“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.”

— Oscar Wilde, book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

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Oscar Wilde812

Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

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“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The new attitude of the critic toward the artist has been rationalized for me by a leading European art historian who is also an influential critic of current art. It is based on a theory of division of labor in making art history. The historian, he contends, knows art history and, in fact, creates it; the artist knows only how to do things. Left to himself, the artist is almost certain to do the wrong thing — to deviate from the line of art history and thus to plunge into oblivion. The critic's role is to steer him in the proper direction and advise changes in his technique and subject matter that will coordinate his efforts with the forces of development. Better still, critics should formulate historically valid projects for artists to carry out. That not all critics have the same expectations of the future of art does not, I realize, weaken the cogency of my colleague's argument. The surviving artist would be one who has been lucky enough to pick the winning critic. My own view that art should be left to artists seemed to my mentor both out-of-date and irresponsible.”

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic

Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 249, "Thoughts in Off-Season"

“An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 47

“But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.

“This is precisely what is decisive in Nietzsche’s conception of art, that he sees it in its essential entirety in terms of the artist; this he does consciously and in explicit opposition to that conception of art which represents it in terms of those who “enjoy” and “experience” it.
That is a guiding principle of Nietzsche’s teaching on art: art must be grasped in terms of creators and producers, not recipients. Nietzsche expresses it unequivocally in the following words (WM, 811): “Our aesthetics heretofore has been a woman’s aesthetics, inasmuch as only the recipients of art have formulated their experiences of ‘what is beautiful.’ In all philosophy to date the artist is missing.” Philosophy of art means “aesthetics” for Nietzsche too—but masculine aesthetics, not feminine aesthetics. The question of art is the question of the artist as the productive, creative one; his experiences of what is beautiful must provide the standard.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Source: Nietzsche (1961), p. 70

“The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.”

Oscar Wilde book The Decay of Lying

The Decay of Lying (1889)

“Art leads to a more profound concept of life, because art itself is a profound expression of feeling. The artist is born, and art is the expression of his overflowing soul. Because his soul is rich, he cares comparatively little about the superficial necessities of the material world; he sublimates the pressure of material affairs in an artistic experience.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Painting and Culture' p. 56
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.”

Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) art historian

E. H. Gombrich, (1950, p. 15) cited in: Paul Smith, ‎Carolyn Wilde (2008). A Companion to Art Theory, p. 428.

“..Painting never means just never picturing the material things, but it is a psychological function, an expression of how his mind [of the artist] responds to things. So that is quite a difference with: painting is showing the beauty of things.”

Jan Mankes (1889–1920) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek (original Dutch: citaat van Jan Mankes, in het Nederlands:) Schilderen is.. ..nooit een afbeelding geven der stoffelijke zaken, maar een psychische functie, een uiten hoe zijn geest [van de kunstenaar] reageert ten opzichte der dingen. Dat is dus een heel verschil met: schilderen is de schoonheid der dingen laten zien. Quote of Jan Mankes in a letter to his maceneas A.A.M. Pauwels in The Hague; as cited by J.R. de Groot in 'De bekoring van het gewone - Het werk van Jan Mankes https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_ons003199001_01/_ons003199001_01_0014.php', p. 102 undated quotes

“I don't believe in Jewish art. There are Jewish artists, which means, artists who are born Jewish, but that does not mean that their work is Jewish art. (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in Dutch (citaat van Israëls, in het Nederlands): Ik geloof niet in joodse kunst. Er zijn joodse kunstenaars, d.w.z. kunstenaars die joods geboren zijn, maar dat wil nog niet zeggen dat hun werk joodse kunst is.
Quote of Jozef Israëls, 9 July 1907, translated from his letter (written in German) to the committee of the Exhibition for Jewish Art in Berlin; as cited in Jozef Israëls, 1824 – 1911, ed. Dieuwertje Dekkers; Waanders, Zwolle 1999, p. 55
Jozef Israëls was Jewish himself, but refused to call his art Jewish as the Zionist movement liked to call it
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.”

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