Art Quotes and Sayings
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Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs. Ansel Adams
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There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. Ansel Adams
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You don't take a photograph, you make it. Ansel Adams
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Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams
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Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth. Theodor Adorno
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The task of art today is to bring chaos into order. Theodor Adorno
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I've never really had a hobby, unless you count art, which the IRS once told me I had to declare as a hobby since I hadn't made money with it. Laurie Anderson
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My hand is the extension of the thinking process - the creative process. Tadao Ando
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Things are beautiful if you love them. Jean Anouilh
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The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle
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Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse. Francis Bacon
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If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye. Honore de Balzac
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Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. Henry Ward Beecher
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What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time. John Berger
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Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic. Ambrose Bierce
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Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. Ambrose Bierce
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No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language. Theodore Bikel
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A picture is worth a thousand words. Napoleon Bonaparte
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A painting that is well composed is half finished. Pierre Bonnard
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Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home. Gwendolyn Brooks
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The history of art is the history of revivals. Samuel Butler
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I paint with shapes. Alexander Calder
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To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect. Alexander Calder
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A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession. Albert Camus
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Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others. Albert Camus
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Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Al Capp
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The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure. Dale Carnegie
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The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box. Henri Cartier-Bresson
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To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event. Henri Cartier-Bresson
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When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art. Paul Cezanne
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Great art picks up where nature ends. Marc Chagall
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Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse. Winston Churchill
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Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea. John Ciardi
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Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time. Jean Cocteau
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The artist one day falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment he is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near to the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above. Cyril Connolly
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An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one. Charles Horton Cooley
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I don't think there's any artist of any value who doesn't doubt what they're doing. Francis Ford Coppola
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Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad. Salvador Dali
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Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality. Salvador Dali
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The terrifying and edible beauty of Art Nouveau architecture. Salvador Dali
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Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do. Edgar Degas
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The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing. Eugene Delacroix
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Art in Nature is rhythmic and has a horror of constraint. Robert Delaunay
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Light in Nature creates the movement of colors. Robert Delaunay
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Painting is by nature a luminous language. Robert Delaunay
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Vision is the true creative rhythm. Robert Delaunay
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Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail. Theodore Dreiser
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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. Max Eastman
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Every artist writes his own autobiography. Henry Ellis
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Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as a basis for architecture. Arthur Erickson
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Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture. Arthur Erickson
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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. William Faulkner
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All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography. Federico Fellini
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Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. Gustave Flaubert
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Of all lies, art is the least untrue. Gustave Flaubert
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By the work one knows the workman. Jean de La Fontaine
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To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way. E. M. Forster
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Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake. E. M. Forster
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I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than people realize. Jodie Foster
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In art as in love, instinct is enough. Anatole France
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Art is either plagiarism or revolution. Paul Gauguin
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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
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My love of fine art increased - the more of it I saw, the more of it I wanted to see. Paul Getty
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The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor. Paul Getty
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Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed. Khalil Gibran
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Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor. Andre Gide
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Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. Andre Gide
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If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. Vincent Van Gogh
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I cry out for order and find it only in art. Helen Hayes
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Rules and models destroy genius and art. William Hazlitt
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The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist. David Hockney
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When I make art, I think about its ability to connect with others, to bring them into the process. Jim Hodges
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Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum. Oliver Wendell Holmes
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A picture is a poem without words. Horace
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Art is not a thing; it is a way. Elbert Hubbard
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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. Elbert Hubbard
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I realize that protest paintings are not exactly in vogue, but I've done many. Robert Indiana
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I think of my peace paintings as one long poem, with each painting being a single stanza. Robert Indiana
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I was the least Pop of all the Pop artists. Robert Indiana
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If a building becomes architecture, then it is art. Arne Jacobsen
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Every time a student walks past a really urgent, expressive piece of architecture that belongs to his college, it can help reassure him that he does have that mind, does have that soul. Louis Kahn
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Artists don't make objects. Artists make mythologies. Anish Kapoor
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The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal. Elia Kazan
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The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract. Ellen Key
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Art is man's expression of his joy in labor. Henry A. Kissinger
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I think about my work every minute of the day. Jeff Koons
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The principle of art is to pause, not bypass. Jerzy Kosinski
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The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. Jerzy Kosinski
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A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires. Hedy Lamarr
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Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. Dorothea Lange
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The business of art is to reveal the relation between man and his environment. David Herbert Lawrence
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Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. Fran Lebowitz
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Minimal art went nowhere. Sol LeWitt
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Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms. Roy Lichtenstein
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I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me. Roy Lichtenstein
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The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person. Abraham Lincoln
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Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist. Franz Liszt
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The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress. Hendrik Willem Van Loon
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Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in. Amy Lowell
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Art is a revolt against fate. Andre Malraux
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To make pictures big is to make them more powerful. Robert Mapplethorpe
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When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God. Robert Mapplethorpe
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When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection. Agnes Martin
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Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence. Henri Matisse
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I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things. Henri Matisse
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Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is. Henri Matisse
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Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul. W. Somerset Maugham
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Trying to force creativity is never good. Sarah McLachlan
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Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century. Marshall McLuhan
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Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century. Marshall McLuhan
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Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding. Gian Carlo Menotti
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Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton
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A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. Michelangelo
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The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. Michelangelo
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Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle. Michelangelo
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An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness. Henry Miller
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The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts. Henry Miller
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Art is science made clear. Wilson Mizner
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A great artist is always before his time or behind it. George Edward Moore
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A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds. Henry Moore
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It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work. Henry Moore
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Wherever art appears, life disappears. Robert Motherwell
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Art is subject to arbitrary fashion. Kary Mullis
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If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it. Anais Nin
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The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist. Novalis
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Even a true artist does not always produce art. Carroll O'Connor
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I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for. Georgia O'Keeffe
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Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers... What we call art is a game. Octavio Paz
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Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. Pablo Picasso
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Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun. Pablo Picasso
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The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. Pablo Picasso
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The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. Pablo Picasso
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The beginning is the most important part of the work. Plato
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Every good painter paints what he is. Jackson Pollock
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My painting does not come from the easel. Jackson Pollock
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So vast is art, so narrow human wit. Alexander Pope
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The perfection of art is to conceal art. Marcus Fabius Quintilian
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You begin with the possibilities of the material. Robert Rauschenberg
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Our natures are a lot like oil, mix us with anything else, and we strive to swim on top. Joan Rivers
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I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need. Auguste Rodin
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The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it. Carl Rogers
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I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
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Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued. Jean Rostand
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Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art. Miguel Angel Ruiz
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Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth. John Ruskin
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Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. John Ruskin
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An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world. George Santayana
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Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men. Friedrich Schiller
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Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first. Arthur Schopenhauer
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My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art. Clara Schumann
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To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist. Robert Schumann
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All art is but imitation of nature. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. Isaac Bashevis Singer
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Artists themselves are not confined, but their output is. Robert Smithson
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Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. Stephen Sondheim
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Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a piece of paper the photographer begins with the finished product. Edward Steichen
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Photography is a major force in explaining man to man. Edward Steichen
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When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be done afterward is not worth consideration. Edward Steichen
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A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears. Gertrude Stein
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The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep. Paul Strand
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Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. Igor Stravinsky
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I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good. Barbra Streisand
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Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. Jonathan Swift
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That's the motivation of an artist - to seek attention of some kind. James Taylor
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Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. Twyla Tharp
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To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it. Leo Tolstoy
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Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal. Lionel Trilling
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Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art. Harry S. Truman
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What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit. John Updike
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An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it. Paul Valery
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An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs. Edgard Varese
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Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty. Alfred de Vigny
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Murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums. Peter De Vries
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An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have. Andy Warhol
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I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning. Andy Warhol
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An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. James Whistler
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The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Walt Whitman
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A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Oscar Wilde
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Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs. Tom Wolfe
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Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them. William Wordsworth
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Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed. Frank Lloyd Wright
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The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. Emile Zola
