Andre Malraux Quotes

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

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.

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

Anyone who presumes to teach art has no understanding of it.

People want to know those details. They think it gives them greater insight into a piece of art, but when they approach a painting in such a manner, they are belittling both the artist’s work and their own ability to experience it. Each painting I do says everything I want to say on its subject and in terms of that painting, and not all the trivia in the world concerning my private life will give the viewer more insight into it than what hangs there before their eyes. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, even titling a work is an unnecessary concession.

The art of one period cannot be approached through the attitudes (emotional or intellectual) of another.

Long looking at paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence. Art... is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar... We have to recognize that the language of art, all art, is not our mother-tongue.

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

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

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.

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

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

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

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

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.

You never know about the art world because it's a matter of opinion. If you look at old art like Rembrandt and Vermeer, it's not completely a matter of opinion. The pictures confront you, and you see exactly what it is. In modern art, a lot of it is suggestive, and it becomes a matter of opinion.

Art is often defined as a famous masterpiece in a gallery, and we are meant to visit the work and view it to appreciate it. But that is not all there is.

Willem de Kooning paintings are a language to be learned. When they were first shown, they were ridiculed as being just drips and splatters and splashes. You had to learn how to read them.

The general misunderstanding of a work of art is often due to the fact that the key to its spiritual content and technical means is missed. Unless the observer is trained to a certain degree in the artistic idiom, he is apt to search for things which have little to do with the aesthetic content of a picture. He is likely to look for pure representational values when the emphasis is really upon music-like relationships.

There were some types of sanctions that happen in the public world that made my work acceptable, where someone looks at the paintings and they don't - they may go, "okay," and then look at it in a different sort of way. Instead of just looking at it as some type of wild art, they look at it in a historical perspective or context.

I am one of the heretics who believes that art must be enjoyed first and analyzed later.

Erudite and entertaining, Max Anderson is the perfect tour guide to the world of art. The Quality Instinct is both educational and enlightening from start to finish, the thinking person's guide to museums. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to truly understand what makes a masterpiece.

Past art is subject to change.

Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.