Art Quotes

“Does art have a future? Performance genres like opera, theater, music and dance are thriving all over the world, but the visual arts have been in slow decline for nearly 40 years. No major figure of profound influence has emerged in painting or sculpture since the waning of Pop Art and the birth of Minimalism in the early 1970s.”

-- Camille Paglia

“In every work of art the subject is primordial, whether the artist knows it or not. The measure of the formal qualities is only a sign of the measure of the artist's obsession with his subject the form is always in proportion to the obsession.”

-- Alberto Giacometti

“Success and the art of making music are two different things for me.”

-- Norah Jones

“Winners have the ability to step back from the canvas of their lives like an artist gaining perspective. They make their lives a work of art - an individual masterpiece.”

-- Denis Waitley

“It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.”

-- Aristotle

“A canon is antithetical to everything the New York art world has been about for the past 40 years, during which we went from being the center of the art world to being one of many centers.”

-- Jerry Saltz

“A painting that is well composed is half finished.”

-- Pierre Bonnard

“Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.”

-- Simone Weil

“The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.”

-- Paul Klee

“Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”

-- Margot Fonteyn