Art Defined Quotes

It was Public Art, defined as art that is purchased by experts who are not spending their own personal money. ~ Dave Barry

Artistic creation - in summary - is the desire not to forget. ~ Charlotte M. Bridwell

Thousands of years and many civilizations have defined a marriage as the union between one man and one woman. With few exceptions, those civilizations that did not follow that perished. ~ Randy Neugebauer

There can be no "free market" without government. The "free market" does not exist in the wilds beyond the reach of civilization. Competition in the wild is a contest for survival in which the largest and strongest typically win. Civilization, by contrast, is defined by rules; rules create markets, and governments generate the rules. ~ Robert B. Reich

That's the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings. ~ Damien Hirst

Ars Poetica

To gaze at the river made of time and water
And recall that time itself is another river,
To know we cease to be, just like the river,
And that our faces pass away, just like the water.

To feel that waking is another sleep
That dreams it does not sleep and that death,
Which our flesh dreads, is that very death
Of every night, which we call sleep.

To see in the day or in the year a symbol
Of mankind's days and of his years,
To transform the outrage of the years
Into a music, a rumor and a symbol,

To see in death a sleep, and in the sunset
A sad gold, of such is Poetry
Immortal and a pauper. For Poetry
Returns like the dawn and the sunset.

At times in the afternoons a face
Looks at us from the depths of a mirror;
Art must be like that mirror
That reveals to us this face of ours. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Popular art is normally decried as vulgar by the cultivated people of its time; then it loses favor with its original audience as a new generation grows up; then it begins to merge into the softer lighting of ~ Northrop Frye

Industry without art is brutality. ~ Ananda Coomaraswamy

One of the most striking of abstract art's appearances is her nakedness, an art stripped bare. ~ Robert Motherwell

As far as I can tell the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on daytrips with the art departments. ~ Banksy

Our story was a complex piece of art that we worked on every day. It wasn't always beautiful in the traditional sense, but it was captivating, and worthy and endless. ~ Rachel Higginson

My art career actually began under the kitchen table. My mother wanted to get me out of her hair while she cooked, so she laid out some paper and pencils on the floor under the kitchen table. ~ Alton Tobey

It baseball is an American institution and more lasting than some marriages, war, Supreme Court decisions and even major depressions ~ Art Rust, Jr.

As I had collaborated with visual artists before whether on installations, on performance pieces, in the context of theatre works and as I had taught for a time in art colleges the idea of writing music in response to painting was not alien. ~ Gavin Bryars

Jealousy also forms the theme for many well-known works of literature as well as art. Agnolo Bronzino's 'Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time', painted in 1545, which hangs in the National Gallery in London, shows a nude Venus with Cupid kissing her, his hand on her breast, as Father Time, depicted by an old man, watches on. A dark figure howling in agony just behind them is Jealousy. ~ Preeti Shenoy

Some believe that art is the imitation of nature; in fact, nature is so sublime that it cannot be imitated. However noble it may be, art cannot perform a single one of the miracles of nature. And besides, why imitate nature when it can be perceived by all those endowed with senses? ~ Kahlil Gibran

There was a big drive when I was at art school to make you aware of the economy of meaning - after all, this was still during the tail end of minimalism. Being responsible for everything you put in your picture, and being able to defend it. Keeping everything clear around you so you know what is operating. To open the wound and keep it clean. ~ Jane Campion

A fisherman in the month of May stood angling on the bank of the Thames with an artificial fly. He threw his bait with so much art, that a young trout was rushing toward it, when she was prevented by her mother. "Never," said she, "my child, be too precipitate, where there is a possibility of danger. Take due time to consider, before you risk an action that may be fatal. How know you whether yon appearance be indeed a fly, or the snare of an enemy? Let someone else make the experiment before you. If it be a fly, he will very probably elude the first attack: and the second may be made, if not with success, at least with safety." She had no sooner spoken, than a gudgeon seized the pretended fly, and became an example to the giddy daughter of the importance of her mother's counsel. FABLES, ROBERT DODSLEY, 1703-1764 ~ Robert Greene

Art doesn't exist if you just do what you're told. It only exists as an exercise of individual taste and freedom. ~ Jane Smiley

Fans decide what pop culture is. We can define ourselves. Music and the presentation of art nowadays is totally in our control, with the Internet specifically. You no longer need record labels. You no longer need movie distribution companies. You can just make it and put it online, and it will distribute itself to millions of people. The borders and everything have been broken down. It really is in the hands of the people. ~ Laura Jane Grace

The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty. ~ Francisco Goya

I understand what it is to go through emotional trauma and retreat and go into the world of your imagination. I understand how art and music can be a place of safety in a world of reinvention. ~ Sam Taylor-Wood

Art is the one thing man creates not out of need or luxury; therefore, it is the purest essence of his individuality. ~ Anthony Paolucci

The art of drawing which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing ... should be taught to every child just as writing is. ~ John Ruskin

I was sad to leave Europe in 1890, after my student days in Germany ... But then, once back in New York, I experienced an intense longing for Europe, for its vital tradition of music, theatre, art, craftsmanship ... I felt bewildered and lonely. How was I to use myself? ~ Alfred Stieglitz

So, take what's inside you and make big, bold choices. And for those who can't speak for themselves, use bold voices. And make friends and love well, bring art to this place. And make this world better for the whole human race. ~ Jamie Lee Curtis

I think most producers and MCs are constantly in this competition, but it's usually with yourself. It's usually wanting to be innovative: wanting to catch yourself when you're doing the same thing or throwing out the same art you've already done. ~ Ryan Lewis

To meditate, you need to feel, and feeling is a lost art. You need to feel the stillness of existence and also the sound of existence. You need to feel that which lies beyond your awareness field, and that which is within it. ~ Frederick Lenz

The line between accident and suicide isn't always clearly defined. You could kill yourself without really making up your mind. ~ Robert Harris

Art doesn't change the ending. It doesn't let you lose yourself that way--the opposite, really; it calls you from the darkness, into the glaring, unforgiving light. But at least--this is why it will always feel like a calling to me--it lets you not be so alone. ~ Kelly Loy Gilbert

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The definition of Christian art is to be found in its subject and its spirit. Everything, sacred and profane, belongs to it. God does not ask for "religious" art or "Catholic" art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth. ~ Jacques Maritain

Sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third-person voice protects us. ~ Michael Ondaatje

It is the job of art to replace unhappy true stories with happier inventions. ~ Sophie Hannah

I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a predecessor who attracted me, until at length, after I had molded it ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The Addams dwelling at 25 West Fifty-fourth Street was directly behind the Museum of Modern Art, at the top of the building. It was reached by an ancient elevator, which rumbled up to the twelfth floor. From there, one climbed through a red-painted stairwell where a real mounted crossbow hovered. The Addams door was marked by a "big black number 13," and a knocker in the shape of a vampire.

...Inside, one entered a little kingdom that fulfilled every fantasy one might have entertained about its inhabitant. On a pedestal in the corner of the bookcase stood a rare "Maximilian" suit of armor, which Addams had bought at a good price ("a bargain at $700")... It was joined by a half-suit, a North Italian Morion of "Spanish" form, circa 1570-80, and a collection of warrior helmets, perched on long stalks like decapitated heads... There were enough arms and armaments to defend the Addams fortress against the most persistent invader: wheel-lock guns; an Italian prod; two maces; three swords. Above a sofa bed, a spectacular array of medieval crossbows rose like birds in flight. "Don't worry, they've only fallen down once," Addams once told an overnight guest. ...

Everywhere one looked in the apartment, something caught the eye. A rare papier-mache and polychrome anatomical study figure, nineteenth century, with removable organs and body parts captioned in French, protected by a glass bell. ("It's not exactly another human heart beating in the house, but it's close ~ Linda H. Davis

[Audubon's works are] the most splendid monuments which art has erected in honor of ornithology. ~ Georges Cuvier

There has been no great surprise, no sudden revelation. I knew pretty much what I was getting into. What I've learned is that a restaurant can be as much of an art as you want it to be, but it has to be a successful business first. ~ Charlie Trotter

A beautiful person is not defined by a hair style, a pair of shoes, it's not the logos on the T-shirt, the sport's team on a hat, the designer's name on a hand bag, or even how you smell.

Instead, beauty lies in who you are when no one is watching, the person you are when there's nothing to hide behind. No amount of concealer can cover up a cantankerous heart, but all the make-up in the world can't add a single lumen to the brightness of a beautiful soul. ~ Justin Young

One of my mission statements with all of my art has been to stop the world for people. I want to stop the worrying and stop the world. ~ Jim Carrey

Nursing is a progressive art such that to stand still is to go backwards. ~ Florence Nightingale

I've danced my whole life. Martial arts is just fun for me, it's all choreographed a bit like dance. I have done Muay Thai and Wushu, which is cool because it's very fluid dance. I also do Tricking. It's kind of like Taekwondo with the big kicks and flips and showier aspects of martial arts. ~ Caity Lotz

Do you know that drawing with words is also an art ... ? ~ Vincent Van Gogh

God's careful instructions for building the tabernacle in Exodus 31 remind us that his perfection sets the standard for whatever we create in his name. Whatever we happen to make-not only in the visual arts, but in all the arts-we should make it as well as we can, offering God our very best. ~ Philip Graham Ryken