Aldous Huxley Quotes

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 always wanted to show the world that art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind.

Those who are not very concerned with art want poems or pictures to record for them something they already know - as one might want a picture of a place he loves.

Painting is more important than art.

Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms.

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.

Art brings to life things that can seemingly be dead, and can put a fresh perspective on things that are living. It's so important we keep creating.

Art in relation to life is nothing more than a glove turned inside out. It seems to have the same shapes and contours, but it can never be used for the same purpose. Art teaches nothing about life, just as life teaches us nothing about art.

That's what art is. You don't make up stories. You live your life.

I think about art a lot only in two contexts. One is narrative... The other thing that I'm interested in, which is tangential, but not unrelated... All art to me is about problem solving.

The ultimate justification of the work of art is to help the spectator to become a work of art himself.

Art is not about objects of high monetary exchange. It's about reasserting our firsthand experience in present time.

Every painted image of something is also about the absence of the real thing. All painting is about the presence of absence.

How do I define a work of art? It is not an asset in the stock-exchange sense, but a man's timid attempt to repeat the miracle that the simplest peasant girl is capable of at any time, that of magically producing life out of nothing.

I don't know of any good work of art that doesn't have a mystery.

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.

What is painting but the act of embracing, by means of art, the surface of the pool?

This is the theory… that anything that is art… is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it’s irritating.

Works of art must persist as objects of contemplation.

Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.

An artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way

In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty.

Art is mind and heart and touch as much and more than it is mere instrument, technique - without which however it cannot exist at all.