Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all read more

Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details.

What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, read more

What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.

Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.

Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.

Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and read more

Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs.

When Michelangelo finished the painting of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, he spent the rest of his life trying to remove read more

When Michelangelo finished the painting of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, he spent the rest of his life trying to remove the paint that had poured into his sleeve.

Un croquis vaut mieux qu’un long discours."Fr., "A picture is worth a thousand words.

Un croquis vaut mieux qu’un long discours."Fr., "A picture is worth a thousand words.

As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make read more

As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting -- the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of read more

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values.