Art Quotes - Page 17

• The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

  Pablo Picasso

  Life, Beautiful, Sky

  Elizabeth Cowling, Pablo Picasso (2002). “Picasso: style and meaning”, Phaidon Press

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• When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God.

  Robert Mapplethorpe

  Photography, Hands, Creative

  Robert Mapplethorpe, Edmund White (1995). “Altars”, Vintage

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• The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.

  Henry Miller

  Opposites, Understanding, Doe

  Henry Miller (1961). “The Cosmological Eye”, p.193, New Directions Publishing

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• Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Stupid, Museums, Entertainment

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• Every artist writes his own autobiography.

  Havelock Ellis

  Writing, Architecture, Autobiography

  New Spirit (1890) "Tolstoi"

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• An amateur may not be an artist, though an artist should be an amateur.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Artist, May, Should

  Isaac Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield) (1861). “Curiosities of literature”, p.79

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• Man, there's no boundary line to art!

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Men, Jazz And Life

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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• Acting is a strange business; one day it's there, and the next day nowhere to be seen.

  Ralph Richardson

  Next Day, One Day, Acting

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• I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.

  Federico Fellini

  Believe, Inspiration, Waiting

  Federico Fellini, Damian Pettigrew (2003). “I'm a born liar: a Fellini lexicon”, Harry N Abrams Inc

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• In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of the Laocoon how it might be made different? A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mind, Fancy, Crystals

  1841 'Thoughts on Art', in The Dial, vol.1, no.3, Jan.

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• Can someone eat the fruit that comes from the tree of action that grows from the seeds of your mind?

  Eugene J. Martin

  Tree, Mind, Fruit

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• I've always thought that there shouldn't be any limit to the things that are well designed. And I think that people who consider that art should only be kept for art galleries and doesn't have a role in public life, I think that's too narrow.

  Ken Done

  Thinking, People, Roles

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• As I see it, all of them - Tachists, Action Painters, Informel artists, and the rest - are only part of an Informel movement that covers a lot of other things as well. I think there's an Informel element in Beuys, as well; but it all began with Duchamp and chance, or with Mondrian, or with the Impressionists. The Informel is the opposite of the constructional quality of classicism - the age of kings, or clearly formed hierarchies.

  Gerhard Richter

  Kings, Thinking, Opposites

  Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

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• Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.

  Constantin Brancusi

  Life, Beautiful, Kings

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• Don't look for obscure formulas or mystery in my work. It is pure joy that I offer you. Look at my sculptures until you see them. Those closest to God have seen them.

  Constantin Brancusi

  Passion, Joy, Looks

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• It was not possible for us to produce the same optimism and the same kind of humour or irony. Actually, it was not irony. Lichtenstein is not ironic but he does have a special kind of humour. That's how I could describe it: humour and optimism. For Polke and me, everything was more fragmented. But how it was broken up is hard to describe.

  Gerhard Richter

  Broken, Optimism, Ironic

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• If you seek just a little truth, as most, you should not ignore abstract forms, the basis from which all short-lived experiences we call reality springs.

  Eugene J. Martin

  Spring, Reality, Littles

  "In Memoriam - Eugene James Martin". "Direct Art Magazine", Vol. 13, p. 87, Fall-Winter 2006.

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• Art is a personal act of courage.

  Seth Godin

  Acts Of Courage, Art Is

  Seth Godin (2010). “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?”, p.77, Penguin

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• The morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

  Oscar Wilde

  Perfect, Use, Morality

  'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (1891) preface

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• The painter is, as to the execution of his work, a mechanic; but as to his conception and spirit and design he is hardly below even the poet.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Design, Execution, Spirit

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• Cutting straight into color reminds me of the direct carving of the sculptor.

  Henri Matisse

  Cutting, Color, Carving

  "The Cut-Outs of Henri Matisse".

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• A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds.

  Henry Moore

  Shapes, Musician, Sound

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• No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.

  Edvard Munch

  Reading, Men, Knitting

  "The St. Cloud Manifesto" (Impressions from a ballroom, New Year's Eve in St. Cloud) by Edvard Munch, 1889.

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• The temple of art is built in words.

  J. G. Holland

  Temples, Art Is, Built

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• Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.

  Salvador Dali

  Tattoo, Personality, Painting

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