I can’t work without a model. I won’t say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Russian Marxist Revolutionary
Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
All art is an imitation of nature.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn’t make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American Writer
The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.
—Walter Benjamin
Art for art’s sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden… it is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
Art is science made clear.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
—George Sand (1804–76) French Novelist, Dramatist
It is impossible to give a clear account of the world, but art can teach us to reproduce it—just as the world reproduces itself in the course of its eternal gyrations. The primordial sea indefatigably repeats the same words and casts up the same astonished beings on the same sea-shore.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature’s monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) Italian-born French Poet, Playwright
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Every artist writes his own autobiography.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer
In art as in love, instinct is enough.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He’s not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he’s really needed.
—David Hockney (b.1937) English Painter, Draughtsman
Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.
—William Morris (1834–96) British Designer, Craftsman, Poet, Writer
The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art is merely romantic fiction. The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened.
—Thomas Wolfe (1900–38) American Novelist
There is only one art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth. Thus, from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideas the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideas at all.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.
—Andy Warhol (1928–87) American Painter, Printmaker, Film Personality
If I spit, they will take my spit and frame it as great art.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.
—Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Composer, Musician