Paul Cezanne Quotes

Overhearing people's conversations about art - that's always entertaining.

Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance.

This man, who for twenty-five years has been reading and writing about art, and in all that time has never understood anything about art, has for twenty-five years been hashing over other people's ideas about realism, naturalism and all that nonsense; for twenty-five years he has been reading and writing about what intelligent people already know and about what stupid people don't want to know--which means that for twenty-five years he's been taking nothing and making nothing out of it. And with it all, what conceit! What pretension!

If art is to have a special train, the critic must keep some seats reserved on it.

I don't pretend to know anything about art. I make pictures for entertainment, and then the professors tell me what they mean.

Everybody's an art critic.

Art critic! Is that a profession? When I think we are stupid enough, we painters, to solicit those people's compliments and to put ourselves into their hands! What shame! Should we even accept that they talk about our work?

A good critic is the man who describes his adventures among masterpieces.

Critics of art are like eunuchs in harem. They see how it's done when the men come to see the women, but they can't do it themselves.

People go into a gallery, and they're afraid to express their opinions about art. No one's afraid to say, 'Keanu Reeves was bad in that movie.' We see so many films that we can tell who's faking it. But with art, we can't always tell.

I find relatively little relationship between the work of art and the immediate critical response it gets.

I've always been very opinionated, for lack of a better term, about art. Not to sound too arrogant, but I guess I'm a connoisseur of telling people what I think is good and bad.

The Art Snob will stand back from a picture at some distance, his head cocked slightly to one side

The canvas is a court where the artist is prosecutor, defendant, jury and judge. Art without a trial disappears at a glance.

It would be most wholesome if for at least twenty years art historians were forbidden to refer to any derivations. If they were not allowed to account for a work of art mainly by tracing where it comes from, they would have to deal with it in and by itself--which is what they are most needed for.

I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.

We must always apologize for talking painting.

Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect.

What really drives me mad about art is that, in America, the only thing you can do is to take it apart.

Critics have a job to do. I understand that. It's not just to criticize. They're trying to interpret art for the public.

I am always rethinking how art is perceived and received, questioning our relationship to art. That's always been a constant.

I don't very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

I used to write reviews for 'Artbomb.' Our policy was to only cover books we loved and recommended.

Art needs to be socialised, and you need a lot of context to understand that, and that doesn't mean having read a few art history books.

Frankly, these days, without a theory to go with it, I can't see a painting.