“The arts teach and moralise by their beauty alone, not by translating a philosophical or social formula. For the truly artistic person, painting has itself as it's purpose, which is quite enough.” PersonsArtEnoughPurposeSocialTeachPaintingPhilosophicalArtisticFormulasTranslate Author:Theophile Gautier
“Writers are painful friends, and they are seldom friendly with others. They are insecure in the presence of other writers. Composers of certain kinds of music are the same--tormented and intolerant. Yet some arts not only make the artist social but make him depend upon sociability in order to succeed. Painting is one.” KindArtArtistCertainOrderSocialPaintingDependsSucceedPainfulFriendlyComposerInsecureSociabilityOrder To Succeed Book:The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain Source: The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain
“I do not pose my sitters. I do not deliberate and then concoct... Before painting, when I talk to the person, they unconsciously assume their most characteristic pose, which in a way involves all their character and social standing - what the world has done to them and their retaliation.” WorldWayPersonsDoneCharacterSocialPaintingModelsStandingAssumingCharacteristicsDeliberateRetaliation Author:Alice Neel
“By denying people's sense of visual beauty in painting and sculpture , melody in music , meter and rhyme in poetry , plot and narrative and character in fiction , the elite arts wrote off the vast majority of their audience . They purposely excluded people who approach art in part for pleasure and edification in favour of social one-upmanship and an ever-narrowing, in-crowd elite.” PeopleArtCharacterSocialPleasureFictionAudiencePaintingApproachMajorityCrowdsNarrativeVisualsPlotMelodyElitesRhymeFavourSculptureMeterExcludedElitismEdification Author:Steven Pinker
“Modern abstract art starts in Russia in about 1915 with Malevich, and then the Russian Revolution happens, and eventually all that experimental art gets squashed and social realism comes back into play. All of a sudden, Malevich is no longer painting black squares; he's painting peasants in colorful schmattas.” ArtPlayHappensSocialBlackModernPaintingRevolutionRussiaAbstractSquaresRealismPeasantsColorfulAbstract ArtRussian Revolution Author:Robert Longo
“I had grown up among engineers, and I could remember the engineers of the twenties very well indeed: their open, shining intellects, their free and gentle humor, their agility and breadth of thought, the ease with which they shifted from one engineering field to another, and, for that matter, from technology to social concerns and art. Then, too, they personified good manners and delicacy of taste; well-bred speech that flowed evenly and was free of uncultured words; one of them might play a musical instrument, another dabble in painting; and their faces always bore a spiritual imprint.” WellsArtMatterPlayMightRememberFacesSpiritualSocialTechnologyFieldsPaintingTasteSpeechConcernTwentiesInstrumentsShiningMusicalIntellectMannersEaseGentleGood ManEngineeringEngineersBoresDelicacyGood MannersBreadthAgilityMusical Instruments Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn