Art Quotes

Picture and sculpture are the celebrations and festivities of form. But true art is never fixed, but always flowing.

When drawing a face, any face, it is as if curtain after curtain, mask after mask, falls away, until a final mask remains, one that can no longer be removed, reduced. By the time the drawing is finished, I know a great deal about that face, for no face can hide itself for long. But […]

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

In the vaunted works of Art, The master-stroke is Nature’s part.

Art imitates Nature, and necessity is the mother of invention.

Where the world ceases to be the stage for personal hopes and desires, where we, as free beings, behold it in wonder, to question and to comtemplate, there we enter the realm of art and of science. If we trace out what we behold and experience through the language of logic, we are doing science; […]

It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament.

Art has no history – there is only a continuous present.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

Art is the surest and safest civilizer.