Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.
Blank walls are a shared canvas and we're all artists.
To act with a purpose is what raises man above the brutes; to invent with a purpose, to imitate with a purpose, is that which distinguishes genius from the petty artists who only invent to invent, and imitate to imitate.
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD: I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
Whatever the scientists may come up with, writers and artists will continue to portray altered mental states, simply because few aspects of our nature fascinate people so much. The so-called mad person will always represent a possible future for every member of the audience — who knows when such a malady may strike?
It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them. And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die, the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess. … I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be traced to the artistical impulse. He who does great deeds, does them from his innate sensitiveness to moral beauty.
It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
The amateur, however weak may be his efforts at imitation, need not be discouraged, ... for one advances to an idea the more surely and steadily the more accurately and precisely he considers individual objects. Only it will not do to measure one's self with artists; every one must go on in his own style.
Laws are not our life, only the house wherein our life is led; nay, they are but the bare walls of the house; all whose essential furniture, the inventions and traditions and daily habits that regulate and support our existence, are the work not of Dracos and Hampdens, but of Ph?nician mariners, of Italian masons, and Saxon metallurgists, of philosophers, alchymists, prophets, and the long-forgotten train of artists and artisans, who from the first have been jointly teaching us how to think and how to act, how to rule over spiritual and physical nature.
The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society.
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.
It's up to you whether or not you want to do work with no contract. I think artists do need to do work with no contract, because what we're motivated by is not money. We're motivated by a need to express ourselves and to get our ideas out. That's the motivation. It turns out that when people like it they frequently will support you if you give them a means, but this is not a contract.
It was always the aim of the artists as well as the wise men of antiquity, to mean much though they might say little.
The painter's work will be of little merit if he takes the painting of others as his standard, but if he studies from nature he will produce good fruits; as is seen in the case of the painters of the age after the Romans, who continued to imitate one another and whose art consequently declined from age to age. After these came Giotto the Florentine, who was born in the lonely mountains, inhabited only by goats and similar animals; and he, being drawn to his art by nature, began to draw on the rocks the doings of the goats of which he was the keeper; and thus he likewise began to draw all the animals which he met with in the country: so that after long study he surpassed not only all the masters of his age, but all those of many past centuries. After him art relapsed once more, because all artists imitated the painted pictures, and thus from century to century it went on declining, until Tomaso the Florentine, called Masaccio, proved by his perfect work that they who set up for themselves a standard other than nature, the mistress of all masters, labour in vain.
To describe externals, you become a scientist. To describe experience, you become an artist. The old distinction between artists and scientists must vanish. Every time we teach a child correct usage of an external symbol, we must spend as much time teaching him how to fission and reassemble external grammar to communicate the internal.
There can be no comparison between the talent, art and theory of painting and that of sculpture, which leaves perspective out of account,--perspective which is produced by the quality of the material and not of the artist. And if the sculptor says that he cannot restore the superabundant substance which has once been removed from his work, I answer that he who removes too much has but little understanding and is no master. Because if he has mastered the proportions he will not remove anything unnecessarily; therefore we will say that this disadvantage is inherent in the artist and not in the material. But I will not speak of such men, for they are spoilers of marble and not artists.
There must be understanding between the artist and the people. In the best ages of art that has always been the case. Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius — and I count myself among these — have to restore the lost connection once more.
I steal from every single movie ever made. I love it – if my work has anything it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together. If people don’t like that, then tough titty, don’t go and see it, alright? I steal from everything. Great artists steal; they don’t do homages. Quentin Tarantino
The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.
In the twenty-first century the techniques of the political technologists have become centralized and systematized, coordinated out of the office of the presidential administration, where Surkov would sit behind a desk on which were phones bearing the names of all the “independent” party leaders, calling and directing them at any moment, day or night. The brilliance of this new type of authoritarianism is that instead of simply oppressing opposition, as had been the case with twentieth-century strains, it climbs inside all ideologies and movements, exploiting and rendering them absurd. One moment Surkov would fund civic forums and human rights NGOs, the next he would quietly support nationalist movements that accuse the NGOs of being tools of the West. With a flourish he sponsored lavish arts festivals for the most provocative modern artists in Moscow, then supported Orthodox fundamentalists, dressed all in black and carrying crosses, who in turn attacked the modern art exhibitions. The Kremlin’s idea is to own all forms of political discourse, to not let any independent movements develop outside of its walls. Its Moscow can feel like an oligarchy in the morning and a democracy in the afternoon, a monarchy for dinner and a totalitarian state by bedtime.
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do.
To be an artist is a blessing and a privilege. Artists must never betray their true hearts. Artists must look beneath the surface and show that there is more to this world than what meets the eye.
Writing is a form of drawing; therefore if you five the same attention and trouble to drawing as you do to writing, depend upon it, there is nobody who cannot be made to draw, more or less well.... I do not say for one moment you would make an artistic draughtsman. Artists are not made; they grow..... You can teach simple drawing, and you will find it an implement of learning of extreme value. I do not think its value can be exaggerated, because it gives you the means of training the young in attention and accuracy, which are the two things in which all mankind are more deficient than in any other mental quality whatever.
Once for all, beauty remains undemonstrable; it appears to us as in a dream, when we behold the works of the great poets and painters, and, in short, of all feeling artists.
Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know."
You will get more profit from trying to find where beauty is, than in anxiously inquiring what it is. Once for all, it remains undemonstrable; it appears to us, as in a dream, when we behold the works of the great poets and painters; and in short, of all feeling artists; it is a hovering, shining, shadowy form, the outline of which no definition holds.
What chiefly distinguishes great artists from feeble artists is first their sensibility and tenderness; secondly, their imagination; and thirdly, their industry.
~Simplicity.~--Simplicity is doubtless a fine thing, but it often appeals only to the simple. Art is the only passion of true artists. Palestrina's music resembles the music of Rossini, as the song of the sparrow is like the cavatina of the nightingale. Choose.--_Madame de Girardin._
~Dress.~--It is well known that a loose and easy dress contributes much to give to both sexes those fine proportions of body that are observable in the Grecian statues, and which serve as models to our present artists.--_Rousseau._
The system, in its irrationality, has been driven by profit to build steel skyscrapers for insurance companies while the cities decay, to spend billions for weapons of destruction and virtually nothing for children’s playgrounds , to give huge incomes to men who make dangerous or useless things, and very little to artists, musicians, writers, actors. Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.
The eye is the best of artists.
In all provinces there are artists and artisans; men who labour mechanically in a department, without eye for the whole, not feeling that there is a whole; and men who inform and ennoble the humblest department with an idea of the whole, and habitually know that only in the whole is the partial to be truly discerned.
I enjoy decoration. By accumulating this mass of detail you throw light on things in a longer sense: in the long run it all adds up. It creates a texture — how shall I put it — a background, a period, which makes everything you write that much more convincing. Of course, all artists are terrible egoists. Unconsciously you are largely writing about yourself. I could never write anything factual; I only have confidence in myself when I am another character. All the characters in my books are myself, but they are a kind of disguise.
I own seven-eighths of all the artists in downtown Burbank!
There's something the technicians need to learn from the artists. If it isn't aesthetically pleasing, it's probably wrong.
The fashionable drawing rooms of London have always been happy to accept outsiders -- if only on their own, albeit undemanding terms. That is to say, artists, so long as they are not too talented, men of humble birth, so long as they have since amassed several million pounds, and socialists so long as they are Tories. -- Christopher Booker
Who are the artists in the Computer Graphics Show? Wavefront's latest box, or the people who programmed it? Should Mandelbrot get all the credit for the output of programs like MandelVroom? -- Peter da Silva
<LordHavoc> the majority of windoze artists do not have the ability to save xpm <Mercury> LordHavoc: They don't have notepad? *G,D&R*
"The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I usually pick one small topic like this to give a lecture on. Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars -- mere gobs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere." I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern -- of which I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together. What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?* It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? -- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)
Immature artists imitate, mature artists steal. -- Lionel Trilling
The Soviet Government immediately created a special commission, composed of artists and archæologists, to recover the stolen objects. On November 1st two proclamations were issued:
Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; and considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse; bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself. In fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and both the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most noble order of St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of that honourable company (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do with a whale like their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we are much better entitled to St. George's decoration than they.
Father Zossima sat down on a very old-fashioned mahogany sofa, covered with leather, and made his visitors sit down in a row along the opposite wall on four mahogany chairs, covered with shabby black leather. The monks sat, one at the door and the other at the window. The divinity student, the novice, and Alyosha remained standing. The cell was not very large and had a faded look. It contained nothing but the most necessary furniture, of coarse and poor quality. There were two pots of flowers in the window, and a number of holy pictures in the corner. Before one huge ancient ikon of the Virgin a lamp was burning. Near it were two other holy pictures in shining settings, and, next them, carved cherubims, china eggs, a Catholic cross of ivory, with a Mater Dolorosa embracing it, and several foreign engravings from the great Italian artists of past centuries. Next to these costly and artistic engravings were several of the roughest Russian prints of saints and martyrs, such as are sold for a few farthings at all the fairs. On the other walls were portraits of Russian bishops, past and present.
So saying, the Hero dragg'd him by his heel Through all the furious fight. His death to avenge Asius on foot before his steeds advanced, For them, where'er he moved, his charioteer Kept breathing ever on his neck behind. With fierce desire the heart of Asius burn'd To smite Idomeneus, who with his lance Him reaching first, pierced him beneath the chin Into his throat, and urged the weapon through. He fell, as some green poplar falls, or oak, Or lofty pine, by naval artists hewn With new-edged axes on the mountain's side. So, his teeth grinding, and the bloody dust Clenching, before his chariot and his steeds Extended, Asius lay. His charioteer (All recollection lost) sat panic-stunn'd, Nor dared for safety turn his steeds to flight. Him bold Antilochus right through the waist Transpierced; his mail sufficed not, but the spear Implanted in his midmost bowels stood. Down from his seat magnificent he fell Panting, and young Antilochus the steeds Drove captive thence into the host of Greece. Then came Deiphobus by sorrow urged For Asius, and, small interval between, Hurl'd at Idomeneus his glittering lance; But he, foreseeing its approach, the point Eluded, cover'd whole by his round shield Of hides and brass by double belt sustain'd, And it flew over him, but on his targe Glancing, elicited a tinkling sound. Yet left it not in vain his vigorous grasp, But pierced the liver of Hypsenor, son Of Hippasus; he fell incontinent, And measureless exulting in his fall Deiphobus with mighty voice exclaim'd.
He spake; they glad complied, and wiping off The dust, put on their tunics. Then again Achilles other prizes yet proposed, The rapid runner's meed. First, he produced A silver goblet of six measures; earth Own'd not its like for elegance of form. Skilful Sidonian artists had around Embellish'd it, and o'er the sable deep Phoenician merchants into Lemnos' port Had borne it, and the boon to Thoas given; But Jason's son, Euneüs, in exchange For Priam's son Lycaon, to the hand Had pass'd it of Patroclus famed in arms. Achilles this, in honor of his friend, Set forth, the swiftest runner's recompense. The second should a fatted ox receive Of largest size, and he assign'd of gold A just half-talent to the worst and last. He stood erect, and to the Greeks he cried.
"50-52. I know that barrack. Impossible to conceal ourselves inside it without the artists seeing us, and then they will get off simply by countermanding the vaudeville. They are so modest! An audience embarrasses them. None of that, none of that. I want to hear them sing and make them dance."
"I think I may aspire to that honor," said Danglars with a smile, which reminded Monte Cristo of the sickly moons which bad artists are so fond of daubing into their pictures of ruins. "But, while we are speaking of business," Danglars added, pleased to find an opportunity of changing the subject, "tell me what I am to do for M. Cavalcanti."
He spake, and, downward sway'd, fell resupine, With his huge neck aslant. All-conqu'ring sleep Soon seized him. From his gullet gush'd the wine With human morsels mingled, many a blast Sonorous issuing from his glutted maw. Then, thrusting far the spike of olive-wood Into the embers glowing on the hearth, I heated it, and cheer'd my friends, the while, Lest any should, through fear, shrink from his part. But when that stake of olive-wood, though green, Should soon have flamed, for it was glowing hot, I bore it to his side. Then all my aids Around me gather'd, and the Gods infused Heroic fortitude into our hearts. They, seizing the hot stake rasp'd to a point, Bored his eye with it, and myself, advanced To a superior stand, twirled it about. As when a shipwright with his wimble bores Tough oaken timber, placed on either side Below, his fellow-artists strain the thong Alternate, and the restless iron spins, So, grasping hard the stake pointed with fire, We twirl'd it in his eye; the bubbling blood Boil'd round about the brand; his pupil sent A scalding vapour forth that sing'd his brow, And all his eye-roots crackled in the flame. As when the smith an hatchet or large axe Temp'ring with skill, plunges the hissing blade Deep in cold water, (whence the strength of steel) So hiss'd his eye around the olive-wood. The howling monster with his outcry fill'd The hollow rock, and I, with all my aids, Fled terrified. He, plucking forth the spike From his burnt socket, mad with anguish, cast The implement all bloody far away. Then, bellowing, he sounded forth the name Of ev'ry Cyclops dwelling in the caves Around him, on the wind-swept mountain-tops; They, at his cry flocking from ev'ry part, Circled his den, and of his ail enquired.
Moreover, if we deduct the public duties which require to be fulfilled first of all, that deep tenderness of Louis Philippe towards his family was deserved by the family. That domestic group was worthy of admiration. Virtues there dwelt side by side with talents. One of Louis Philippe's daughters, Marie d'Orleans, placed the name of her race among artists, as Charles d'Orleans had placed it among poets. She made of her soul a marble which she named Jeanne d'Arc. Two of Louis Philippe's daughters elicited from Metternich this eulogium: "They are young people such as are rarely seen, and princes such as are never seen."
A conference of artists and archæologists, held at the suggestion of Smolny, appointed a commission of make an inventory of the Winter Palace treasures, which was given complete charge of the Palace and of all artistic collections and State museums in Petrograd. On November 16th the Winter Palace was closed to the public while the inventory was being made....