Thomas Hoving Quotes

As a consumer, I don't create art, but I think whatever the message is, art has to touch you.

I see 30 to 40 gallery shows a week, and no matter what kind of mood I'm in, no matter how bad the art is, I almost always feel better afterward. I can learn as much from bad art as from good.

When you walk past a painting in a museum, if it doesn't make you feel something, then it's probably a failure.

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

The distinction between a gallery and a museum is enormous. The gallery is about looking at a thing of beauty; the purpose of the activity is an aesthetic response. The museum is actually about the object that lets you get into somebody else's life.

Great art should be shown with great excitement.

All sensitive people agree that there is a peculiar emotion provoked by works of art.

The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter.

Art is inspiring. Walking into a gallery, or when the lights go up on a stage; that thrill of getting something that has nothing to do with acquisition.

To so enter into it in nature and art that the enjoyed meanings of life may become a part of living is the attitude of aesthetic appreciation.

There isn't any art until some creature sees and consumes it. And has a reaction.

There are so many reactions to art that make sense to me - but 'ick' means something.

What I look for when I see a piece of art for the first time is some kind of emotional, intellectual experience, that's a combination of both of those things and is informed by my knowledge and something new that I see the artist doing.

Every artist in the world likes his or her work to make people think.

Art evokes emotion. It doesn't have to be a thing of beauty.

Museums are not normally presenting the works on the walls as provocations to work. It's more like going to a Jacuzzi.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

Viewing abstract art requires more imagination. The result is more intense involvement of the viewer—more pleasurable.

Seeing Cubism paintings at the Beaubourg makes me very happy and, also, old films.

If buying art is to matter to us deeply, then it has to engage with our emotions and bring something to what one might as well, and with no supernatural associations whatsoever, call our souls.

I feel that the arts have an impact in a way that just makes the world more beautiful.

I think that one of the most important things that art can do is give you a reason to look at something, almost give you permission to look at something.

It's not that I can't find art beautiful. I just don't know what to do, standing there in the gallery. I don't know what to think about. Once I've seen it, I've seen it; that takes about two seconds. I am interested and then immediately bored, immediately.

Any piece of art has the potential to emotionally touch you and nudge you.

I believe all painting and art should be uplifting for the viewer.