Aphorisms on art

Aphorisms on art

Aphorisms on art
Aphorisms on art

Aphorisms on art, quotes, ideas, short thoughts and opinions on the art in general, its meaning for our life and for the ethic and aesthetic values it conveys.

There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist’s relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist’s concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.
Adrienne Rich

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know
John Keats

The beauty of things exists in the mind that contemplates them.
David Hume

A work is not by an author and neither is life.
Carmelo Bene

Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
Bertolt Brecht

We have art in order not to die of truth.
Friedrich Nieztsche

Art is to console those who are broken by life.
Vincent Van Gogh

Everything is matter of art and art is all matter.
Andros

Beauty is art and art is truth, but life is art as well, and it is not always so nice, voilà, that is all you need to know to be a perfect stupid human being!
Carl William Brown

Art is life and life is art
Art is life and life is art

The best art must always persevere, in the face of all the difficulties it may encounter on its way, and most importantly, it must be free and independent, vice versa it is only craftsmanship.
Carl William Brown

Perseverance, sharing, collaboration and communication must always be the basis of any artistic activity.
Carl William Brown

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
Vincent Van Gogh

The human being is a manipulator who lives on illusions; the artist takes manipulation and illusion to the highest levels and to the extreme consequences.
Andros

If life weren’t so terrible, art wouldn’t exist.
Andros

We call art the pathetic attempt to make sense of our lives.
Andros

Art is the voice of our fear of death. Without the specter of death, nothing could be called art.
Andros

One of the most important missions of art is to pass on the genius of humanity.
Carl William Brown

Art is a colossal scam; I can’t live with it, but I can’t live without it.
Andros

The Three Graces by Canova
The Three Graces by Canova

I thank all the imbeciles in the world, without them in fact my books would never have been able to climb the heights of art.
Carl William Brown

Art is a call to which too many respond without having been called.
Leo Longanesi

The path of art is a dark and bumpy one that must be travelled alone.
Andros

The formula of art: square root of imagination, plus pain, minus life.
Andros

The artist is a philosopher with dirty hands.
Andros

Art never dies, fortunately artists do.
Andros

The art of creation is older than the art of killing.
Andrei Voznesensky

Contrary to popular belief an artist is never ahead of his time, but most people are far behind theirs.
Edward Varese

Madonna della Pietà by Michelangelo
Madonna della Pietà by Michelangelo

For a good artist both introspection and observation are fundamental rules.
Carl William Brown

Considering that all art is political, an aphorism must always be brief, artistic and philosophic, otherwise it can’t be at all!
Carl William Brown

All art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde

It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it’s a painting, and if you can walk around it it’s a sculpture.
Source Unknown

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.
Marcel Proust

He bores me. He ought to have stuck to his flying machine. [On Leonardo Da Vinci]
Pierre Auguste Renoir

Art is too serious to be taken seriously.
Ad Reinhardt

Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man’s nature.
Ayn Rand

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
George Sand

All art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde

The Three Graces by Canova Rome
The Three Graces by Canova Rome

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
Pablo Picasso

The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
Sun Tzu

All art must be political, on the contrary it is not art, like the useless stuff of some artisans or musicians who try to survive selling their escape and trivial services to the power, more or less consciously!
Carl William Brown

I am an artist… I am here to live out loud.
Emile Zola

Art for art’s sake is a philosophy of the well-fed.
Yu Cao

Not even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long. It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it to, in the case of literature, its readers; to be, for a secular, materialist culture, some sort of replacement for what the love of god offers in the world of faith.
Salman Rushdie

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.
Rebecca West

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Simone Weil

The goal of political government is nothing more than the art of controlling the sheep through different guard dogs.
Carl William Brown

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli
The Birth of Venus by Botticelli

Time is money, life is art and business is war, therefore be prepared to fight!
Carl William Brown

Who did you teach the secret and difficult art of trading? Whores. They cost quite a lot, so I had necessarily to learn how to earn a bit of extra money! That’s why on Facebook I also founded a page called Trading Lovers!
Carl William Brown

All art is quite useless and so it is the universe.
Carl William Brown

The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.
Lester Bangs

People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is ridiculous.
Oscar Wilde

All great art, and today all great artlessness, must appear extreme to the mass of men, as we know them today. It springs from the anguish of great souls. From the souls of men not formed, but deformed in factories whose inspiration is pelf.
Alexander Trocchi

What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.
John Ruskin

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.
Lionel Trilling

It is not in life, but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found.
George E. Woodberry

The artist must conceive with warmth yet execute with coolness.
Winkelmann

Since all art is political and what’s more art is life, and life is art, we must conclude that the real value of all this is shit!
Carl William Brown

The fire of art by Andros
The fire of art by Andros

Even though I don’t like what I usually like, in this case I can neither say that, nor I can think the contrary; but I must admit, irony excluded, that the best art is always difficult to be understood.
Carl William Brown

Art, books, music, travel and photos are certainly much more interesting than prostitutes and what’s more they cost even much less.
Carl William Brown

This is my last comment on internet for this year, so I thought it should be fairly good, in order to express my regard for a certain art, even if what a person believes it is fair, for the other one is just rubbish.
Carl William Brown

A broker is a broker, no matter if he deals with weapons, drugs, art, finance, or any other earthly bitch!
Carl William Brown

To the art of being satisfied I prefer by far that of being highly unsatisfied and always angry with this stupid world!
Carl William Brown

Thanks to all the different forms of art the number of stupid people is rapidly increasing!
Carl William Brown

The only real and practical art should be that of killing stupid people, all the other forms are just trivial and useless diversions.
Carl William Brown

When Miley Cyrus should appear on the stage with a banana in her ass, just then I would consider the girl a transgressive artist.
Carl William Brown

If You have some ideas about culture, music, art, literature, science, money, finance, love, language, education, humor, marketing and communication, then You can easily join Us!
Carl William Brown and the Daimon Club

On this subject you can also read:

Arts and artists news

Andros art theory

Daimon Art

Photo Galleries

Video Galleries


Quotes by authors

Quotes by arguments

Thoughts & reflections