The truest philosophy, is not to long for anything in particular, but to accept everything as it comes, and find out the reason of it coming. — Marie Corelli
Marvin Hartley Bell (August 3, 1937 – December 14, 2020) Much of our lives involves the word 'no.' In school we are mostly told, 'Don't do it this way. Do it that way.' But art is the big yes. In art, you get a chance to make something where there was nothing.
Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) I don’t think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.
Olivia Laing Art is one of the prime ways we have of opening ourselves and going beyond ourselves. That’s what art is, it’s the product of the human being in the world and imagination, all coming together. The irrepressibility of the life in the works, regardless of the times, the histories, the life stories, it’s …
Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) Great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.
Olivia Laing Art is one of the prime ways we have of opening ourselves and going beyond ourselves. That’s what art is, it’s the product of the human being in the world and imagination, all coming together. The irrepressibility of the life in the works, regardless of the times, the histories, the life stories, it’s …
Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth.
Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) That was the whole intention of the art: to affect and enter the culture by understanding and reflecting it; to contribute to and broaden the concept of art and the artist as much as possible.
John Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos (no less) and we can accomplish this only by the most vigilant exercise of choice, but in a world that changes more swiftly than we can perceive there is always the danger that our powers of …
Andrew Wyeth (July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) The brain must not interfere. You're painting so constantly that your brain disappears, and your subconscious goes into your fingers, and it just flows. If you think you're painting a good watercolor you can be sure it's lousy. It is important to forget what you are …
Maria Popova (July 28, 1984 -) To make art out of heartache is, of course, the most beautiful thing one could do with one’s sorrow, as well as the most generous — no artist knows how the transfiguration of their pain into beauty will salve another heart, give another sorrower the language of their own …
Megan O’Grady In any reflected life, there will be clarifying moments in which you travel to the edge of the shore. Art, at its best, does this mimetically, challenging us to see things differently by offering a set of open questions, rather than a verdict delivered from on high: a field of view that speaks …
Continue reading "Megan O’Grady On Art And The Reflected Life"
Amanda Palmer (April 30, 1976 -) Art is what happens if you’re able to hold fast — with one angry, trembling hand — to your art-mirror, the one that reflects you, your trials, your thoughts, your audience, your insights, your attempts to try to figure out and express What It All Might Fucking Mean.
Saul Bellow (June 10, 1915 – April 05, 2005) Only art penetrates … the seeming realities of this world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can’t receive.
DH Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 02, 1930) Design in art, is a recognition of the relation between various things, various elements in the creative flux. You can't invent a design. You recognize it, in the fourth dimension. That is, with your blood and your bones, as well as with your eyes.
Chinua Achebe (November 16, 1930 - March 21, 2013) Those who tell you ‘Do not put too much politics in your art’ are not being honest. If you look very carefully you will see that they are the same people who are quite happy with the situation as it is… What they are saying is …
Teresita Fernández (May 12, 1968 -) Being an artist is not just about what happens when you are in the studio. The way you live, the people you choose to love and the way you love them, the way you vote, the words that come out of your mouth... will also become the raw material for …
Ann Hamilton (June 22, 1956 -) One doesn’t arrive — in words or in art — by necessarily knowing where one is going. In every work of art something appears that does not previously exist, and so, by default, you work from what you know to what you don’t know. You may set out for …
Iris Murdoch (July 15, 1919 – February 08, 1999) Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify. The good artist is a vehicle of truth, he formulates ideas which would otherwise remain vague and focuses attention upon facts which can then no longer be ignored. The tyrant persecutes the …
Iris Murdoch (July 15, 1919 – February 8, 1999) Both art and philosophy constantly re-create themselves by returning to the deep and obvious and ordinary things of human existence and making there a place for cool speech and wit and serious unforced reflection. Long may this central area remain to us, the homeland of freedom …
Pablo Picasso (October 25, 1881 - April 08, 1973) A painting is not thought out and settled in advance. While it is being done, it changes as one's thoughts change. And when it's finished, it goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it.
Elizabeth Alexander (May 30, 1962 -) Art replaces the light that is lost when the day fades, the moment passes, the evanescent extraordinary makes its quicksilver. Art tries to capture that which we know leaves us, as we move in and out of each other’s lives, as we all must eventually leave this earth.
Mike Parr If you’re going to start consulting with people in order to do an artwork, how does that end? That’s not responsible political art. It’s populist. You’re trying to be all things for all people.
Mohsin Hamid (July 23, 1971 –) Art is bigger than notions of black or white, male or female, American or non. Human beings don’t necessarily exist inside of (or correspond to) the neat racial, gendered or national boxes into which we often unthinkingly place them. It’s a mistake to ask literature to reinforce such …
Belkis Ayón (January 23, 1967 – September 11, 1999) These are the things I have inside that I toss out because there are burdens with which you cannot live or drag along. Perhaps that is what my work is about — that after so many years, I realize the disquiet.
Franz Kafka (July 03, 1883 – June 03, 1924) Art, like prayer, is a hand outstretched in the darkness, seeking for some touch of grace which will transform it into a hand that bestows gifts. 🎂Happy Birthday Franz Kafka (July 03, 1883 – June 03, 1924) In Memoriam🌹
Melissa Pritchard (December 12, 1948 -) Great writers are witnesses to the spirit of their age. They need not be accepted by their times; they rarely are. Speaking the truth, they may go unheard, be misunderstood or criticized. Later, posthumously, it is said they were ahead of their time…What you have chosen is a profound …
Robert Pinsky (October 20, 1940 -) Poetry takes care of itself. All art does — that is paramount. In a survival race, I’m quite sure poetry will long outlast reality TV and Twitter.
Adrienne Rich (May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) Art is our human birthright, our most powerful means of access to our own and another's experience and imaginative life. In continually rediscovering and recovering the humanity of human beings, art is crucial to the democratic vision. And, for more than 50 years I have been …
If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. —Jiddu Krishnamurti
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses... We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. — John F. Kennedy
...If one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. — May Sarton
The most we can do is to write — intelligently, creatively, evocatively — about what it is like living in the world at this time. — Oliver Sacks
The truest philosophy, is not to long for anything in particular, but to accept everything as it comes, and find out the reason of it coming. — Marie Corelli
