Andrei Tarkovsky Quotes

Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world.

Art is born out of an ill-designed world.

Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

Art is not the spiritual side of business.

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.

Art, in other words, betrays a sexy mental fitness.

Art is supposed to spark conversation and make people think.

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.

Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.

Everything an artist spits is art.

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

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

Art is the expression of an enormous preference.

I cannot conceive any work of art as having a separate existence from life itself

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.

Art makes nothing happen in a way that makes something happen.

Art without life is a poor affair.

Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them?

Art is the response to the demand for entertainment, for the stimulation of our senses and imagination, and truth enters into it only as it subserves these ends.

Art is an expression of joy and awe. It is not an attempt to share one's virtues and accomplishments with the audience, but an act of selfless spirit.

The word "art" does not designate the concept of a mere eventuality; it is a concept of rank.

Real art is illumination, it adds stature to life.

Painting is more important than art.

Art is a reflection of everything that impacts your life.