Devendra Banhart Quotes

To me there is no past or future in my art. If a work of art cannot live always in the present it must not be considered at all. The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was.

To me there is no past or future in art. If a work of art does not live in the present, it must not be considered at all.

Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different.

Great art transcends its culture and touches on that which is eternal.

In great art there is no beginning and end in point of time. All time is comprehended.

Fine art is something wonderful that's left long into the future ... eternal beauty.

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

Painting becomes interesting when it becomes timeless.

I think it's every artist's dream to create something that will endure, something that people will listen to until there are no more people on earth to listen to things.

A truly great work of art breaks beyond the bounds of the period and culture in which it is created, so final judgement on a current book has to be deferred until it can be seen outside this present moment.

I believe that all true art is classic, but the dictates of the mind rarely permit of its being recognized as such when it first appears.

No art should be fashionable.

High art alone is eternal and the bust outlives the city.

It's all in the art. You get no credit for living.

Remember, how often the great art of the past didn't look great at first, how often it didn't look like art at all; how much easier it is, decades or centuries later, to adore it, not only because it is, in fact, great but because it's still here; because the inevitable little errors and infelicities tend to recede in an object that's survived the War of 1812, the eruption of Krakatoa, the rise and fall of Nazism.

No, the thing to do is try to make a painting that will be alive in your own lifetime.

Fools, art is a heavy task, more heavy than gold crowns; it's far more difficult to match firm words than armies, they're disciplined troops, unconquered, to be placed in rhythm, the mind's most mighty foe, and not disperse in air. I'd give, believe me, a whole land for one good song, for I know well that only words, that words alone, like the high mountains, have no fear of age or death.

Art is not fashionable. That's why fashion and art are two different things. Fashion can never be art because fashion deals with whim, what is temporary, what changes, what is transient, what is now and not now. Art has to deal with issues that are timeless, that never change.

It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.

Don't be carried off your feet by anything because it is modern - the latest thing. Go to the Louvre often and spend a good deal of time before the Rembrandts, the Delacroixs.

I have a suggestion for all of those award seekers and blue ribbon hunters. Spend your efforts on making art that connects with people. Awards impress the grandkids but they don't move the gauge on selling your product. Art needs to touch the emotions of the buyer.

Art itself is underserved when we don't realize the power of it.

Great works of art can be produced in barbarous societies - in fact the very narrowness of primitive society gives their ornamental art a peculiar concentration and vitality. At some time in the ninth century one could have looked down the Seine and seen the prow of a Viking ship coming up the river. Looked at today in the British Museum, it is a powerful work of art; but to the mother of a family trying to settle down in her little hut, it would have seemed less agreeable - as menacing to her civilisation as the periscope of a nuclear submarine.

Art – the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised

Sometimes there are painters or very famous artists who start to become artists after they are dead because an audience or a public know about their art after they die.