No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.
—Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Composer, Musician
The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.
—Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American Novelist Essayist
What is Art? It is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the Real.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
—John Ciardi (1916–86) American Poet, Teacher, Etymologist, Translator
A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
Art, like Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous voices.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
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
Art is a form of catharsis.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
Contrary to popular belief an artist is never ahead of his time, but most people are far behind theirs.
—Edgard Varese (1883–1965) French-American Composer
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
—Jean-luc Godard (b.1930) French-born Swiss Film Director, Film Critic
It is either easy or impossible.
—Salvador Dali (1904–89) Spanish Painter
Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother’s face, her aspect and her attitude.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist Painter
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist Painter
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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
What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Not even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long. It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it to, in the case of literature, its readers; to be, for a secular, materialist culture, some sort of replacement for what the love of god offers in the world of faith.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
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
Good art however “immoral” is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Each of the arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them.
—Eliza Farnham (1815–64) American Reformer, Writer
Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
Much of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible. By getting us used to what, formerly, we could not bear to see or hear, because it was too shocking, painful, or embarrassing, art changes morals.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
If I didn’t start painting, I would have raised chickens.
—Grandma Moses (1860–1961) American Painter, Artist
Art at its most significant is a distant early warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator