Bill Viola Quotes

Art, if it is successful, needs no explanation.

When people say, 'I don't get art' ... that means art is working.

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

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'.

Art is an infinitely precious good, a draught both refreshing and cheering which restores the stomach and the mind to the natural equilibrium of the ideal.

All great art ... creates in the beholder not self-satisfacti on but wonder and awe. Its great liberation is to lift us out of ourselves.

Nothing is as uplifting as standing before a great painting whether it was painted in 1505 or last Tuesday.

Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.

a work that intends to be art must first be entertaining.

Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.

A work of art rests its merits in traditional qualities. It may constitute a remarkable feat in craftsmanship; it may be a searching study of psychological states; it may be a nostalgic glance backward; it may be any one of an infinite number of concepts, none of which may have any possible bearing upon its degree of newness.

No artifact is a work of art if it does not help to humanize us. Without art...our world would have remained a jungle.

We do not judge great art. It judges us.

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

Great art should be shown with great excitement.

And, moreover, it is art in its most general and comprehensive form that is here discussed, for the dialogue embraces everything connected with it, from its greatest object, the state, to its least, the embellishment of sensuous existence.

Look at any inspired painting. It's like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation.

Any work of art that can be understood is the product of journalism.

There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.

You can't just take an image and randomly distort it and call it art - although many people in La Jolla where I come from do precisely that.

As a consumer, I don't create art, but I think whatever the message is, art has to touch you.

We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art.

Sometimes I make things that people have very strong responses to. Whether that's art, I don't know. That's one of those words that doesn't mean anything. It's why I don't just use words.