Art Quotes

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however …

Style... the very hall-mark of great art... there is little use in trying to define style.

Poor captive bird! Who, from thy narrow cage, Pourest such music, that it might assuage The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, Were they not deaf to all sweet melody.

Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

Music moves us, and we know not why; We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source. Is it the language of some other state, Born of its memory ? For what can wake The soul's strong instinct of another world, Like music?

A self-taught painter is one taught by a very ignorant person.

The art of a great writer is seen in the perfect fitness of his expressions. He knows how to blend vividness with vagueness, knows where images are needed, and where by their vivacity they would be obstacles to the rapid appreciation of …

I should like to like Robert Schumann|Schumann's music better than I do; I dare say I could make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like having to try to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at once and …

Riches and Art are spurious receipts for the production of Happiness and Beauty.

There may be regular Methods also invented for teaching the Doctrine of Light and Shadow; and other Particulars relating to the Practical Part of Painting, may be improved and digested into proper Methods... But I only hint at these... …

All of one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly and in time.

Triune, shaping, restless power, Life-flow from life's natal hour, No music chords are in thy sound; By some thou'rt but a rattle found; Yet, without thy ceaseless motion, To ice would turn their dead devotion.

In art economy is always beauty.

I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.

Poetry Fetter'd. Fetters the Human Race. Nations are Destroy'd, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry, Painting, and Music are Destroy'd or Flourish!

That Shakespeare wanted Art.

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavor in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not …

For his heart was in his work, and the heart Giveth grace unto every Art.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of …