Quotes about art
621 quotes from 285 people
Thomas Pynchonborn 1937Phone call to CNN, reported in “Where’s Thomas Pynchon?”, CNN (June 5, 1997)
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965The Razor’s Edge (1943)
Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896), No. XIVCreativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.
Ai Weiweiborn 1957Life’s Work: Ai Weiwei, 2012Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.
Paul Klee1879–1940Creative Credo (1920), Section II think my stance and my way of life is my most important art.
Ai Weiweiborn 1957Osnos, Evan. “It’s Not Beautiful: An Artist Takes On the System.” New Yorker, May 24, 2010, 54–63.Prose — it might be speculated — is discourse; poetry ellipsis.
Joyce Carol Oatesborn 1938“‘Soul at the White Heat’: The Romance of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry,” (Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities (1988)Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.
Robert Frost1874–1963The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.Art is at least in part a way of collecting information about the universe.
Rebecca West1892–1983“The Strange Necessity,”, in The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews (1928)Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.
Roger Ebert1942–2013“Living Testament” speech at 11th Hour, Colorado Public Television (1994)It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.
Lionel Trilling1905–1975“The Novel Alive or Dead,” A Gathering of Fugitives: New Essays (1956)I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.
Joan Miró1893–1983Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. Margit Rowell (1987)In painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter your manner.
John Ruskin1819–1900Modern Painters (1843-1860), Volume V, part VIII, chapter III (1860)From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art.
Susan Sontag1933–2004“Against Interpretation” (1964), p. 5
