Art Quotes - Page 568

Some feminist critics debate whether we take our meaning and sense of self from language and in that process become phallocentric ourselves, or if there is a use of language that is, or can be, feminine. Some, like myself, think that language is itself neither male nor female; it is creatively expansive enough to be of use to those who have the wit and art to wrest from it their own significance. Even the dread patriarchs have not found a way to 'own' language any more than they have found a way to 'own' earth (though many seem to believe that both are possible).

I am an artist, not a dressmaker.

I paint in order not to cry.

A deliberate plan is not always necessary for the highest art; it emerges.

Art thou in misery, brother? Then I pray Be comforted. Thy grief shall pass away. Art thou elated? Ah, be not too gay; Temper thy joy: this, too, shall pass away. Art thou in danger? Still let reason sway, And cling to hope: this, too, shall pass away. Tempted art thou? In all thine anguish lay One truth to heart: this, too, shall pass away. Do rays of loftier glory round thee play? Kinglike art thou? This, too, shall pass away! Whate'er thou art, wher'er thy footsteps stray, Heed these wise words: This, too, shall pass away.

Proficiency in art is a contract with your self and the empowerment of your self. Not all of us demand or even desire proficiency, but for those who do it's necessary to temper the influence of groups. And while some artists think history is bunk, the historical evidence is overwhelming: "In my isolation I grow stronger."

Do not copy nature too much. Art is an abstraction.

There was earth inside them, and they dug.

And no book, and possibly no painting, when it is finished, is ever exactly like the first dream of it.

The true warrior understands and seizes that moment by giving an effort so intense and so intuitive that it could only be called one from the heart.

Olivier said that drama is an affair of the heart, or it's nothing, and he was right.

...the right to free expression is something one seizes, not something one is given.... if it does exist, it exists to be used against the established order.... There is absolute opposition between the artist and the state.

In art, practice always comes before theory.

Man has made many machines, complex and cunning, but which of them indeed rivals the workings of his heart?

Hitler decided that Mussolini must be freed from the Italian Partisans because Benito was his friend and had acted in good faith.

Poetry is the plough that turns up time in such a way that the abyssal strata of time, its black earth, appear on the surface.

I love my poor earth because I have seen no other.

Death is a great price to pay for a red rose“, cried the Nightingale, "and Life is very dear to all. “ It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent oft he hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?

I treated Art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction.

Art persists, it timelessly continues.

It may not happen in the first instant, but within ten minutes of meeting a man, a woman has a clear idea of who he is, or at least who he might be for her, and her heart of hearts has already told her whether or not she's going to fall in love with him.

It is therefore essential to let the 'heart spirit' settle like calm water. Then it becomes a tranquil lake in which the sky is reflected, in which the face of Christ can be seen.

Nature is the most beautiful thing we have. It's better than art because it's from the creator.

If you make the movie from your heart and it stands over time, that's what matters to me.

I think an artist has the potential to investigate both form and content within one activity, to show that there can be coherence between form and values in our society, as in thinking about a city and building one.