David Berman Quotes

Great art inspires great art.

Artists die twice. First creatively. Then physically. The second one is the easiest.

There are certain artworks that I respond to, artists that I respond to. It's an intellectual reaction but it's also a biological reaction. And the excitement that the work can generate - how it makes you feel about not only your intellectual possibilities but your physical possibilities in this world. How it feels to be alive!

I've always said I'm more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they're given to work and think, than I really am by other writers.

Crumb was such an influence on me. He's such a visionary, such a great artist, that he so shaped my artistic sensibilities on a certain level that I do owe everything to him. The way I see the world is largely changed by him.

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.

But I think you have to - whatever the environment looks like, it does enter into people's art work one way or another; it's very remote or it isn't. It's remote in my work but it has to have a certain degree of ordinariness.

Shakespeare and Rembrandt have in common the faculty of quickening speculation and compelling the minds of men to combat and discussion.

If you look at art history, at Goya or Gainsborough, it's always about acknowledging the people of your time who have influence.

I love Maira Kalman. She's an amazing illustrator and writer. I've loved her since I was in college, but when I moved to New York and experienced the same city she was drawing and writing about, I developed a whole new appreciation. Her work made me observe everything so much deeper and more joyfully.

For me, it's not like I am going to look at the money the director's film has made before their film... For me, it is about working with the director whose work I have admired.

If you look at any creative person's work, you can see bits and pieces of their influences. That's what an artist does.

As an art person, I think all television changed me a lot.

I only learned about Darger a couple years ago, when I kept seeing his name in reference to my artwork, so I looked him up. I wouldn't consider him an influence because I'd already established my current style before learning about him, but I enjoy his work a lot.

For me, the aim of making any film like this, any film about an artist, would be to send you back to the art.

We think it's a blessing that we were able to bring our music to the world. That our music has not only inspired our communities but other communities. That's one of the greatest things an artist in any field could know: that you've touched the mind of another artist.

The one artist who actually had influence over me was Bo Bartlett.

I'm glad Wu-Tang was able to inspire other producers and artists, but I would never want to be erased or removed.

Artists have always been my biggest source of inspiration.

That's what great art does - it inspires other artists to do great art, and that's what it should do.

I've met others [people] who simply responded to me, "You're Kehinde Wiley. I know your work. I saw it at the Brooklyn Museum [Brooklyn, NY] And I'd be honored to be in your work."

I just feel like I'm an artist that still has set a standard for artists that come up to follow and be like...So, yeah, I guess I'm a legend somewhat, I guess in my own right, but I still got a long ways to go.

When I'm writing, those ideas are seldom inspired by music itself. I won't often listen to an artist and come up with an idea.

It present to allow me to ask myself questions about what I'm doing. I think that's what visual art does - it either reminds you of something or allows you to question something. I don't know why Robert Motherwell; I love so many different artists.