Andre Malraux Quotes

Not all art is great; most of it's rubbish.

Bad critics judge a work of art by comparing it to pre-existing theories. They always go wrong when confronted with a masterpiece because masterpieces make their own rules.

Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.

Art is good, bad, boring, ugly, useful to us or not. It does or doesn't disturb optical monotony, and succeeds or fails in surmounting sterility of style or visual stereotype; it creates new beauty or it doesn't.

I'd always wanted to know the difference between a mark that was art and one that wasn't.

I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.

It is better to have a good painting with ten holes than ten bad paintings without any holes.

Painting took on a fabulous strength and splendor; the object was discredited as an indispensable element of the picture.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

Unless the work of art has wholly exhausted its maker's attention, it fails. This is why works of great significance are demanding and why they are infinitely rewarding.

Picasso was hugely innovative, and, wow, did he have facility, amazing ability, but I don't think he painted a masterpiece.

If your choice enters into it, then taste is involved - bad taste, good taste, uninteresting taste. Taste is the enemy of art, A-R-T.

You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.

A proof of really great art is that it is generally true - it seldom falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable.

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.

I'm not saying I'm the best. There are many painters in the world. But there is only one Picasso.

I think in any work of art, there always will be randomness about what is good, what is bad.

Imagination without skill gives us contemporary art.

You want every movie to be a hit. But every painting isn’t a masterpiece.

By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.

He who excels in his art so as to carry it to the utmost height of perfection of which it is capable may be said in some measure to go beyond it: his transcendent productions admit of no appellations.

Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.

Nothing is more hackneyed than the liberal dogma that shock value confers automatic importance on an artwork.

The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose

Michelangelo is a constructor, and Rafael an artist who, great as he is, is always limited by the model. When he tries to be thoughtful he falls below the niveau of his great rival.