Quotes about Art

The only truth is music.

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.

Making art provides uncomfortably accurate feedback about the gap that inevitably exists between what you intended to do, and what you did.

But in the end, one-sided views make for pretty flat-looking works of art.

I like the fact that in ancient Chinese art the great painters always included a deliberate flaw in their work: human creation is never perfect.

Given the way creation unfolds, how it builds to ever higher and higher works of art, can there be any doubt that Eve is the crown of creation?

Beautiful things, as Matisse shows, always carry greetings from other worlds within them.

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

I am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky! How beautiful thou art!

The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.

Besides, a long poem is a test of invention, which I take to be the Polar star of Poetry, as Fancy is the sails - and Imagination the rudder.

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us—and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject.