“Must an artist live in the world or out of it? I believe this to be an unanswerable question. Total retirement, natural to the Saint, is injurious to most artists. They work marvelously so long as there are materials at hand. Goethe has further advice: "Solitude is a wonderful thing when one is at peace with oneself and when there is a definite task to be accomplished."”

—  André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Must an artist live in the world or out of it? I believe this to be an unanswerable question. Total retirement, natural…" by André Maurois?
André Maurois photo
André Maurois202
French writer 1885–1967

Related quotes

David Rakoff photo

“The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out.”

David Rakoff (1964–2012) writer

Source: Half Empty

Daniel Burnham photo

“The space of time in which a great work can now be accomplished is not marvellous. Brain, muscle, materials, and the means of rapid transport are instantly at command. If one has capital and a well-considered plan, the thing does itself. But that which is wonderful and which I can scarcely believe, although I have been in the midst of it, is the noble, artistic result which has come from the work of American artists who have had only a few months' time to prepare those very designs for the great buildings of the Exposition which have actually been executed with little change from the sketches which were presented in February, 1891.”

Daniel Burnham (1846–1912) American architect and urban designer

Burnham (1891) attributed in: Charles Moore (1921) Daniel H. Burnham, architect, planner of cities http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7205061M/Daniel_H._Burnham_architect_planner_of_cities. p. 72-73

“When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“Creation is dominated by three absolutely different factors: First, nature, which works upon us by its laws; second, the artist, who creates a spiritual contact with nature and his materials; third, the medium of expression through which the artist translates his inner world. Of those three components only one, the medium, is material.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

As quoted in Hans Hofmann (1963) by William Chapin Seitz, p. 15
1960s

Logan Pearsall Smith photo

“The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work on the proceeds, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

Art and Letters.
Afterthoughts (1931)

Benito Mussolini photo

“Lenin is an artist who has worked men, as other artists have worked marble or metals. But men are harder than stone and less malleable than iron. There is no masterpiece. The artist has failed. The task was superior to his capacities.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Popolo d'Italia (14 July 1920) "The Artificer and the Material," quoted in Mussolini in the Making (1938) by Gaudens Megaro, p. 326
1920s

Roger Waters photo

“Bob Ezrin about Waters: "I hate the word "artist," but I would definitely concede that Roger is a great artist…as well as a total obsessive and psychiatrist's dream."”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

Giorgio de Chirico photo

“You misunderstood my words when I said that Michelangelo was a stupid artist... Because I have drunk from another source and a new and marvelous thirst burns my lips – how can I still believe in such artists?! I know what you are thinking when you ask me: 'isn't David a superman? This is how I used to feel, this is what I used to think. The majority of the world's great spirits thought it so.... but now a new air has entered my soul, a new song has reached my ears and the whole world appears totally changed – the autumn afternoon has arrived, the long shadows, the clear air, the serene sky –, in a word: Zarathustra has arrived, do you understand??.... It is only with Nietzsche that I can say I have begun a real life.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

Quote from De Chirico&#x27;s letter to Mr. Fritz Gartz, Florence, undated, c. 5 Jan. 1911; from LETTERS BY GIORGIO DE CHIRICO, GEMMA DE CHIRICO AND ALBERTO DE CHIRICO TO FRITZ GARTZ, MILAN-FLORENCE, 1908-1911 http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/wp-content/uploads/559-567Metafisica7_8.pdf, p. 564 <br class="br">1908 - 1920

Roman Vishniac photo

“The Jews of the shtetls that Tolstoy remembered were saints… the people I photographed were saints. So now, in 1983, I tell the world: When you learn about Goethe, don't forget to study the Holocaust, too.”

Roman Vishniac (1897–1990) American photographer

Testament to a Lost People

Related topics