Art and artists

One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to read more

One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.

I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt read more

I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. 'That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific.' - "London Magazine", March, 1967.

I don't want to see pictures of Hollywood stars in their dressing gowns taking out the rubbish. It ruins the read more

I don't want to see pictures of Hollywood stars in their dressing gowns taking out the rubbish. It ruins the fantasy.

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind read more

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become read more

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.

Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.

One day the world will look upon research
on animals as it now looks upon research on human beings.
Da read more

One day the world will look upon research
on animals as it now looks upon research on human beings.
Da Vinci.

Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is read more

Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.

Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack read more

Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly I think, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. It is art which will take the great human themes --love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself --and render them fully human. It may also, though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme, one as great and as rich as those others --should we call it "joy"?.

Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model.

Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model.