Alfred Stieglitz Quotes

Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste.

It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art... Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes.

I have to assume that everybody interprets a piece of art they're exposed to as if it's already perfect in its wholeness, without knowing any backstory.

I also paint, draw and I'm into film and photography as well, and the same thing applies to all of them. You're presenting this material to the general public and hoping that they're going to 'get' what you're doing. Some don't, some do.

Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language.

I think we're much smarter than we were. Everybody knows that abstract art can be art, and most people know that they may not like it, even if they understand there's another purpose to it.

People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love.

The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

You don't have to know anything about art to appreciate it or to look at it. There aren't any hidden secrets or things that you're supposed to understand.

Art is not what most people think it to be. It is not an occupation of one-railed people.

Like many members of the uncultured, Cheez-It consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art.

art, n. This word has no definition.

It became a question of taste. I have a certain taste in art history. And that - I had a huge library of art history books in my studio. And I would simply have the models go through those books with me, and we began a conversation about, like, what painting means, why we do it, why people care about it why or how it can mean or make sense today.

I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

A work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience.

Buying art is not understanding art.

The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.

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

Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art.

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it.

I like a lot of modern art. I like Chuck Close a lot. It doesn't necessarily directly influence the work I draw on the page.

If the work is pure then you have to think it could be understood. If it is not understood it doesn't mean that your work is not accessible. It doesn't worry me, but, of course, I would be pleased if people liked my work.

You know you are an artist if you appreciate beauty.

It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture.