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Artist Quotes

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Artist Quotes

“The wonder of an artist's performance grows with the range of his penetration, with the instinctive sympathy that makes him, in his mortal isolation, considerate of other men's fate and a great diviner of their secret, so that his work speaks to them kindly, with a deeper assurance than they could have spoken with to themselves.”

Men Artist Speak Grows Secret Wonder Fate Performances Deeper Mortals Range Isolation Assurance Considerate Penetration

Book:The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

Source: The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

“[The artist] speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear which binds together all humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.”

Source: The Portable Conrad

“The receptivity of the artist must never be confused with passivity. Receptivity is the artist's holding him or herself alive and open to hear what being may speak.”

May Artist Speak Alive Listening Confused Passivity Receptivity

Book:The Courage to Create

Source: The Courage to Create

“After too much art that made too much sense, artists are operating blind again. They're more interested in the possible than the probable, the private that speaks publicly rather than the public with no private side at all.”

Art Made Artist Speak Sides Too Much Blind

Author:Jerry Saltz

“Artists speak to a different part of us, bypassing the cloudy filter of reason and the fears and prejudices of the habitual mind.”

Mind Different Reason Artist Speak Prejudice Habitual Filters Cloudy

Book:The Essential Crazy Wisdom

Source: The Essential Crazy Wisdom

“So many artists today will talk about green this or organic that, but you know what? What we are eating, I think, is really doing a lot of bad to us. I'm not sure if I'm the guy to do it right now, because I have to clean up my house too, so to speak, but we've got to start addressing this. Too many people are getting sick today.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows Today Artist Guy House Speak Right Now Eating Sick Green Clean Not Sure

Author:Tom DeLonge

“It is the specialist's task to talk about means, about centimeters. An artist's task is to talk about the goal, about kilometers, thousands of kilometers. The organizing role of art consists of infecting the reader, of arousing him with pathos or irony -- the cathode and anode in literature. But irony that is measured in centimeters is pathetic, and centimeter-sized pathos is ridiculous. No one can be carried away by it. To stir the reader, the artist must speak not of means but of ends, of the great goal toward which mankind is moving.”

Inspirational Mean Art Ends Moving Artist Literature Speak Goal Roles Mankind Reader Tasks Ridiculous Irony Pathetic Specialists Carried Away Pathos

Author:Yevgeny Zamyatin

“I consider myself an artist, but instead of paint or clay, my medium is drag. I put so much of myself into my drag from every detail of the costume, makeup and hair to my performance, the way I speak or even stand.”

Way Artist Speak Hair Performances Paint Details Mediums Makeup Drag Costumes Clay

Author:Manila Luzon

“Painting is an unspoken and largely unrecognized dialogue, where paint speaks silently in masses and colors and the artist responds in moods.”

Artist Speak Color Painting Mass Paint Mood Dialogue Unspoken

Author:James Elkins

“Women can also be creative in total isolation. I know excellent women artists who do original work without any response to speak of. Maybe they are used to lack of feedback. Maybe they are tougher.”

Knows Used Artist Speak Creative Originals Response Gender Excellent Isolation Be Creative Feedback Woman Artist

Author:Elaine de Kooning

“Michael Jackson did something that no one else in history has managed - he connected with people on every level imaginable, all over the world. He seemed to speak to people at their very core and achieved the impossible. He reached people on a deep emotional level. And that is what any great artist or showman dreams of doing. That is why Michael Jackson was so special to me.”

People World Dream Artist Speak Levels Impossible Special Emotional Connected Core Great Art Great Artist Special To Me Deep Emotional

Author:David Blaine

“The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late.”

Knows Needs Art Whole Eye Artist Speak Acting Half Steps Taught Late Height Charm Summit Always Wrong

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ewer lived in Rome and then left it, without sighing to return.”

Art Sometimes Artist Left Speak Return Indifference Rome

Book:Six Months in Italy

Source: Six Months in Italy