Oscar Wilde Quotes

If something is successful with the audience, it's automatically suspect; the reverse is to say that not to reach audiences is the greatest compliment an artist can receive!

I think people should just make art and let the art speak for itself.

Art should never try to be popular.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

There's an audience for all kinds of great art.

In art, at a certain level, there is no 'better than.' It's just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it.

I don't think there's any formula for what makes great art.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

But as long as you're creating the art you want to create, if people start liking you, you shouldn't have to apologize. You want your stuff to be heard by as many people as possible.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art.

I really appreciate anyone trying to inject art into mainstream film.

Despite whatever commercial kind of success you might have or radio success, I don't want to do something just to get as many people as possible to listen.

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise.

Art has never been a popularity contest.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, 'What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?' And, 'How does creativity apply across the board?'

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

Painting was a problem - you produce a thing, and then you sell it and get money, and that was quickly considered totally uncool.

Some people think big audiences are crass and that, say, a comedy that appeals to a wide audience is pandering. Other people would argue that you could say that about Moliere.

I think a lot of times we think of music as being different from other art forms. You would never ask a sculptor or painter, 'Go paint this because you'll get paid more,' you know what I mean?

I personally don't distinguish between artistic and commercial films.

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'.

For the serious artist does not satisfy needs

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work.

Art cannot be subordinate to its subject, otherwise it is not art but biography.