Quotes
Quotes about Art
So-called art restoration is at least as tricky as brain surgery. Most pictures expire under scalpel and sponge.
The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination.
Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.
In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men.
The first mistake of Art is to assume that it's serious.
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
Art need no longer be an account of past sensations. It can become the direct organization of more highly evolved sensations. It is a question of producing ourselves, not things that enslave us.
Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
When one buys some of my artwork I hope it is because they will wish to learn from it and not because they think it will match their drapes! - 1997.
Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.
The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
The arts are not just instantaneous pleasureâif you don't like it, the artist is wrong. I belong to the generation which says if you don't like it, you don't understand and you ought to find out.
The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.
I think that one of the qualifications of artists should be a vow of celibacy. They should be confined to ruining only their own lives.
Art is... a question mark in the minds of those who want to know what's happening.
Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs.
The studio, a room to which the artist consigns himself for life, is naturally important, not only as workplace, but as a source of inspiration. And it usually manages, one way or another, to turn up in his product.
The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.
The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.
I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.
No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.
I believe in Michelangelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen.
