Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

The first impression of a work of art is its otherness from reality.

A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

I think it was Roger Fry who first coined what he took to be a final definition of a work of art, whether it was a painting, building, poem or Hepplewhite chair. He said that the best works of art are finished products that preserve 'a valuable state of mind'.

I believe all painting and art should be uplifting for the viewer.

I don't know if it's art, but I know I like it.

The first merit of pictures is the effect which they can produce upon the mind; — and the first step of a sensible man should be to receive involuntary effects from them. Pleasure and inspiration first, analysis afterward.

The lower one's vitality, the more sensitive one is to great art.

In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.

Museums and art stores are also sources of pleasure and inspiration. Doubtless it will seem strange to many that the hand unaided by sight can feel action, sentiment, beauty in the cold marble; and yet it is true that I derive genuine pleasure from touching great works of art. As my finger tips trace line and curve, they discover the thought and emotion which the artist has portrayed.

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

It [abstract art] should be enjoyed just as music is enjoyed after a while you may like it or you may not.

All the arts are based on the senses. What they do for the person who practices them, and also the persons interested in them, is make that particular sense more active and more acute.

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

The fine arts, both in those who cultivate and those only who admire them, open and expand the mind to great ideas. They inspire liberal feelings, create a harmony of temper, favorable to a sense of justice and a habit of moderation in our social intercourse.

Seek the strongest color effect possible... the content is of no importance.

If I go to the National Gallery and I look at one of the great paintings that excite me there, it's not so much the painting that excites me as that the painting unlocks all kinds of valves of sensation within me which return me to life more violently.

Only the very greatest art invigorates without consoling.

In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect-its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions-its purpose being pleasure.

I love art. It really changes my mood and wakes me up.

Good art should elicit a response of 'Huh? Wow!' as opposed to ‘Wow! Huh?'

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.

Consequently, the sensuous aspect of art is related only to the two theoretical sensesof sight and hearing, while smell, taste, and touch remain excluded.

The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations.

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.