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Subjects Quotes

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Subjects Quotes

“But, after all, the aim of art is to create space - space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.”

Art Space Subjects Painting Art Is Aim Illustration Decoration

Book:Working Space

Source: Working Space

“And yet the artist will go on with his work without knowing in some way if any of his representations are sound or unsound. The artist knows nothing worth mentioning about the subjects he represents, and that art is a form of play, not to be taken seriously.”

Ifs Knows Way Art Play Form Artist Sound Knowing Taken Subjects Goes On Art Is Representation

Author:Plato

“The beautiful, which is perhaps inseparable from art, is not after all tied to the subject, but to the pictorial representation. In this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it.”

Way Doe Art Beautiful Beauty Subjects Art Is Overcoming Ugly Tied Representation Avoiding Inseparable Pictorial

Book:The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

Source: The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

“Art is viable when it finds elements in the surrounding environment. Our ancestors drew their subject matter from the religious attitudes which weighed on their souls. We must now learn to draw inspiration from the tangible miracles around us.”

Art Soul Matter Inspiration Religious Attitude Environment Subjects Elements Draws Art Is Miracle Ancestor Tangible Subject Matter

Author:Umberto Boccioni

“When a child who has been conceived in love is born to a man and a woman, the joy of that birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or painting is much the same, and the insemination comes not from the artist himself but from his relationship with those he loves, with the whole world. All real art is, in its true sense, religious; it is a religious impulse; there is not such thing as a non-religious subject.”

Men World Writing Children Has Beens Art Real Whole Joy Artist Universe Born Religious Love Is Subjects Painting Birth Art Is Whole World Impulse Non Religious

Author:Madeleine L'Engle

“Art arises in those strange complexities of action that are called human beings. It is a kind of human behavior. As such it is not magic, except as human beings are magical. Nor is it concerned in absolutes, eternities, "forms," beyond those that may reside in the context of the human being and be subject to his vicissitudes. Art is not an inner state of consciousness, whatever that may mean. Neither is it essentially a supreme form of communication. Art is human behavior, and its values are contained in human behavior.”

“Despite the hundreds of attempts, police terror and the concentration camps have proved to be more or less impossible subjects for the artist; since what happened in them was beyond the imagination, it was therefore also beyond art and all those human values on which art is traditionally based.”

Humans Art Artist Values Imagination Impossible Happened Subjects Art Is Police Terror Despite Concentration Camps Human Values Concentration Camp

Book:The Savage God: A Study of Suicide

Source: The Savage God: A Study of Suicide

“All real art is, in its true sense, religious; it is a religious impulse; there is no such thing as a non-religious subject. But much bad or downright sacrilegious art depicts so-called religious subjects.”

Art Real Religious Subjects Art Is Impulse Sacrilegious Non Religious

Book:A Circle of Quiet

Source: A Circle of Quiet

“No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling... The desire to grasp and be united with another human is so fundamental a part of our nature that our judgement of what is known as 'pure form' is inevitably influenced by it, and one of the difficulties of the nude as a subject for art is that these instincts cannot be hidden.”

Should Humans Art Feelings Form Desire United Known Failing Subjects Pure Art Is Difficulty Fundamentals Instinct Judgement Abstract Erotic Spectators

Book:The nude: a study in ideal form

Source: The nude: a study in ideal form

“The subject matter of art is life, life as it actually is; but the function of art is to make life better.”

Art Matter Subjects Art Is Function Subject Matter

Author:Gertrude Stein

“I don't do abstract art because I don't find it as interesting as I do subjects and depictions.”

Art Interesting Subjects Art Is Abstract Depiction Abstract Art

Author:Claes Oldenburg