Kevin Chamberlin Quotes

There's a need to keep the history of an artform going, parallel with the new work that's being done.

Knowing what paint a painter uses or having an understanding of where he was in the history of where he came from doesn't hurt your appreciation of the painting.

The people of Texas are rightly proud of their own, just like the French and the Italians, but visiting artists have often been given a shot in the history of art.

The history of art is the history of revivals.

Photography was inspired by painting, cinema by theatre and photography, I don't believe that any new art form was ever created from scratch.

Unfortunately, the Egyptians weren't the greatest artists in the world.

I'm inspired by history, different periods.

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

I believe in originality, primarily. However, it's important to know what there has been before to aim in that direction. Art history informs us. It informs our mind. I like to look at books, exhibitions, paintings, as a computer, subconsciously taking on information.

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.

Of late years (perhaps as a result of our political changes) art has borrowed from history more than ever.

History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

I grew up with an artist father, and my parents' friends were also mainly artists or writers, so he connects what I do with his example.

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

I always enjoyed art history because, growing up in California, my exposure was limited, and it was a new experience. To learn the history of art opened up certain things to me, made me see. It intrigued me.

'Matisse and Picasso' is a little like Plato after Socrates. Socrates only taught in words. He didn't write. And after that, you had Plato and Aristotle to write about what he had said. I write about them because they didn't write about them.

A good history covers not only what was done, but the thought that went into the action. You can read the history of a country through its actions.

Unlike life, a work of art never gets taken for granted: it is always viewed against its precursors and predecessors.

I'm baffled when young actors aren't familiar with current film, television and theater, or aren't interested in older films or plays and the history of the craft in general. If you don't know what's out there, and what came before, then how can you picture yourself working, and how can anyone else?

My introduction to art history was like everybody else's. You see an art history book that has works by Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Yes, these things are great. But I don't see a reflection of myself in any of these things I'm looking at.

In art the Greeks were the children of the Egyptians. The day may yet come when we shall do justice to the high powers of that mysterious and imaginative people.

Fashion blogs are great, but I also take inspiration from movies, nature, everyday objects.

Whatever you are making, whether it's a song, an album, a painting, a film, you're connecting with a tradition, and I do feel connected to New York music.

Makin' records is one art form and playin' live is another. It's like the difference between makin' a movie and doin' theatre.