. History can as little pretend to the Veracity of the one, as claim the Power of the other, — her Practitioners, to survive, must soon learn the arts of the quidnunc, spy, and Taproom Wit, — that there may ever continue more than one life-line back into a Past we risk, each day, losing our forebears in forever, — not a Chain of single Links, for one broken Link could lose us All, — rather, a great disorderly Tangle of Lines, long and short, weak and strong, vanishing into the Mnemonick Deep, with only their Destination in Common.”

Thomas Pynchon Mason & Dixon

The Rev<sup>d</sup> Wicks Cherrycoke, Christ and History
Source: Mason & Dixon (1997), Ch. 35

Life , People , History , Strong

“Let us then enunciate the functions of a state and we shall easily elicit what we want: First there must be food; secondly, arts, for life requires many instruments; thirdly, there must be arms, for the members of a community have need of them, and in their own hands, too, in order to maintain authority both against disobedient subjects and against external assailants….”

Aristotle book Politics

Book VII, 1328b.4
Politics

Life , Food , Communication

“The most perfectly constructed object in nature, and also the most beautiful object in nature, is the human form as it approaches perfection. This, then, is the criterion of construction as it is of design. The study of its beauties is the veritable key to art…”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

Beauty , Nature , Study , Perfection

“When I see Barcelona, to me it is art.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

Joint Interview with The Times and Daily Mail (2009)
Context: At the end of the day, I ask you: who is the most successful team in the world? Brazil. What do they play? Good football. Who won everything last year? Barcelona. What do they play? Lovely football. I am not against being pragmatic because to be pragmatic is to make a good pass, not a bad pass. It is as simple as that. When I see Barcelona, to me it is art.

“I think that's OK, I mean, that's always been okay right? — You share things with people and I think information, and art, and ideas should be shared.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

After being asked what he thought about his films being pirated on the internet, in a press conference (July 2004) (YouTube video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlAB0v8wHdc, quoted in
2004
Context: I don't agree with the copyright laws, and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people… as long as they're not doing it to make a profit off it as long as they're not, you know trying to make a profit off my labor — I would oppose that but you know I do quite well, and I don't know... I make these books and movies and TV shows because I want things to change, and so the more people who get to see them, the better. And so I'm…I'm happy I'm happy if that happens. Should I not be happy? I don't know, It's like if a friend of yours had the DVD of my movie — gave it to you to watch one night is that person doing something wrong? I'm not seeing any money from that, but he's just handing the DVD to you so that you can watch my movie, that he bought, and you're not buying it — and yet you're watching it without paying me any money you see, I think that's OK, I mean, that's always been okay right? — You share things with people and I think information, and art, and ideas should be shared.

People , Idea , Thinking

“The great Christian art did not die because all possible forms had been used up; it died because faith was being transformed into piety.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

André Malraux, Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951) Part IV, Chapter VI
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)
Context: The great Christian art did not die because all possible forms had been used up; it died because faith was being transformed into piety. Now, the same conquest of the outside world that brought in our modern individualism, so different from that of the Renaissance, is by way of relativizing the individual. It is plain to see that man's faculty of transformation, which began by a remaking of the natural world, has ended by calling man himself into question.

Faith

“Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life — perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy — if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation.
1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)

Life , Beauty , Learning

“I invented something called The Oxford Muse. The Muses were women in mythology. They did not teach or require to be worshipped, but they were a source of inspiration. They taught you how to cultivate your emotions through the different arts in order to reach a higher plane.”

Theodore Zeldin (1933) English academic

About The Oxford Muse http://www.oxfordmuse.com/index.htm Foundation in an article at The Gurteen Knowledge Website http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/241B42CCD52603DF802569D40049FA6D/
Context: I invented something called The Oxford Muse. The Muses were women in mythology. They did not teach or require to be worshipped, but they were a source of inspiration. They taught you how to cultivate your emotions through the different arts in order to reach a higher plane. What is lacking now, I believe, is somewhere you can get that stimulation not information, but stimulation where you can meet just that person, or find just that situation, which will give you the idea of invention, of carrying out some project which interests you, and show how it can become a project of interest to other people.

Women

“Regardless of nationality, all men are brothers. God is "our Father who art in heaven." The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is unconditional and inexorable.”

Ben Salmon (1889–1932) American activist

Letter To President Wilson http://archive.org/details/LetterToWilson1917 (June 5, 1917) by Ben Salmon
Context: Regardless of nationality, all men are brothers. God is "our Father who art in heaven." The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is unconditional and inexorable. … The lowly Nazarene taught us the doctrine of non-resistance, and so convinced was he of the soundness of that doctrine that he sealed his belief with death on the cross. … When human law conflicts with Divine law, my duty is clear. Conscience, my infallible guide, impels me to tell you that prison, death, or both, are infinitely preferable to joining any branch of the Army.

Men , God

“The successes obtained in the government of the arts, are similar to the successes obtained in the government of men.”

Charles Dupin (1784–1873) French mathematician

Source: The Commercial Power of Great Britain, 1925, p. xxxi ; Highlighted section cited in: Joel Mokyr. The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850. 2011. p. 237
Context: The successes obtained in the government of the arts, are similar to the successes obtained in the government of men. We may succeed for a time, by fraud, by surprise, by violence: we can succeed permanently only by means directly opposite. It is not alone the courage, the intelligence, the activity of the manufacturer and the merchant which maintain the superiority of the productions and the commerce of their country; it is far more their wisdom, their economy, above all their probity.

Men , Success

“Politics sometimes sells itself as having an ethical dimension, as if there was good politics and bad politics. As far as I understand it, the word actually has the same root as the word polite. It is the art of conveying information in a politic way, in a way that will be discrete and diplomatic and will offend the least people.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Alan Moore on Anarchism (2009)
Context: As to how politics relate to the storytelling process, I’d say that it’s probably in the same way that politics relate to everything. I mean, as the old feminist maxim used to go, “the personal is the political.” We don’t really live in an existence where the different aspects of our society are compartmentalized in the way that they are in bookshops. In a bookshop, you’ll have a section that is about history, that is about politics, that is about the contemporary living, or the environment, or modern thinking, modern attitudes. All of these things are political. All of these things are not compartmentalized; they’re all mixed up together. And I think that inevitably there is going to be a political element in everything that we do or don’t do. In everything we believe, or do not believe.
I mean, in terms of politics I think that it’s important to remember what the word actually means. Politics sometimes sells itself as having an ethical dimension, as if there was good politics and bad politics. As far as I understand it, the word actually has the same root as the word polite. It is the art of conveying information in a politic way, in a way that will be discrete and diplomatic and will offend the least people. And basically we’re talking about spin. Rather than being purely a late 20th, early 21st century term, it’s obvious that politics have always been nothing but spin. But, that said, it is the system which is interwoven with our everyday lives, so every aspect our lives is bound to have a political element, including writing fiction.

People , Way , Understanding

“Great works of literature have frequently been produced by authors writing under assumed names. Despite readers' curiosity and the public's interest in identifying the creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry.”

John Paul Stevens (1920–2019) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (Majority opinion, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

Fear , Motivation , Idea , Decision

“The art of Salvador Dalí, an extreme metaphor at a time when only the extreme will do, constitutes a body of prophecy about ourselves unequaled in accuracy since Freud's "Civilization And Its Discontents".”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

"Introduction" to Diary of a Genius (1974) by Salvador Dalí
Context: The uneasy marriage of reason and nightmare which has dominated the 20th century has given birth to an increasingly surreal world. More and more, we see that the events of our own times make sense in terms of surrealism rather than any other view — whether the grim facts of the death-camps, Hiroshima and Viet Nam, or our far more ambiguous unease at organ transplant surgery and the extra-uterine foetus, the confusions of the media landscape with its emphasis on the glossy, lurid and bizarre, its hunger for the irrational and sensational. The art of Salvador Dalí, an extreme metaphor at a time when only the extreme will do, constitutes a body of prophecy about ourselves unequaled in accuracy since Freud's "Civilization And Its Discontents". Voyeurism, self-disgust, the infantile basis of our fears and longings, and our need to pursue our own psychopathologies as a game — these diseases of the psyche Dali has diagnosed with dismaying accuracy. His paintings not only anticipate the psychic crisis which produced our glaucous paradise, but document the uncertain pleasures of living within it. The great twin leitmotifs of the 20th century — sex and paranoia — preside over his life, as over ours.

Time

“Everything made is made either by art or by a physical process or according to some power.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

XIII. How things eternal are said to be made.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: Everything made is made either by art or by a physical process or according to some power. Now in art or nature the maker must needs be prior to the made: but the maker, according to power, constitutes the made absolutely together with itself, since its power is inseparable from it; as the sun makes light, fire makes heat, snow makes cold.
Now if the Gods make the world by art, they do not make it be, they make it be such as it is. For all art makes the form of the object. What therefore makes it to be?

“The regime's response to [U. N. ] Security Council Resolution 1696 was predictable, as it was simply a variation of double talk-a tactic they have now mastered to an art form. What does the regime's offer to "seriously talk" really mean? Will it seriously discuss its violations of human rights at home? Will it seriously discuss its patronage of regional militancy? I think not. [This] is a race against time. Will it get the bomb first, thereby bullying the world into appeasement, or will there be an actual convergence of domestic and international pressures [on the regime]?”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Rachel Makabi, 'A Race Against Time' http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=34&page=5, Newsweek International, Sept 4, 2006.
Interviews, 2006

World , Home , Thinking , Time

“The whole art of war consists in getting at what is on the other side of the hill.”

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman

War

“Art cannot be criticized because every mistake is a new creation. ”

Тьерри Гетта (1966) Paris-born, Los Angeles-based filmmaker and street artist

“And thou art distant in humanity. ”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Distant

“Since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. ”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

“Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy until you can find a rock. ”

Fletcher Knebel (1911–1993) Novelist, journalist

“Ah, Tom, Tom, thou art a liquorish dog.”

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) English novelist and dramatist

Dogs

“A man and his art are like a fool and his king. ”

Корри Алюс

Fools

“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Love , Death , Feeling , Mountain

“Giovanni hadn't lied. Sagra was a Baroque wonder, an unlikely and disturbing collision between Nature and Arts.”

Julien Gracq (1910–2007) French writer

Nature

“Go where you are celebrated and not tolerated, this is the art of becoming your greatest version.”

Ralph Smart

“Politics: the art of convincing decent people to forget the lesser of two evils is also evil.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Twitter June 11, 2016 https://twitter.com/snowden/status/741584993009438720?lang=en

Forgetting , People , Evil

“The art of a diplomat is to conceal all turbulence behind his smile.”

Mohammad Javad Zarif (1960) Iranian politician

On his Facebook status on 24 November 2013. According to [Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Mohammad Javad Zarif: Iran's man on a diplomatic mission, The Guardian, 2013-11-25, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/25/mohammad-javad-zarif-iran-profile, harv, 2015-04-04]
On social media

Smile

“Ellen Stewart has been a very important figure in my life. She had so much to say about art and theater but most of all she showed me that love is the most powerful tool in life.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

In response to the question, "Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with?", from the interview "Rising Star Giovanni Morassutti: “Never take it personally; It is part of the business", ThriveGlobal (December 23, 2019) https://thriveglobal.com/stories/rising-star-giovanni-morassutti-never-take-it-personally-it-is-part-of-the-business/.

Love , Life , Making love

“Part of this book is an homage to the way my friends and I live: lives without children, without marriage, lives you rarely see depicted in popular art, unless as a punch line or a tragedy, lives not considered by many to be full, legitimate adulthood. And yet when I was growing up, my parents always had a diversity of friends, some of whom lived different kinds of lives themselves…And they had many friends who had chosen this other path of adulthood, who weren’t married, who didn’t have children, whose lives didn’t resemble their own. So this sort of life never seemed like anything less-than to me. The loneliness of living the life I do comes from the fact that so many people do think it’s a lesser existence, a purgatory of true adulthood.”

Hanya Yanagihara (1974) American novelist and travel writer

On depicting adulthood in A Little Life in “An Interview with Hanya Yanagihara” https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-hanya-yanagihara/ in Believer Magazine (2017 Nov 20)

Marriage , Adulthood , Children , Loneliness

“O thou A-dam, thu Esau, thou Cain, thou Hypocritical man of flesh, when wilt thou cease to kill thy younger Brother? Surely thou must not do this great work of advancing the Creation out of Bondage; for thou art lost extremely, and drowned in the Sea of Covetousnesse, Pride, and hardness of heart. The blessing shall rise out of the dust which thou treadest under foot, Even the poor despised People, and they shall hold up Salvation to this Land, and to all Lands, and thou shalt be ashamed.”

Gerrard Winstanley (1609–1676) English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist

The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649)

Sea , People , Heart

“I am no politician, and still less can I be said to be a party-man : I have a hatred of tyranny, and a contempt for its tools; and this feeling I have expressed as often and as strongly as I could. I cannot sit quietly down under the claims of barefaced power, and have tried to expose the little arts of sophistry by which they are defended. I have no mind to have my person made a property of, nor my understanding made a dupe of. I deny that liberty and slavery are convertible terms, that right and wrong, truth and falsehood, plenty and famine, the comforts or wretchedness of a people, are matters of perfect indifference. That is all I know of the matter; but on these points I am likely to remain incorrigible, in spite of any arguments that I have seen used to the contrary. It needs no sagacity to discover that two and two make four; but to persist in maintaining this obvious position, if all the fashion, authority, hypocrisy, and venality of mankind were arrayed against it, would require a considerable effort of personal courage, and would soon leave a man in a very formidable minority.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

" "Preface" http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Political/Preface.htm
Political Essays (1819)

Courage , Understanding , Indifference , Personality

“It is difficult to paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he became sole possessor of the empire. There were, however, a few short moments in the life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant; till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his character.In every art that he attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except the important ones of war and government. He was a master of several curious, but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince... There were, however, a few short moments in the life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant; till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his character.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

Vol. 1, Chap. 10.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

Painting , Light , War , Nature

“Definition and division are the watchwords of science, where art is all for composition and creation.”

Walter Raleigh (professor) (1861–1922) British academic

Style https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lK0VAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41 (1897), p. 41

Science

“Our aesthetic judgment demands harmony between the representation, and the represented and in this sense science is often more artistic than modern art.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Sense , Science

“It was a gift to have something else that I was passionate about, because at the end of the day, it comes down to the work and the art.”

Regina King (1971) actress

On her role as Sister Night in the television series Watchmen in “The King of Queens: How Regina King Became A Hollywood Legend” https://www.essence.com/feature/regina-king-december-cover-star-interview/ in Essence Magazine (2019 Nov 20)

Passion

“Gangs have always existed—they are primarily a community a young men trying to find intensity, meaning, a path to the outer world (outside of home) that most tribal groupings addressed with rituals, rites of passage, initiation ceremonies. We’ve lost this knowledge as a culture. Gangs also exist when there are lots of empties in a person, in family, in community. It points out how we need to do more to bring real art, passions, teachings, caring, and resources into the emptiness of young peoples’ lives…”

Luis J. Rodriguez (1954) pinto poetry, Chicanismo, and Chicano literature

On how gangs might be viewed in “An Interview with Luis J. Rodriguez” https://www.epl.org/an-interview-with-luis-j-rodriguez-2/ (Evanston Public Library; 2011)

Home , Family , Personality , People

“I am much more articulate and able to express myself more eloquently through my art…It is with this voice that I attempt to communicate, reach out and touch others.”

Malaquías Montoya (1938) American artist

On how he turns toward art to communicate on his behalf in “Giving a Voice to the Voiceless: Malaquias Montoya, Renowned Artist” https://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/2014/01/giving-a-voice-to-the-voiceless-malaquias-montoya-renowned-artist in The Bottom Line (2014 Jan 29)

Communication

“Realizing later that it was not by choice that we remained mute but by a conscious effort on the part of those in power, I realized that my art could only be that of protest—a protest against what I felt to be a death sentence.”

Malaquías Montoya (1938) American artist

On how he used artwork as a form of protest (as quoted in “’What better function for art at this time than as a voice for the voiceless’: The Work of Chicano Artist Malaquías Montoya” https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/17/%E2%80%9Cwhat-better-function-art-time-voice-voiceless%E2%80%9D-work-chicano-artist-malaqu%C3%ADas; 2019 Feb 15)

Effort , Death , Parting

“I think that there has been clearly expounded the mind of arithmeticians, who, by means of numbers and of names, suppose that they interpret life. Now I perceive that these, enjoying leisure, and being trained in calculation, have been desirous that, through the art delivered to them from childhood, they, acquiring celebrity, should be styled prophets.”

Hippolytus of Rome Refutation of all Heresies

Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Volume 6: Hippolytus, Bishop Of Rome, Volume 1 P. 86
Refutation of All Heresies

Childhood , Thinking , Training , Life

“I realized I was thinking about fiction two-dimensionally. When I’m writing comics, I’m also visualizing how the story will look on the page—not even always art-wise, but panel-wise, like how a moment will be enhanced dramatically by simply turning a page and getting a reveal. It requires thinking about story in a way I never had to consider when I was writing prose.”

Marjorie M. Liu (1979) American writer

Source: On writing a comic versus a novel in “Marjorie Liu on the Road to Making Monstress” https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/09/marjorie-liu-monstress-interview/539394/ in The Atlantic (2017 Sep 14)

Way , Thinking

“Brooklyn born, Bronx bred… I felt like the dreamer/day tripper of the neighborhood with a vivid imagination and a longing to transcend the mundane through my love of the arts. My mother inspired me a lot. I can remember growing up hearing her voice in the background on the phone urging others to stop putting up with abuse and to stand up for themselves in order to better their lot in life. She was always helping people – mostly other women – liberate themselves from oppressive relationships whether it was at home or work.”

Esai Morales (1962) American actor

On how activism was present in his upbringing in “Mr. Morales is currently running for SAG-AFTRA President” https://www.latinheat.com/spotlight-news/the-essential-esai-morales-interview/ in Latin Heat Entertainment (2013 Jul 31)

Home , Imagination , People , Help

“Making art, any art, you are in some way trying to imitate life, and the ways in which that succeeds or fails is fascinating to me…”

Naomi Iizuka (1965) American dramatist

On art versus life in “Berkeley world premiere for Naomi Iizuka play” https://www.sfgate.com/performance/article/Berkeley-world-premiere-for-Naomi-Iizuka-play-3271229.php in SF Gate (2010 Mar 4)

Way , Life , Making love

“I’m obsessed with manhood as a brutal and artful performance. My mind always finds its way back to the crossroad where sex, race, and power collide. Journeys, transformation, as well as dashed attempts to transform, fascinate me as well.”

Saeed Jones (1985) American poet

On masculinity as a performance (as quoted in “Saeed Jones” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/saeed-jones in Poets.org)

Way , Sex

“Some people love my work, some people hate it…You can’t be liked by everybody. There has been opposition in some places. I represent the opposite of what is happening in art today. But I don’t complain. It hasn’t hurt my career. I’m happy to have the success I have had.”

Fernando Botero (1932–2023) Colombian artist

On the reactions to his work in “Botero: ‘You Can’t Be Liked By Everybody’” https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/fernando-botero-says-you-cant-be-liked-by-everybody-2155/ in ARTnews (2013 Jan 30)

Hurt , Hate , Success , People

“My subject matter is Colombia and it has always been Colombia; I lived many years in New York, in Paris, and I have never had the feeling to paint an American or a French subject matter. The thing is that the art - and the artist - must have roots in his own land, in his own life: my life is in Colombia, and my land is Colombia. Now, of course, the language that you use to express the subject matter must be universal: the composition, the colour, the balance, etc. In this sense, subject must be local, but the language must be universal, in order to touch any human being in the world…”

Fernando Botero (1932–2023) Colombian artist

On staying with Colombia as his subject matter in “Interview: Fernando Botero” http://www.timeoutshanghai.com/features/Art-Art_Features/34176/Interview-Fernando-Botero.html in TimeOut Shanghai (2016 Feb 25)

Painting , Universe , World , Sense

“The only duty an artist has is in the quality of the art. There is no moral obligation to denounce. An artist confronted with a tremendous injustice sometimes feels inclined to say something. Denouncing the situation is the artist’s choice.”

Fernando Botero (1932–2023) Colombian artist

On whether an artist should paint about injustices in “Interview With Fernando Botero” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/interview-with-fernando-botero_b_6795782 in HuffPost (2017 Dec 6)

Feeling

“A great artist is born from a profound knowledge of the tradition and problems of painting. However, there are many works in which freshness and audacity surprise, as can be seen in popular art and in certain examples of modern art.”

Fernando Botero (1932–2023) Colombian artist

On the influence of culture on an artist in “Interview With Fernando Botero” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/interview-with-fernando-botero_b_6795782 in HuffPost (2017 Dec 6)

Knowledge , Problem , Painting

“A universal spiritual art would be art that any person would recognize as having a spiritual intention. It could speak to the heart and soul of the individual and orient them toward the greater aspect of their own being, their interconnectedness with all life and the cosmos. A universal spiritual art would return the viewer to their own ultimate identity, which lies beyond representation, but can be pointed to when our inspired visions are brilliantly transmitted. The challenge to artists today is to integrate the vast history of art from as many cultures as possible, to reach deep inside themselves for their own personal insights into the transcendental and allow this to coalesce into the most powerful imagery possible.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

High Times interview (2002)

Soul , History , Personality , Heart

“Art can be a spiritual practice. Not all artists consider this to be true for them, but with the proper motivation and focus, it can be. A spiritual practice is an activity that enables you to develop the qualities of mental clarity, mindfulness of the moment, wisdom, compassion and access to revelations of higher mystic states of awareness. A contemplative method, such as yoga or meditation, will stabilize and assist in the progress of spiritual awareness. An artist’s craft can become a contemplative method, and the creations may provide outward signs of an inner spiritual journey.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

High Times interview (2002)

Motivation , Wisdom

“I worked as a medical illustrator for about ten years. It was not my career ambition; it was a way to finance my addiction to art and support my family. Medical illustration gave me the opportunity to investigate and portray the bodily systems in dramatic ways. Prior to my work as a medical illustrator, I prepared bodies at a medical-school morgue, which provided important training for understanding the fleeting nature of life. It also provided unforgettable studies into the iridescent, fibrous architecture that forms our physical body.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

High Times interview (2002)

School , Family , Study , Understanding

“Magic is the science of the ancient magi; and the Christian religion, which silenced the counterfeit oracles and put a stop to the illusions of false gods, does, this notwithstanding, revere those mystic kings who came from the East, led by a star, to adore the Saviour of the world in His cradle. They are elevated by tradition to the rank of kings, because magical initiation constitutes a true royalty; because also the great art of the magi is characterised by all adepts as the Royal Art, as the Holy Kingdom — Sanctum Regnum. The star which conducted the pilgrims is the same Burning Star which is met with in all initiations. For alchemists it is the sign of the quintessence, for magicians it is the Great Arcanum, for Kabalists the sacred pentagram.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Introduction
The History Of Magic (1860)

God , Religion , Silence , Star

“Magic has been confounded too long with the jugglery of mountebanks, the hallucinations of disordered minds and the crimes of certain unusual malefactors. There are otherwise many who would promptly explain Magic as the art of producing effects in the absence of causes; and on the strength of such a definition it will be said by ordinary people — with the good sense which characterises the ordinary, in the midst of much injustice — that Magic is an absurdity.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Introduction
The History Of Magic (1860)

Sense , People

“In the bookshops in the Muslim areas of our cities—for instance in the bookshops around the Jama Masjid in Delhi— the collections of fatwas fill shelves after shelves. They are put together with great care, the sort of care one associates with sacred literature. The pages are well laid out. The calligraphy is often a work of art. The volumes are beautifully bound— ever so often with gilded embossing on the covers.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

The World of Fatwas (Or The Shariah In Action)

Literature

“I think TV series, games, and general media have changed the way we tell stories. But books will remain. Technology has changed all the others arts: painting, theater, dancing, cinema, music. But literature is an absolutely intimate process between the writer’s voice and the reader’s mind, it is something so natural and strong that the only thing that technology could change is its support, its format, for example, if we read from a book or from an e-reader. But that doesn’t change the heart of literature.”

Samanta Schweblin (1978) Argentine writer

On the staying power of literature in “Samanta Schweblin on Revealing Darkness Through Fiction” https://lithub.com/samanta-schweblin-on-revealing-darkness-through-fiction/ in LitHub (2017 Jan 12)

Painting , Reading , Strong , Game

“Even a large majority of beautiful music, great literature, and wonderful work of arts depicts human suffering, injustice, fears, and unfulfilled desires.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Beauty , Suffering , Music , Literature

“The thing is that there aren’t many stories told that are being shown to everybody from this, so any opportunity that I have to see a project that we could just release that to people that they could see a slice of life that they may not recognize or they may not know. It’s about family, it’s about being good people, it’s about culture, whether it’s music, theater, arts. And the opportunity to show that in a neighborhood and in a culture that I grew up in is very important to me.”

David Zayas (1962) Puerto Rican actor

On his film Shine in “INTERVIEW: David Zayas Talks To Me about ‘SHINE’” https://www.ramascreen.com/interview-david-zayas-talks-to-me-about-shine/ in Rama’s Screen (2018 Oct 1)

Family , People , Music , Life

“But in all these matters I want to remain behind the screen and this move should come from you. You are aware, how anxious I am for the good of the Musalmans, and I would, therefore, render all help with the greatest pleasure. I can prepare and draft the address for you. If it be prepared in Bombay then I can revise it because I know the art of drawing up petitions in good language. But Nawabsaheb, please remember that if within a short time any great and effective action has to be taken, then you should act quickly.”

James Dunlop Smith (1858–1921)

Correspondence between Viceroy Lord Minto’s private secretary, Colonel Dunlop Smith, and Muslim leaders. quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)

Drawing , Time , Help , Pleasure

“There is little loss. I let the boiling go on the hundredth of a minute too long. Trifles are enormous in the hermetical art, but anyway, here are two crucibles empty and two ingots cast, and they amount to a hundred weight of fine gold.”

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) Italian occultist

Balsamo the Magician (or The Memoirs of a Physician) by Alex. Dumas (1891)

Loss

“I come up with a concept and might doodle a little bit to get some ideas flowing, but I mostly write and take notes. I write an outline. In a way, I feel like I can make the art fit the story that needs to be told, so I start with the story first.”

Jen Wang (1984) American comics artist

On her creation process in “Q & A with Jen Wang” https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/81155-q-a-with-jen-wang.html in Publishers Weekly (2019 Sep 12)

Way , Idea , Making love , Feeling

“The hardest thing these days is to make something that’s beautiful; it’s easy to make ugly art. I think it takes a lot more talent to make something beautiful. Beauty to me is when you show something to someone that they’ve never seen before. That’s what a great work of art does; it shows you something that you didn’t know existed.”

Gronk (artist) (1954) American artist

On making beautiful artwork in “Gronk by Marisela Norte” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/gronk/ in BOMB Magazine (2007 Jan 1)

Beauty , Thinking , Making love

“I believe—when somebody gave me a pencil and a sheet of paper—was to create a world for myself, basically. It sort of made everything fall to the wayside. The environment where I was growing up, the poverty—all of that just sort of fell to the wayside, and I was able to create these worlds and enter into it. And I think that sort of isolated me a lot from other kids in the neighborhood, even isolated me while I was going to school. And my earliest recollections of entering school was the times when it was art time, and they had easels and they had paint and they had brushes…”

Gronk (artist) (1954) American artist

On when he discovered his love for art in “Oral history interview with Gronk, 1997 Jan. 20-23” https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-gronk-13586#transcript (Smithsonian Archives of American Art)

School , Painting , Time , Thinking

“I grew up with a lot of discrimination and racism though we were in South Texas it was still very prevalent and I had to deal with a lot of it in the public school system. In the elementary school we were punished for speaking Spanish, physically punished for speaking Spanish. So you’re made to feel ashamed. When the farm workers came through Kingsville on their march to Austin, the capital of Texas, we were very excited. The most obvious issues that were being discussed were the violence against the Mexicans and the farm workers, anybody who wasn’t the right color was subject to being arrested, to being beat up by the Texas Rangers. It was at that point that I made the decision that no matter what it took from me I was going to be a Chicana artist, no matter what! Because here was this whole population of my people who were being unfairly treated and if I could use my artwork as a vehicle towards bringing a greater understanding as who were as a people: our culture, our language, out customs, our mannerisms. Everything about our lives needed to be brought out in a fine art format…”

Carmen Lomas Garza (1948) Mexican-American artist and illustrator

On becoming a Chicana artist in “CARMEN LOMAS GARZA – IN HER OWN WORDS” http://latinopia.com/latino-art/carmen-lomas-garza/ in Latinopia (2010 Mar 6)

School , Understanding , People , Color

“Some writers write every morning, or every day. I don´t tend to do that. I am of the Wendy Wasserstein mind. Going to the movies is research. Walking down Central Park and seeing cute boys in tank tops is research. Going to the Museum of Modern Art is research. Having dinner with my best friends is research. Because research, when it comes to being a playwright, most importantly means living. It means experiencing and engaging with the world…”

Christopher Oscar Peña

On his research process in “"a cautionary tale" part II: Interview with Playwright Christopher Oscar Peña” http://www.theaterspeak.org/2013/07/part-ii-of-cautionary-tale-at-flea.html (Theaterspeak; 2013 Jul 15)

World , Boy

“Turning those revelations into art was a whole other thing…I did it, though — and that helped me realize my power, beyond the pain. Being able to illustrate those experiences for readers was a triumph, because it took everything to resist all the urges I have as a human being to present myself as good, or healed, or undamaged. I had to work against myself to make the memoir, and I ended up more empowered than I ever thought I could be.”

Terese Marie Mailhot (1983) First Nation Canadian writer, journalist, memoirist, teacher

On writing about her ordeals in “Why 'Heart Berries' Author Terese Marie Mailhot Doesn't Use The Word ‘Resilient’" https://www.bustle.com/p/why-heart-berries-author-terese-marie-mailhot-doesnt-use-the-word-resilient-8134108 in Bustle Magazine (2018 Feb 7)

Pain , Making love , Help

“I call myself a citizen artist, because one of the things I do is try to get my playwrights — especially my graduate playwrights — interested in the world. It’s about how you connect art to culture and community here and now, and how we are vital to the expression of our community...”

Luis Alfaro (1963) Chicano performance artist, writer, theater director, and social activist

On calling himself a “citizen artist” in “The Artist as Leader: Luis Alfaro” https://www.uncsa.edu/kenan/artist-as-leader/luis-alfaro.aspx (Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts)

World , Communication

“Television is art by committee…I’m lucky to have worked on some really interesting shows, but in film, you’re there to fulfill the director’s vision. If you get to work with great directors, you become a vehicle for that work.”

Raúl Castillo (1977) American actor, writer

On television versus film work in “After ‘Looking’ and ‘We the Animals,’ Raul Castillo Is Ready to Be a Movie Star” https://www.indiewire.com/2019/01/raul-castillo-interview-we-the-animals-looking-1202029967/ in IndieWire (2019 Jan 2)

“Looking at, ie analyzing the so-called the visual elements of an image, we see the surface, the outer look of an artwork. All practical art education (the use of artistic elements, ie art grammar) is mainly focused on this surface analysis. Sometimes, through these elements, it tries to penetrate deep into the essence of the image, into what it initiated and created a work, into an experience (this is the primary task of theory, sociology, and art history). This is very difficult. There are works that undoubtedly suggest its depth and meaning, but there is, at least sometimes, the possibility of a mistake.”

Alfred Freddy Krupa (1971) Croatian contemporary painter, master draughtsman, book artist and art teacher, the pioneer of the New Ink Art m…

Aquarelle - Experiences of a Practitioner, Alfred Freddy Krupa , MB-Tisak (Croatia), 1994
1990s

Education , History

“The Dream, as I now know, is not best served by making parodies of it, and it does not greatly matter after all whether a book be an epic or a directory. What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts.... But you, I think, have always comprehended this.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

"Auctorial Induction"
The Certain Hour (1916)

Faith , Dreams , Perfection , Thinking

“But there have been those who did not want to work, but wanted to rest on their laurels. They were our enemies. We angered them through our prosperous development, our industry and science, our art and popular education, social legislation, etc. That raised our nation to a high place, and then came envy. Envy caused our opponents to fight, and so the war came over us who had no idea of it.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Address to Officials and Workers at Krupp's (11 September 1918), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 114
1910s

Anger , War , Education , Fight

“I was practically driven to Rome in order to obtain the opportunities for art-culture, and to find a social atmosphere where I was not constantly reminded of my color. The land of liberty had no room for a colored sculptor.”

Edmonia Lewis (1844–1907) American sculptor

On studying in Europe (as quoted in the book Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and gay history from the Puritans to Playland https://www.google.com/books/edition/Improper_Bostonians/azaIecghLVgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq)

Color

“There is nothing so beautiful as the free forest. To catch a fish when you are hungry, cut the boughs of a tree, make a fire to roast it, and eat it in the open air, is the greatest of all luxuries. I would not stay a week pent up in cities, if it were not for my passion for art.”

Edmonia Lewis (1844–1907) American sculptor

On nature in “Edmonia Lewis https://americanart.si.edu/artist/edmonia-lewis-2914 (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

Tree , Beauty , Passion , Fish

“Whensoever by some present hard occurrences thou art constrained to be in some sort troubled and vexed, return unto thyself as soon as may be, and be not out of tune longer than thou must needs. For so shalt thou be the better able to keep thy part another time, and to maintain the harmony, if thou dost use thyself to this continually; once out, presently to have recourse unto it, and to begin again.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 9
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

Time , Parting

“When I first started doing self-portraits – and I didn’t start until I was in my 40s, quite late – I did these portraits where my hand was kind of stretched out toward the canvas, as if about to paint…I suppose I was imitating those famous poses of Goya or Rembrandt. But something felt so false about that. Somehow women don’t have a secure place in the history of art and to portray myself in this way standing squarely, about to paint, it wasn’t right.”

Celia Paul (1959) British artist

On her painting techniques in “Celia Paul on life after Lucian Freud: ‘I had to make this story my own’” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/oct/27/celia-paul-self-portrait-memoir-interview-lucian-freud in The Guardian (2019 Oct 27)

Painting , History , Self-confidence , Falseness

“And I submit that this is what the real, no-shit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about. How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Kenyon College Commencement Speech.
Essays

Dead , Nature , Education , Life

“Art is something you don’t just reproduce—what you see everyday doesn’t seem to be inspiring to them. But you do something with it so that it’s not bound by the law of reality. My work has always had that influence. I’ve never felt that it was necessary at all to write realistic plays…”

María Irene Fornés (1930–2018) American writer

On how her work (and other Latin American artists) tend to gear towards surrealism in “María Irene Fornés by Allen Frame” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/maria-irene-fornes/ in BOMB Magazine (1984 Oct 1)

Reality , Law

“I believe it’s something that happens when one is around art, and when one is close to books: they seep into your system, into your blood, and start to activate something in your life. We start living in the way that some of these characters live, with some sense of their sensibility. It’s almost as if the reader becomes the writer and the writer becomes the reader…”

Nilo Cruz (1960) American playwright

On how a written work may speak to you in “Nilo Cruz by Emily Mann” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/nilo-cruz/ in BOMB Magazine (2004 Jan 1)

Books , Sense , Way , Life

“One was my movement, which I’m very conscious of in films, especially coming from martial arts. Think about how many times a character is seen just sitting or walking or standing, it’s a lot of time in film and it says so much about a character. So I’ve always been keen to pay attention to movement and that was one thing he said he noticed. Never have I heard a director talk like that about me. And also he said that the eyes were important because it really has to come through the make-up. So he was interested in those two aspects especially…”

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (1950) American actor

On being chosen for the role of Krull in Planet of the Apes in “Comic-Con 2001: An Interview With Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa” http://fanboyplanet.com/comic-con-2001-an-interview-with-cary-hiroyuki-tagawa/ in Fanboy Planet (2001 Jul 27)

Making love , Thinking , Time

“Art in an abstract setting is one thing, but art where you’re actually telling people to do things becomes dangerous…”

Amiri Baraka (1934–2014) African-American writer

On how art might turn “dangerous” if it becomes too political in “In Memoriam: An Interview with the Late Amiri Baraka” https://www.sampsoniaway.org/interviews/2014/01/10/in-memoriam-an-interview-with-the-late-amiri-baraka/ in Sampsonia Way (2014 Jan 10)

People

“Almost everything in the pop culture lexicon of vampirism is basically fiction—and fiction is the art of telling entertaining lies for money.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Rhesus Chart (2014), Chapter 9, “Committee Processes” (p. 159)

Money

“The Guide sang: The new age, the new art, the new ethic and thought, And fools crying, Because it has begun It will continue as it has begun! The wheel runs fast, therefore the wheel will run Faster for ever, The old age is done, We have new lights and see without the sun.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Pilgrim's Regress

Though they lay flat the mountains and dry up the sea, Wilt thou yet change, as though God were a god?
Pilgrim’s Regress 186–187
The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)

Light , Sun , Fools , Cry

“I believe art is a wholly formal enterprise, encompassing almost all the tenets that the nineteenth century spoke of as l’art pour l’art, tenets which have made twentieth century’s experimentation possible.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

What postmodern doesn’t?
Section 9.811 (p. 273)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

“If all human production (aesthetic or otherwise) has its documentary aspect (i. e., it can be associated, by a knowledgeable reader, with a time and place), does this endanger its aesthetic aspects per se? It is the richness of the pattern that is aesthetically at stake. How many art histories does it take to make us understand that reference (a use context) and historicity are not the same?”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 8.55 (p. 241)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Time , Understanding , History , Knowledge

“Content, of course, must have some form. And form, of course, creates its content/commentary. This is why their chimeras have chased each other through moment after moment of history, the intense perception of one or the other producing the overwhelming effect: Art.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 8.21 (p. 232)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

History

“One will readily agree that any army which does not train to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses, or may posses, is behaving in an unwise or even criminal manner. This applies to politics even more than it does to the art of war.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

CH 10
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Training , War

“He had the true American taste for argument, argument as distinguished from conversation on the one hand and from oratory on the other. The long-drawn-out, meandering debate was, perhaps, the only art form he understood or relished, and this was natural since the argument is in a sense our only indigenous folk-art, and it is not the poet but the silver-tongued lawyer who is our real national bard.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

Source: The Company She Keeps (1942), Ch. 5 "Portrait of the Intellectual as a Yale Man", p. 141

Sense , Nature

“Sometimes, in our littleness, we boast of the progress we have made, and of the knowledge, culture, and art which we as a race to-day display. But, O, it is the vanity of Adolescence. What will the knowledge, culture, and art of to-day amount to fifty or a hundred thousand years from now?—or a million years from now?”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Nothing! This sphere, with its clinging tenantry, will still be here then and will still be making its annual journeys round the sun, as now. But, O, what mighty and ineffable changes! The things of to-day will be so rude and childish and so far away that they will not even be considered.
Source: Ethics and Education (1912), The World to Be, p. 149

Knowledge

“It is not possible, and it never will be possible, to organize all the beings occupying space into one immense confederacy. This would be ideal, but from the inexorable nature of things it can never be. The denizens of the sea depths can not correlate with the inhabitants of the clouds. The lion can not fraternize with the lamb, nor the hawk with the sparrow. The natures of beings have been evolved thru war, and they are in large part irredeemably antagonistic. But the approximation, if honest, may be more successful than is supposed, and may include many species not human. The bird may contribute his song and plumage, the sheep his fleece, the horse, the ox, the elephant, and the camel their strength or speed, the cow and the fowl their secretions, the dog his fidelity, and man his art. The ultimate and ideal aggregation of the living universe will not be a pan-American union nor a Euro-American league, nor even an aggregation whose spirit is embodied in a parliament of man, but the widest and most consummate possible Confederation of the Consciousnesses.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, pp. 161–163

Success , War , Dogs , Speed

“Is murder stripped of its blackness by become a fine art? All assassination is practically instantaneous and painless, the assassination of men as as well as that of birds and quadrupeds. What would the author of such nonsense think if the assassination of his brother or mother blandly attempted to relieve himself of all guilt by means of the assurance that his victim had experienced no suffering? The crime of extermination does not consist in the creation of pain, but in the destruction of that precious and mysterious essence called life.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Debate with Laurence Gronlund, quoted by Karen Iacobbo and Michael Iacobbo in Vegetarian America: A History (2004), p. 121

Pain , Suffering , Bird , Thinking

“Art implies discipline; the more excellent the art, the more rigorous the discipline.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Palace of Love (1967), Chapter 7 (p. 356)

“The tighter the discipline of an art form, the more subjective the criteria of taste.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 7 (p. 79)

“Let them scoff as they see fit! I will never compromise what I consider my art, especially for the sake of gain!”

Jack Vance book Showboat World

“For the sake of gain I’d compromise the art of my grandmother,” muttered Zamp under his breath.
Source: Showboat World (1975), Chapter 14 (p. 168)

“She had lovers and, if the secret must be out, she drank. What else accounts for the naughtiness of her eyes? Like so many tawaifs (geishas, courtesans) there were ups and downs in her childhood, the father leaving the mother and so on, but she was blessed with the divine gift and her art transcended the various accidents of her life. In the end all else was forgotten. Only the legend and the accomplishment survive.”

Begum Akhtar (1914–1974) Indian musician

Begum Akhtar the Undisputed Malika of Ghazals

Childhood , Secret , Lovers , Life

“Art possesses the formidable tool of pietas. Take, for instance, theatre. Theatre, by convention, agrees to be fake; thanks to this convention, which is innocuous, it can tell the truth. Art can tell the truth, because it is a transfigured language which doesn’t claim to possess divine truth; with its ability to transform relationships, it can address even the most terrible issues, exploring them without being destroyed by them. But artists have to be conscious of their role.”

Moni Ovadia (1946) Italian actor, musician, singer and theatrical author

"Uncomfortable culture – Interview with Moni Ovadia – part two" https://www.inkroci.com/culture_movie/interviews/uncomfortable-culture-interview-with-moni-ovadia-part-two.html, Inkroci (2014).

Truth

“Giving exhibitions is like throwing a drop into an ocean. Any contribution to the enhancement of the understanding of Islamic culture adds to that ocean, which I call the ocean of understanding. The greatest and one of the strongest bridges between cultures is the one that is built out of art. Religion and politics have their own dialects. The language of art is universal. There you are safe. Nobody can label you.”

Nasser Khalili (1945) British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist

Interview with The Independent (April 15, 2004) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/healing-the-world-with-art-560103.html

Universe , Religion , Understanding

“Poetry is the art that is closest to music, standing between music and narrative orality (which can be speechmaking, sermon or theater). Poetry is the voice of what can’t be spoken, the mode of truth-telling when meaning needs to rise above or skim below everyday language in shapes not discernible by the ordinary mind. It trumps the rhetoric of politicians. Poetry is prophetic by nature and not bound by time. Because of these qualities poetry carries grief, heartache, ecstasy, celebration, despair, or searing truth more directly than any other literary art form. It is ceremonial in nature. Poetry is a tool for disruption and creation and is necessary for generations of humans to know who they are and who they are becoming in the wave map of history. Without poetry, we lose our way.”

Joy Harjo (1951) American writer

On the art of poetry in “An Interview with Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate” https://poets.org/text/interview-joy-harjo-us-poet-laureate?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIiJP5naHW5QIV0Rx9Ch0tGgkkEAAYASAAEgIJD_D_BwE in Poets.org (2019 Mar 31)

Despair , Time , History , Nature

“Each of us is descended from poetry ancestors. It’s the same for any art, any occupation. There is a lineage of style, knowledge and culture passed from generation to generation, one artist to another. Ultimately all poetry is related in the family tree of poetry…”

Joy Harjo (1951) American writer

On her poetic lineage in “An Interview with Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate” https://poets.org/text/interview-joy-harjo-us-poet-laureate?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIiJP5naHW5QIV0Rx9Ch0tGgkkEAAYASAAEgIJD_D_BwE in Poets.org (2019 Mar 31)

Family , Tree , Knowledge , Relation ships

Quotes about art page 55

Quotes about art
page 55