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

“Art and works of art do not make an artist sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.”

-- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“What matters poverty? What matters anything to him who is enamoured of our art? Does he not carry in himself every joy and every beauty?”

-- Sarah Bernhardt

“As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.”

-- Albrecht Durer

“Space is the breath of art.”

-- Frank Lloyd Wright

“The art world can be very intimidating because it's just so vast. You talk to people who are really clued in to all the young artists and coming into it you're never going to be able to catch up immediately, even though there's pressure to.”

-- Daniel Radcliffe

“Art is not necessary at all. All that is necessary to make this world a better place to live in is to love - to love as Christ loved, as Buddha loved.”

-- Isadora Duncan

“The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.”

-- Samuel Butler

“Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp.”

-- John Donne

“Since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art - or almost the only stuff.”

-- David Herbert Lawrence