Alain de Botton Quotes

Art evokes emotion. It doesn't have to be a thing of beauty.

The pictures which do not represent an intense interest cannot expect to create an intense interest.

Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.

What is the use of theorizing as to wherein lies the charm that moves us?

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

I think the problem is when people hear 'arts education,' they think, 'I don't want my son to be some painter that's going to be hanging in some museum after he dies. I don't want my daughter to be a struggling artist making no money.' People don't realize it's more than that. It's beautiful. It brings beauty to our lives.

When you walk past a painting in a museum, if it doesn't make you feel something, then it's probably a failure.

Art, if it is successful, needs no explanation.

A work of art... is not a living thing... that walks or runs. But the making of a life. That which gives you a reaction. To some it is the wonder of man's fingers. To some it is the wonder of the mind. To some it is the wonder of technique. And to some it is how real it is. To some, how transcendent it is. Like the 5th Symphony, it presents itself with a feeling that you know it, if you have heard it once.

What has made it work, or what makes certain paintings successful or not, has to do with my being a painter and a thinking, feeling person, more than my sex, color, height, origin.

The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful?

Art has nothing to do with taste. Art is not there to be tasted

It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.

The Window is not without a certain visual spell that makes it a first-rate artistic achievement.

You do this because you like it, you think what you're making is beautiful. And if you think it's beautiful, maybe they think it's beautiful.

Novelty is an essential attribute of the beautiful.

It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - Of Human Bondage

I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.

Sometimes you get really bitter about how the prettiest images don't typically end up attached to the most interesting music. But I just take that as a challenge to try to do something cool.

If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.

The mathematician who after seeing Phedre asked: 'Qu'est que ca prouve?' was not such a fool as he has been generally made out. No one has ever been able to explain why the Doric temple of Paestum is more beautiful than a glass of cold beer except by bringing in considerations that have nothing to do with beauty.

No facts, however indubitably detected, no effort of reason, however magnificently maintained, can prove that Bach's music is beautiful.

You will never love art well until you love what she mirrors better.

A great work of art is one that truly moves and inspires you. You yourself must be moved. Don't look at art with others' eyes. Don't listen to music with others' ears. You must react to art with your own feelings, your own heart and mind.

The way I would describe a pictorial is that it is a picture that makes everybody say ‘Aaaaah,’ with five vowels when they see it. It is something you would like to hang on the wall. The french word ‘photogenique’ defines it better than anything in English. It is a picture which must have quality, drama, and it must, in addition, be as good technically as you can possible make it.