Art quotes
22.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside art — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman."
"...assume that art begins in unhappiness. True, the goal of art is to convey a vision of coherence and peace, but the effort to develop that vision starts in the more common experience of confusion and pain."
"Art does not in fact prove anything. What it does do is record one of those brief times, such as we each have and then each forget, when we are allowed to understand that the Creation is whole."
"No one, though has to go to college to make or understand or enjoy art. Wonderful artists and critics - some of the best - have educated themselves."
"The only things that distinguish the photographer from everybody else are his pictures: they alone are the basis for our special interest in him. If pictures cannot be understood without knowing details of the artist's private life, then that is a reason for faulting them; major art, by definition, can stand independent of its maker."
"Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? Why do photographers bother with the deception, especially since it so often requires the hardest work of all? The answer is, I think, that the deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace."
"Beauty, which I admit to being in pursuit of, is an extremely suspect word among many in the art world. But I don't think you can get along without it. It's the confirmation of meaning in life."
"What's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven; Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes."
"I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I went to art school and tried a bunch of different things, but I knew I wanted to do something in the visual arts. And I'd always been around my dad's film sets, so the interest was there. But I didn't have the guts to say, "I want to be a director," especially coming from that family."
"If you're looking for something to be brave about, consider fine arts."
"Art appreciation, like love, cannot be done by proxy."
"Each man must take the material that he finds at hand, see that in it there are the big truths of life, the fundamentally big forces, and then express in his art whatever is the cause of his pleasure."
"In great art there is no beginning and end in point of time. All time is comprehended."
"The only sensible way to regard the art life is that it is a privilege you are willing to pay for... You may cite honors and attentions and even money paid, but I would have you note that these were paid a long time after the creator had gone through his struggles."
"The pernicious influence of the prize and medal giving in art is so great that it should be stopped. History proves that juries in art have been generally wrong."
"We grew up in a very creative environment and were exposed to the arts at a very young age, so it's not a surprise that all of us are in some form of the arts."
"Fashion, for me, is anything that's aesthetic and beautiful. Art, food, film. It's something that I appreciate and really like."
"What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants."
"In art there is no progress, only fluctuations of intensity."
"Art grows out of modes of perception that make you feel and think...that hooks on to something deep-running in our natures."
