Jim Hodges Quotes

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 art with a sense of humor. I don't have a huge art education to understand everything. I don't think that means that art has to be watered down to the lowest common denominator, though. I don't think you have to go to college to be able appreciate great art, but I like art that doesn't take itself too seriously.

I don't enjoy art.

Nothing is as uplifting as standing before a great painting whether it was painted in 1505 or last Tuesday.

A painter may be looking at the world in a way which is very different from everyone else. If he's a craftsman, he can get other people to see the world through his eyes, and so he enlarges our vision, perception, and there's great value in that.

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

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

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

Art indeed is a term referring to the social source and to the social utility of creative acts.

There is no reason for me to show my collection in New York, because it's not about craft and technique there.

I know that the arts are important. I'm not denying that, but I can't associate myself with all the claptrap that goes on around it.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

A beautiful print is a thing in itself, not just a halfway house on the way to the page.

It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism.

I don't mean this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I don't really think of pop art and serious art as being that far apart.

Art is the ultimate luxury good, but one that can make you think, give a you a blast of beauty and enhance your life. Even if the work's made of plasticine.

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 should not be an easy thing.

I think it was Roger Fry who first coined what he took to be a final definition of a work of art, whether it was a painting, building, poem or Hepplewhite chair. He said that the best works of art are finished products that preserve 'a valuable state of mind'.

Art, if it is successful, needs no explanation.

There is no such thing as #1 in art.

It's in our nature. If you are a plumber, there is an objective way to establish whether you put together a great piping system or not. Art is a bit more slippery than that. So, when you fill a gallery with dirt and someone comes along waving wads of bills, it's difficult not to take them because they become a tangible acknowledgement that what you've been doing actually makes sense.

I am afraid that as evangelicals, we think that a work of art only has value if we reduce it to a tract.

Why not spend that time on art: painting, sculpting, charcoal, pastel, oils? Are words or numbers more important than images? Who decides this? Does algebra move you to tears? Can plural possessives express the feelings in your heart? If you don't learn art now, you will never learn to breathe!

If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.