A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind.
—Eugene Ionesco (1909–94) Romanian-born French Dramatist
Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.
—Kenneth Tynan (1927–80) English Theatre Critic, Writer
A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
—Michelangelo (1475–1564) Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Poet, Engineer
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
Art is science made clear.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
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
I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.
—J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer
Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.
—Angela Davis (b.1944) American Political Activist, Academic
As the unity of the modern world becomes increasingly a technological rather than a social affair, the techniques of the arts provide the most valuable means of insight into the real direction of our own collective purposes.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
The great artist is a slave to his ideals.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man’s nature.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
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
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
Art is a form of catharsis.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
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
Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
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
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
Art hath an enemy called ignorance.
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English Dramatist, Poet, Actor
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
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
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
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