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Quotes about art

621 quotes from 285 people

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That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive;
Robert Browning1812–1889My Last Duchess (1842)In context
That you are here⁠—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
Walt Whitman1819–1892O Me! O Life! (1867)In context
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), The PrefaceIn context
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), The PrefaceIn context
- Morality
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), The PrefaceIn context
- Truth & Lies
“Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.”
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter IIn context
- Poetry
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
John Keats1795–1821On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer (1816)In context
- Poetry
- Reading
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Joyce Kilmer1886–1918Trees (1913)In context
- God
- Poetry
I had rather be a kitten, and cry “mew”
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers
William Shakespeare1564–1616Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597), Act III, Scene I, spoken by HotspurIn context
- Clever Jabs
- Poetry
The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected.
E. M. Forster1879–1970A Room with a View (1908), Part One, Chapter IIIIn context
- Music
Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of centuries.
Victor Hugo1802–1885The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), Book Third, Chapter IIn context
- History
- Time
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
Virgil70–19 BCThe Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IIn context
- Poetry
- War & Peace
Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882The Song of Hiawatha (1855), IntroductionIn context
- Nature
- Poetry
I get offered so many bad movies. And they’re all raging queens or transvestites or Martians.
David Bowie1947–20161983 Comment, quoted in Halliwell’s Who’s Who in the Movies 15th Edition (2003) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 60
- Comedy
- Movies
If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.
Stanley Kubrick1928–1999“The Making of Kubrick’s 2001” (1970), edited by Jerome Agel, pg 11. Quoted in Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s and Video Viewer’s Companion (1988), p. 403.
- Movies
- Writing