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Modern Art Quotes

Browse 148 quotes about Modern Art.

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Modern Art Quotes

“Certainly, we can no longer look upon the canon of Western art - Greco-Roman as revived, extended, and graced by the Renaissance - as -the- tradition in art, or even any longer as distinctly and uniquely -ours-. That canon is in fact only one tradition among many, and indeed in its strict adherence to representational form is rather the exception in the whole gallery of -human- art. Such an extension of the resources of the past, for the modern artist, implies a different and more comprehensive understanding of the term "human" itself: a Sumerian figure of a fertility goddess is as "human" to us as a Greek Aphrodite. When the sensibility of an age can accommodate the alien "inhuman" forms of primitive art side by side with the classic "human" figures of Greece or the Renaissance, it should be obvious that the attitude toward man that we call classical humanism - which is the intellectual expression of the spirit that informs the classical canon of Western art - has also gone by the boards.”

HumanHumanismModern ArtHuman FormAnti CanonicalCultural DecentralizationExpansion Of Form
Book:Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy
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“When art is made new, we are made new with it. We have a sense of solidarity with our own time, and of psychic energies shared and redoubled, which is just about the most satisfying thing that life has to offer. 'If that is possible,' we say to ourselves, 'then everything is possible'; a new phase in the history of human awareness has been opened up, just as it opened up when people first read Dante, or first heard Bach's 48 preludes and fugues, or first learned from Hamlet and King Lear(/I> that the complexities and contradictions of human nature could be spelled out on the stage. This being so, it is a great exasperation to come face to face with new art and not make anything of it. Stared down by something that we don't like, don't understand and can't believe in, we feel personally affronted, as if our identity as reasonably alert and responsive human beings had been called into question. We ought to be having a good time, and we aren't. More than that, an important part of life is being withheld from us; for if any one thing is certain in this world it is that art is there to help us live, and for no other reason.”

ArtHuman NatureIdentityIdentificationModern ArtHamletDanteBachWays Of SeeingArt TheoryKing LearArt CriticismPostmodern Art
Book:The Meanings of Modern Art, Vol. 3: History as Nightmare
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“Jackson Pollock and Hugh Hefner both rose to prominence in the 1950s, though Pollock’s appeal was that no one understood him, and Hefner’s appeal was that no one misunderstood him. When Modern men think of art, they tend to think of such highs and lows. In the midst of this daring game of extremes, art lost the common touch.”

BeautyPornographyAestheticsGood TasteModern ArtConserevatism
Book:Love What Lasts: How to Save Your Soul from Mediocrity
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“I believe...that to be very poor and very beautiful is most probably a moral failure more than an artistic success. Shakespeare would have done well in any generation because he would have refused to die in a corner; he would have taken the false gods and made them over; he would have taken the current formulae and forced them into something lesser men thought them incapable of. Alive today he would undoubtedly have written and directed motion pictures, plays, and God knows what. Instead of saying, "This medium is not good," he would have used it and made it good. If some people called some his work cheap (which some of it was), he wouldn't have cared a rap, because he would know that without some vulgarity there is no complete man. He would have hated refinement, as such, because it is always a withdrawal, and he was too tough to shrink from anything.”

ArtCourageGreatnessIntegrityBraveryInnovationHip HopGreat ArtPornographyShakespeareRefinementVulgarityModern ArtCourage To Be OneselfThe TruthFresh IdeasSasha GreyStruggling ArtistStruggling WriterLars Von TrierBeautiful LosersPorn As ArtSex In Cinema
Book:Raymond Chandler Speaking
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“The deflation, or flattening out, of values in Modern art does not necessarily indicate an ethical nihilism. Quite the contrary; in opening our eyes to the rejected elements of existence, art may lead us to a more complete and less artificial celebration of the world.”

AcceptanceMeaningCelebrationNihilismModern ArtAnti HierarchyRejection Of Canon Of ValuesThe Negative
Book:Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy
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“But in my profession I know one miraculous name. You will be very much surprised. This name is Piet Mondrian. That man painted extremely simple panels, where on a seemingly white ground, divided by what seems to merely be black lines of different sizes and some rectangles of color. If you sit in front of that picture or in front of any of his pictures, but you cannot see it quick, you see it certain times. You have to conentrate and suddenly in front of your eyes, the background recedes, the airy, wonderful structure is advancing towards your eyes and you see the green going far and red coming nearer and the yellow going out of sight. And in front of your eyes is the structure. You are assisting at something that becomes in front of your eyes, that's veritably a becoming, you are assisting at the birth of a form. It is miraculous to recreate the form, but to make you see form being born in front of you -- it is a great miracle. [-- Martin A. Ryerson Lecture, 20 February 1951]”

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Author:Pavel Tchelitchew
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“But in my profession I know one miraculous name. You will be very much surprised. This name is Piet Mondrian. That man painted extremely simple panels, where on a seemingly white ground, divided by what seems to merely be black lines of different sizes and some rectangles of color. If you sit in front of that picture or in front of any of his pictures, but you cannot see it quick, you see it certain times. You have to concentrate and suddenly in front of your eyes, the background recedes, the airy, wonderful structure is advancing towards your eyes and you see the green going far and red coming nearer and the yellow going out of sight. And in front of your eyes is the structure. You are assisting at something that becomes in front of your eyes, that's veritably a becoming, you are assisting at the birth of a form. It is miraculous to recreate the form, but to make you see form being born in front of you -- it is a great miracle. [-- Martin A. Ryerson Lecture, 20 February 1951]”

IllusionModern ArtAbstract ArtArt AppreciationVisual Perception
Author:Pavel Tchelitchew
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“He was eager to tell me about his latest work, which consisted of him vomiting on a footpath, then cordoning it off. Each artwork lasted until the first ‘philistine’ thought to take the rope down. ‘In that way, the philistine is drawn – whether he likes it or not – into my art. He becomes part of it…and the vomit part of him. Essentially, it is the cosmic vomit. We all spew it. It blurs the boundaries, subverts the liminal…”

SatireSatiricalModern ArtPhilistines
Book:Reveries of the Dreamking
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“The real reason that students and increasingly teachers of art history are ready to jettison the past, however, is that the refusal of the authority of the past is the very program of modern art. To invest in modern art existentially is to agree to carry out that program. The investment in modern art entails contempt for the past. The inverse is true as well, although some would deny it. I would maintain that it is only possible to say something insightful about contemporary art from a standpoint well inside the magic circle. The rest of us on the outside, who do not live but only look at contemporary art, always misrecognize it.”

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Book:A History of Art History
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“While working in California, I met William Valentiner and Edgar Richardson of the Detroit Institute of Arts. I mentioned a desire which I had to paint a series of murals about the industries of the United States, a series that would constitute a new kind of plastic poem, depicting in color and form the story of each industry and its division of labor. Dr. Valentiner was keenly interested, considering my idea a potential base for a new school of modern art in America, as related to the social structure of American life as the art of the Middle Ages had been related to medieval society.”

ArtUnited StatesIndustryDetroitModern ArtDiego RiveraMuralsDetroit Institute Of Arts
Book:My Art, My Life
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“I shall never forget what I saw at the Museum of Modern Art: in a spotless schoolroom, fifty little girls painting away at tables covered with brushes, pots, tubes, bowls, staring into space and sticking out their tongues like the clever animals that ring a bell, tongues lolling and eyes vague. Teachers supervise these young creators of abstract art and slap their wrists if what they paint represents something and dangerously inclines toward realism. The mothers - still at the Picasso stage - are not admitted.”

IfsLittlesArtStillsEyeYoungMotherGirlSpaceForgetAnimalSawsTeacherModernStagePaintingTablesPaintCreatorTongueRingsCleverStaringAbstractFiftyNever ForgetCoveredMuseumsPotBellsRealismBowlsVagueBrushesModernismSlapTubesWristsModern ArtInclineAbstract ArtSticking OutStaring Into Space
Author:Jean Cocteau
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“The painters have no copyright on modern art!... I believe in, and make no apologies for, photography: it is the most important graphic medium of our day. It does not have to be, indeed cannot be - compared to painting - it has different means and aims.”

BelieveMeanDoeArtImportantDifferentI BelieveModernPaintingPhotographyAimCompetitionI Believe InMediumsPainterApologyGraphicCopyrightModern Art
Book:Edward Weston: The Flame of Recognition: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters
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“Modern Art is being used to index me. Surely it was a source but photographers have influenced Modern Art quite as deeply as they have been influenced, maybe more. Anyway painters don't have a copyright on M. A. We were all born in the same upheaval.”

Has BeensArtUsedBornModernSourceArt IsPhotographerPainterModernismCopyrightModern ArtUpheaval
Book:EW:100: centennial essays in honor of Edward Weston
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“What modern art means is that you have to keep finding new ways to express yourself, to express the problems, that there are no settled ways, no fixed approach. This is a painful situation, and modern art is about this painful situation of having no absolutely definite way of expressing yourself.”

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Book:Bourgeois
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“Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness. The symbol of art is seen again in the magic flute of the Great God Pan which makes the young goats frisk at the edge of the grove. All modern art begins to appear comprehensible and in a way great when it is interpreted as an attempt to instill youthfulness into an ancient world.”

MenWorldWayArtYoungMagicModernArt IsAncientEdgesSymbolsSavingUnexpectedSeriousnessGoatsRestoringInstillModern ArtFlutesGroveYouthfulnessAncient World
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
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“The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world - in other words - expressing the energy , the motion and the other inner forces ... the modern artist is working with space and time , and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.”

WorldMeanFeelingsSeemsAgeArtistEnergyForceSpaceModernObjectsCamerasPhotographTime And SpaceRepresentingInner WorldModern ArtIllustrating
Author:Jackson Pollock
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“Well, method is, it seems to me, a natural growth out of a need, and from a need the modern artist has found new ways of expressing the world about him. I happen to find ways that are different from the usual techniques, which seems a little strange at the moment, but I don't think there's anything very different about it. I paint on the floor and this isn't unusual - the Orientals did that.”

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Author:Jackson Pollock
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“In the potential of absurdity, hiding in the disparate combination of the various different subjects which in themselves are nothing but daily items equally in the exclusive representation of a normal item taken out of their usual context, is by far the most radical - in its effect comparable to a Japanese Zen koan - paradox to be witnessed, which modern art has produced, one of the most forceful impulses that generated from it.”

ArtDifferentTakenModernSubjectsEffectsNormalVariousRadicalCombinationImpulseParadoxHidingUsualRepresentationAbsurdityItemsExclusiveModern ArtDifferent Subjects
Author:Antoni Tapies
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“Painting is... a correspondence between what you are and what you see. It's a moment when something is holding together in such a way that it is a universe in itself... Within this is a test and also a judgment upon yourself, your capabilities, your promises, and the part that you play in the world. And nobody else can test that for you. Certainly not the Museum of Modern Art.”

WorldWayArtPlayMomentsTogetherUniverseModernPaintingPromiseJudgmentTestsMuseumsCapabilityModernismCorrespondenceModern Art
Author:Milton Resnick
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“On the surface the avant garde as a whole seems united primarily in terms of what they are against: the rejection of social institutions and established artistic conventions, or antagonism towards the public (as representative of the existing order). By contrast any positive programme tends to be claimed as exclusive property by isolated and even mutually antagonistic sub-groups. So modern art appears fragmented and sectarian, defined as much by manifestos as imaginative work.”

ArtWholeSeemsOrderSocialTermUnitedGroupsModernInstitutionsPropertySurfaceDefinedArtisticRejectionConventionsContrastIsolatedRepresentativesImaginativeExclusiveProgrammesAvant GardeModern ArtFragmentedAntagonismManifestosSocial Institutions
Author:C. D. Innes
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“While majority opinion may not take kindly to forms of modern art, that same majority has also been hostile to most original and radical innovations, such as automobiles or airplanes or transatlantic cables or Protestantism or the theory that the earth is round and not flat.”

MayArtEarthFormOpinionModernTheoryInnovationOriginalsMajorityRoundsRadicalFlatsAirplaneHostileCablesAutomobileModernismModern ArtProtestantismMajority Opinion
Author:Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
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“I felt most beautiful on the red carpet in Givenchys sheer lace dress at a dinner hosted by Givenchy in honor of Marina Abramovich at the closing of her Museum of Modern Art retrospective, The Artist is Present, in 2010. It was the first time I had been dressed for an event, and everybody just fell in love with the dress.”

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Author:Joan Smalls
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