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Artist Quotes

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Artist Quotes

“If men were able to be convinced that art is a precise advance knowledge of how to cope with the psychic and social consequences of the next technology, would they all become artist? Or would they begin a careful translation of new art forms into social navigation charts? I am curious to know what would happem if art were suddenly seen for what it is, namely, exact information of how to rearrange one's psyche in order to anticipate the next blow from our own extended faculties.”

Source: Understanding media: the extensions of man

“We are accustomed to the artist scoundrel or specialist in vice, and unaccustomed to the creator in whom passion and reason and moral integrity hold in balance. But greatness of intellect and feeling, or soul and conduct - magnanimity, in short - does occur; it is not a myth for boy scouts, and its reality is important, if only to give us the true range of the term "human," which we so regularly define by its lower reaches.”

“In other things the knowing artist may Judge better than the people; but a play, (Made for delight, and for no other use) If you approve it not, has no excuse.”

People Ifs May Made Play Use Artist Acting Knowing Judging Delight Excuse No Excuses

Book:The Poetical Works of Edmund Waller. From Mr. Fenton's Quarto Edition, 1729. With the Life of the Author ... Embellished with Superb Engravings [including a Portrait.]

Source: The Poetical Works of Edmund Waller. From Mr. Fenton's Quarto Edition, 1729. With the Life of the Author ... Embellished with Superb Engravings [including a Portrait.]

“The best thing about being an artist, instead of a madman or someone who writes letters to the editor, is that you get to engage in satisfying work. Even if you never publish a word, you have something important to pour yourself into.”

Ifs Writing Important Artist Letters Best Things Editors Satisfying Publish Madmen Being An Artist Satisfying Work Letters To The Editor

Book:Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“In Bergman's world I represented a sort of intellectual, skeptical, ironic person, rather cold and frustrated. When I went abroad and made films in Italy and other places, I was used in different ways. I was rather often cast as crazy people, maniacs. It was very good for me and it was fun because it is nice to play crazy people if you are not in reality. And I think perhaps that changed how Ingmar saw me. Suddenly I was on the more magical side of his world, playing the people with fantasies, variety, the artists.”

“If within the last century art conceived as an autonomous activity has come to be invested with an unprecedented stature - the nearest thing to a sacramental human activity acknowledged by secular society - it is because one of the tasks art has assumed is making forays into and taking up positions on the frontiers of consciousness (often very dangerous to the artist as a person) and reporting back what's there.”

Ifs Humans Persons Art Lasts Artist Consciousness Century Dangerous Position Activity Tasks Secular Frontiers Unprecedented Stature Human Activity Autonomous Secular Society

Author:Susan Sontag

“The only original part in a work of art is the infusion of the artist's own character, if he has one.”

Ifs Art Character Artist Art Is Originals Works Of Art Infusion

Author:Austin O'Malley

“To express himself well, the artist should be hidden. The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he's done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.”

Ifs Knows Should Wells Done Artist Trouble Genius Salvation Delusion Grandeur Labourers Delusions Of Grandeur

Author:Pierre-Auguste Renoir

“The so-called 'discoveries' of the Impressionists could not have been unknown to the old masters; and if they made no use of them, it was because all great artists have renounced the use of effects. And in simplifying nature, they made it all the greater.”

Ifs Has Beens Made Use Artist Greater Effects Masters Discovery Made It Great Art Great Artist Impressionists

Author:Pierre-Auguste Renoir

“I'm so devoted to my music and becoming the best artist I can be. I don't want to devote too much time to anything else before I say I've conquered that. I just wanna become bigger and I'm never satisfied with just what I am today, I just always want to be bigger. If I was Bill Gates, I would double Bill Gates. That's the mindstate you should keep in any profession, just keep striking iron and trying to get bigger and better.”

Ifs Want Should Trying I Can Today Artist Too Much Becoming Bigger Bills Profession Satisfied Iron Gates Devoted Bigger And Better Best Artist Becoming The Best

Author:Fabolous

“To be born with a unique instinct, will demand 'unique duties'. If you didn't think about being an artist before 7 years of age you probably don't have it and you will be able to paint what you want to paint.”

Ifs Thinking Want Years Age Able Artist Born Duty Demand Unique Instinct Paint What You Want Being An Artist

Author:David Luiz

“If an artist comes intuitively from the point of design, notan - lightness/darkness - is natural.”

Ifs Artist Natural Darkness Design Lightness

Author:Sara Genn

“Just let the artist sign an empty canvas or a frame, with the inscription, 'I had such and such a concept in mind' for this work. The artist then need not bother with producing the work, and therefore need not be worried about being dis-satisfied. All he or she needs to do is to sell it to a collector. The collector will have the guarantee that the artist thought about the work, even if momentarily, and therefore be satisfied.”

Ifs Needs Mind Artist Concepts Empty Sells Satisfied Worried Bother Guarantees Canvas Collectors Guarantees That Inscriptions Empty Canvas

Author:Semir Zeki

“No one would want to pay a penny for an empty canvas by me. But it would be quite another if the empty canvas were signed by a great artist. I would be surprised if an empty canvas by Picasso or Matisse signed and inscribed with the words, 'I wanted to paint such and such on this canvas, but did not do so,' would not fetch thousands... After all, with an empty canvas, the possibilities are limitless, and so perhaps is the cash.”

Ifs Want Would Be Wanted Artist Pay Possibility Empty Paint Recognition Cash Canvas Great Art Limitless Pennies Great Artist Fetch Matisse Empty Canvas

Author:Semir Zeki

“If you have ambitions to go beyond your dreams, you should not seek to copy others' styles, but rather aim to acquire the fundamentals of the timeless principles of academic school, which is a prerequisite for the development of your Uniqueness as an Artist.”

Ifs Should Dream School Artist Principles Style Development Ambition Aim Fundamentals Your Dreams Acquire Copies Academic Uniqueness Timeless Prerequisites

Author:Igor Babailov

“For many artists fame complements the value of creative self-expression. Ludwig van Beethoven loved composing music, but he probably would have enjoyed it less if no one ever listened to the product.”

Ifs Self Artist Values Creative Expression Products Fame Enjoyed Vans Self Expression Composing Complement Composing Music

Book:What Price Fame?

Source: What Price Fame?

“If an artist has no experience before he makes a painting or a sculpture, he is not an artist.”

Ifs Artist Painting Sculpture Inexperience

Book:Gabo on Gabo: Texts and Interviews

Source: Gabo on Gabo: Texts and Interviews

“Painting expresses the depth and insight, the spiritual quality of the artist. If art is about life, then, while the depth to which the artist has drunk from the well of life may not guarantee success, it must surely improve the quality of his/her work.”

Ifs Wells May Art Spiritual Artist Quality Painting Art Is Depth Insight Drunk Guarantees

Author:Millard Sheets

“The artist does not see both eyes alike. There is always 'the eye' and the other eye... It adds life and plasticity to the drawing if the eye in the light is darker than the one in the shadow. It gives the head vividness.”

Ifs Giving Doe Light Eye Artist Shadow Add Drawing Portraiture Vividness Plasticity

Author:John French Sloan

“If paintings are so important - worth so much, reproduced, cherished, and visited so often - then isn't it troubling that we can hardly make emotional contact with the artists? Few centuries, it seems, are as determinedly tearless as ours.”

Ifs Important Seems Artist Century Emotional Painting Importance Contact

Author:James Elkins

“Frightening for many artists is promoting themselves. They feel it is... artificial and not what we want to be known for. Yet if we start thinking about what we do as important and important to offer to people, not to sell... it allows us to shift the way we think about promoting ourselves.”

People Ifs Thinking Way Want Feels Important Artist Known Offers Sells Selling Artificial Frightening Promoting

Author:Adam Leipzig

“When the artist observes nature... it is as if nature communicated, through the sensitivity of the artist at that moment, one of its secrets.”

Ifs Moments Artist Secret Communication That Moment Sensitivity

Author:Bruno Munari

“The average artist, if he chooses, could render an exact drawing of what he sees. Artistic work not only allows but demands some deviation from form and line. Just how far this may go depends on the viewpoint of each painter.”

Ifs May Form Artist Lines Depends Demand Average Drawing Painter Artistic Realism Viewpoints Deviation

Author:Edgar Alwin Payne

“The passionate reactions of people to a painting, the exclamation, 'Oh, this is wonderful,' may, even if meant in a positive way, entirely destroy the chiaroscuro, the mystical hidden weaving of fantasy which the artist needs.”

People Ifs Way Needs May Artist Fantasy Wonderful Painting Passionate Reactions Mystical Weaving Exclamation Chiaroscuro

Book:The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Revised Edition

Source: The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Revised Edition

“I've always been interested in history, but they never taught Negro history in the public schools...I don't see how a history of the United States can be written honestly without including the Negro. I didn't [paint] just as a historical thing, but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today. We don't have a physical slavery, but an economic slavery. If these people, who were so much worse off than the people today, could conquer their slavery, we can certainly do the same thing....I am not a politician. I'm an artist, just trying to do my part to bring this thing about.”

“If people like you, they will like your magic. If you are an artist at what you do, they will sing your praises and applaud your artistry.”

People Ifs Artist Magic Like You Praise Artistry

Author:Paul LePaul

“I have an office full of product from brands trying to be in videos and an inbox full of songs from artists, but at the end of the day if the artist doesn't support the brand or it doesn't make sense for the song, then it will never work. What we do is try to pair them up so that both sides are happy.”

Ifs Trying Ends Artist Song Sides Support Products Office Video Brands Make Sense The End Of The Day Pairs Both Sides Inbox

Author:Adam Kluger

“The bourgeoisie's weapon is starvation. If as a writer or artist you run counter to their narrow notions they simplyand silently withdraw your means of subsistence. I sometimes wonder how many people of talent are executed in this way every year.”

People Ifs Way Years Mean Sometimes Running Artist Wonder Talent Weapons Notion Starvation Bourgeoisie Subsistence

Author:Robert Louis Stevenson

“Variation does not mean evolution. If an artist varies his mode of expression this only means that he has changed his manner of thinking, and in changing, it might be for the better or it might be for the worse.”

Ifs Thinking Mean Doe Might Artist Changed Expression Evolution Variation Vary

Book:Picasso: style and meaning

Source: Picasso: style and meaning

“The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth.”

Ifs Knows Men Two Earth Artist Three Behinds Knowing Feet He Man Creatures Dancing Inspired Leaving Surface Tales Print

Book:Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

“The script [for the movie based on the life of singer Connie Francis -- "Who's Sorry Now?"] is finished and is in the hands of several artists to see if somebody wants to film at the start of [2006].”

Ifs Want Hands Film Artist Sorry Scripts Finished Singers

Author:Gloria Estefan

“The man who reacts to the universe with a cry of impotent anguish is acceptable as an artist only if he can persuade us that he has sanely considered the other possible reactions and found them inadequate.”

Ifs Men Artist Universe Found Cry He Man Reactions Acceptable Anguish Inadequate

Book:Tynan on theatre

Source: Tynan on theatre

“If modern painters feel qualms about applying the term "masterpiece" to describe a work of capital importance, this is because it has come to convey a notion of perfection: a notion that leads to much confusion when applied to artists other than those who made perfection their ideal.”

Ifs Feels Made Artist Term Modern Ideals Perfection Importance Notion Confusion Painter Masterpiece Qualms Qualms About

Author:Andre Malraux

“Let me point out, if it has escaped your notice, that what an artist does, is fail.”

Ifs Doe Artist Failing Let Me

Author:Donald Barthelme

“The good bodybuilders have the same mind ... that a sculptor has. If you analyze it, you look in the mirror and you say, okay, I need a bit more deltoids ... so that the proportion's right, and ... you exercise and put those deltoids on, whereas an artist would just slap on some clay on each side.”

Ifs Needs Mind Looks Artist Bits Sides Exercise Okay Mirrors Proportion Clay Slap Sculptors Bodybuilder

Author:Arnold Schwarzenegger

“A defective voice will always preclude an artist from achieving the complete development of his art, however intelligent he may be.... The voice is an instrument which the artist must learn to use with suppleness and sureness, as if it were a limb.”

Ifs May Art Use Artist Voice Acting Achieve Development Intelligent Instruments Limbs Defective

Author:Sarah Bernhardt

“If an Artist love his Art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own.”

Ifs Wells Art Artist Excellence Sake Delight Artist Love

Book:Lectures on Art, and Poems

Source: Lectures on Art, and Poems

“I don't think that either self-deprecation or self-aggrandizement is among the defining qualities of an artist... Beethoven could have been forgiven if his symphonies had gone to his head. Gretchaninoff could also be forgiven if his Dobrinya Nikititch went to his head. But neither one could be forgiven for writing a piece that was amoral, servile, the work of a flunky.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Has Beens Self Artist Quality Gone Pieces Forgiven Could Have Been Defining Symphony Self Deprecation

Author:Dmitri Shostakovich

“What is a portrait good for, unless it shows just how the subject was seen by the painter? In the old days before photography came in a sitter had a perfect right to say to the artist: "Paint me just as I am." Now if he wishes absolute fidelity he can go to the photographer and get it.”

Ifs Shows Artist Wish Perfect Subjects Photography Absolutes Paint Photographer Painter Portraits Fidelity Old Days

Author:Aubrey Beardsley

“To play chess on a truly high level requires a constant stream of exact, informed decisions, made in real time and under pressure from your opponent. What's more, it requires a synthesis of some very different virtues, all of which are necessary to good decisions: calculatioñ, creativity and a desire for results. If you ask a Grandmaster, an artist and a computer scientist what makes a good chess player, you'll get a glimpse of these different strengths in action.”

Source: How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom

“Certain jobs [films] are for the business really, because they get an audience, they get a global audience. Certain jobs are as an artist. If I can keep moving forward and strike some form of balance between them two, then I'm going to feel content.”

Ifs Feels I Can Two Jobs Film Moving Form Artist Certain Audience Balance Strikes Moving Forward Keep Moving Keep Moving Forward

Author:Jack O'Connell

“If you want to know what's really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than truth or beauty.”

Ifs Knows Want Artist Money Musician Concerned Advertising Ideology Journalist Manipulation

Book:You Are Not a Gadget

Source: You Are Not a Gadget

“Once we become conscious of a feeling and attempt to make a corresponding form, we are engaged in an activity which, far from being sincere, is prepared (as any artist if he is sincere will tell you) to moderate feelings to fit the form. The artist's feeling for form is stronger than a formless feeling.”

Ifs Feelings Form Artist Fit Activity Conscious Stronger Prepared Engaged Sincere Moderates Corresponding Being Sincere

Author:Herbert Read

“There's a tolerance and this is a really big thing when it comes to really increasing the whole sense of getting something done and boosting the economy. Obviously not everything is going to be a bonanza, some things are going to be awful, but wouldn't it be great if we had a fantastic window dresser to do something with those windows on Fairfield green and those Victoria's Secret windows. I love girls in bras in panties, but these are just mannequins. Wouldn't it be great if some local artists got together and said, "Hey, Victoria's Secret, let's do something!" We need that.”

Ifs Needs Said Done Whole Bigs Together Artist Girl Secret Economy Window Green Tolerance Locals Awful Hey Fantastic Big Things Underwear Victoria Bras Panties Dressers Victoria's Secret

Author:Tina Weymouth

“I honestly believe that sound commercialism is the best test of true value in art. People work hard for their money and if they won't part with it for your product the chances are that your product hasn't sufficient value. An artist or writer hasn't any monopoly .... If the public response to his artistry is lacking, he'd do well to spend more time analyzing what's the matter with his work, and less time figuring what's the matter with the public.”

Source: Pegasus Pulls a Hack: Memoirs of a Modern Minstrel

“If we artists are to survive this period at all - we will survive as spokesmen, never again as entertainers.”

Ifs Artist Periods Entertainers

Author:Rico Lebrun

“There's something peculiar about artists. They have ups and downs... After a while everything you do is just wonderful... then you slide back. If you're a good artist you're going to go down. And then it's up to you.”

Ifs Artist Wonderful Down And Peculiar Slides Up To You Ups & Downs Good Art Good Artist

Author:Milton Resnick

“When you don't know how to pick up a brush, you don't know anything; at that moment you're an artist. I'll simply say, 'If you know less, you're better off as an artist.”

Ifs Knows Moments Artist Know How Picks That Moment Brushes Better Off

Author:Milton Resnick

“I have always had a passion for the beautiful. If the man in me is often a pessimist, the artist, on the contrary, is pre-eminently an optimist.”

Ifs Men Beautiful Artist Passion He Man Optimism Contrary Optimist Pessimist

Book:The Life of an Artist: Art and Nature

Source: The Life of an Artist: Art and Nature

“If you've got a deadline and you're an artist, you've just got to be on the case - nothing else can come in the way, or you won't make good work... the people around you just have to understand.”

People Ifs Way Artist Cases Priorities Good Work Deadline

Author:Catherine Yass