Art quotes
22.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"The class situation [at Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue] was such that one would be very much on their own to paint or draw. The faculty was roving to give opinions or help out technically, which all the faculty did very well."
"One association with the arts that I vividly remember was a magazine called Normal Instructor, a teachers' magazine, that Miss George would hold up with illustrations of great artworks like [Vincent] van Gogh and Rembrandt [van Rijn]."
"I think there were some programs but in those days art programs were kind of basic. You would do drawing and simple collage type work. But at home I was beginning to get interested in doing my own thing as well. I'm not sure what inspired this, but I became very interested in decorating things."
"I became a bit of a teacher's pet, and it became known in the school by both faculty and students that I really excelled in the arts. So that recognition I credit for my growing interest in art that continued to evolve later on."
"It was only when I got to high school and was in the art program that my artistic talent was recognized. The art program was directed by a wonderful and a very important person in my life - Charlotte Ranger, who was referred to as Mrs. Ranger. She had been teaching in the school for many years."
"I was engaged in all the required courses of math and geometry, but the area that I blossomed in was the art program."
"I learned from books that I picked up. That was something that just came out of nowhere but continued to be an attraction. So there was a continuum of my interest in the arts and involvement in creating that was strong enough that it later blossomed into much more."
"The environment itself was culturally a vacuum, in that there was simply nothing that would inspire me in the arts. But my parents were always very supportive of anything that I explored or wanted to do."
"Washington, D.C., has everything that Rome, Paris and London have in the way of great architecture - great power bases. Washington has obelisks and pyramids and underground tunnels and great art and a whole shadow world that we really don't see."
"[May] this civic and social landmark [the Washington, D.C., Jewish Community Center] ... be a constant reminder of the inspiring service that has been rendered to civilization by men and women of the Jewish faith. May [visitors] recall the long array of those who have been eminent in statecraft, in science, in literature, in art, in the professions, in business, in finance, in philanthropy and in the spiritual life of the world."
"All of the arts are kin - music and sculpture and dance, those are wordless art forms. But poetry is defined by language. Of course, each art is distinct, and has its own character - not just in terms of media, but in terms of what seems to lie at the heart of it."
"Many other cultures value poetry more than we do. In Ireland, poetry is a top cultural pursuit, the art to end all arts."
"I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political."
"I don't *ever* write about real people. Art is supposed to be better than that. If you want a slice of life, look out the window."
"I mean, art for art's sake is ridiculous. Art is for the sake of one's needs."
"Lenin thought abstract art was a conspiracy by the bourgeois to demoralize the proletariat. Yeah, socialist realism!"
"I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony."
"Ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil. No community where every member possesses the art can ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms."
"Cortissoz was art critic of the New York Herald Tribune."
"The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt."
