Art Quotes — page 48

So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art; at least learn to hate sham art and reject it.

The Foundation of Empire is Art & Science Remove them or Degrade them & the Empire is No More — Empire follows Art & Not Vice Versa as Englishmen suppose.

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears: Yet, slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs: List to the heavy part the music bears, Woe weeps out her division, when she sings. Droop herbs, and flowers, Fall grief in showers,

Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This …

Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below.

The real drama of Evangelicalism—and it has abundance of fine drama for any one who has genius enough to discern and reproduce it—lies among the middle and lower classes; and are not Evangelical opinions understood to give an especial …

A Greek architect of the great epoch would no more have thought of omitting the mark of the harmonic scale of proportion, on which the design was based, than would the composer of music think of omitting the harmonic scale of his …

Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

All, lingering, stayed to gaze Upon this Eden of the painter's art, And looking on its loveliness, forgot The crowded world around them!—

Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate "my careless boyhood" with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful; that is, I …

In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect — its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions — its purpose being pleasure.

In art, never try to find out anything, or try to learn anything until the not knowing it has come to be a nuisance to you for some time. Then you will remember it, but not otherwise. Let knowledge importune you before you will hear it. …

To understand a saint, you must hear the devil's advocate; and the same is true of the artist.

And I was forced to invent new Terms of Art

In old times, men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith; in later times, they used the objects of faith that they might show their powers of painting.

It is not because the touch of genius has roused genius to production, but because the admiration of genius has made talent ambitious, that the harvest is still so abundant.

The practice of "reviewing"… in general has nothing in common with the art of criticism.

The greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere.

Degrade first the arts if you'd mankind degrade, Hire idiots to paint with cold light and hot shade.

As in poetry and music, even the unskilled ear may be offended by a mistake in measure, without discerning the cause, may not also a mistake in the harmony of dimensions unconsciously offend us in design?

Spirit of , that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?

Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.