Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
We have lost the art of living; and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behavior, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.
—Alberto Giacometti (1901–66) Swiss Sculptor, Painter
Those who can—do. Those who can’t—criticize.
—Indian Proverb
Dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations, but Art is required to sort and understand them.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Art is a form of catharsis.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
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
The mother of the useful art, is necessity; that of the fine arts, is luxury.—the former have intellect for their father; the latter, genius, which itself is kind of luxury.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.
—Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Composer, Musician
Caricature is rough truth.
—George Meredith (1828–1909) British Novelist, Poet, Critic
Art never improves, but the material of art is never quite the same.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
I think it is owing to the good sense of the English that they have not painted better.
—William Hogarth (1697–1764) English Painter, Engraver
The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
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
The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. No great work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist’s way of scribbling “Kilroy was here” on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model.
—Northrop Frye
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 a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.
—Anonymous
An artist conscientiously moves in a direction which for some good reason he takes, putting one work in front of the other with the hope he’ll arrive before death overtakes him.
—John Cage (1912–92) American Composer
In art, all who have done something other than their predecessors have merited the epithet of revolutionary; and it is they alone who are masters.
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist Painter
What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not your life?
—Michel Foucault (1926–84) French Philosopher, Critic, Historian
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.
—Andre Breton (1896–1966) French Poet, Essayist, Critic
Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
There is one way to handle the ignorant and malicious critic. Ignore him.
—Unknown