Art Quotes

“When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.”

-- Marc Chagall

“In fact, in many ways my mother was quite hippy-dippy, serving macrobiotic food and reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.'”

-- Kristin Scott Thomas

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

-- Edgar Degas

“Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.”

-- Karl Kraus

“What is art? Nature concentrated.”

-- Honore de Balzac

“I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.”

-- Charlie Chaplin

“I don't think there is such a thing as being too raunchy when it comes to the art form of burlesque.”

-- Christina Aguilera

“Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.”

-- John Ruskin

“Art is born of humiliation.”

-- W. H. Auden

“Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.”

-- Tom Stoppard