Quotes about Art

there were masses of pictures she had not seen; however, Lily Briscoe reflected, perhaps it was better not to see pictures: they only made one hopelessly discontented with one's own work.

I will write, she had said, what I enjoy writing.

They never saw him drawing pictures of them naked at their antics in his notebook.

What she said in To the Lighthouse of Lily Briscoe's art she might have said of her own: that the pen was 'the one dependable thing in a world of strife, ruin, chaos . . .',73 and the godlike power she felt as a writer is perfectly embodied in a passage from that novel.

Knitting her reddish-brown hairy stocking, with her head outlined absurdly by the gilt frame, the green shawl which she had tossed over the edge of the frame, and the authenticated masterpiece by Michael Angelo, Mrs. Ramsay smoothed out what had been harsh in her manner a moment before, raised his head, and kissed her little boy on the forehead. Let us find another picture to cut out, she said.

I never heard that it had been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection. I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much.

Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

Caleb was no sorcerer, but in the only magic art that still remains to us, the magic of devoted, deathless love, Nature had been the mistress of his study; and from her teaching, all the wonder came.

A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words. Some poems took years to find their words.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

I'd as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.