George Orwell Quotes

Art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear

A work of art, so far as it is a work of art, cannot - whatever the artist's personal intention - advocate anything at all.

Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.

Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

Very early in my life I took the question of the relation of art to truth seriously: even now I stand in holy dread in the face of this discordance. My first book was devoted to it. The Birth of Tragedy believes in art on the background of another belief

All great art and literature is propaganda.

Why write [about my art]? Why not just show the photographs?

I have always had a deep belief that every movie, every artistic expression, is political. Don't be fooled. Even ones that we wouldn't consider overtly political are political. When we spend time doing anything, whether it's distraction or whether it's something that we have to face, it is always political. That's my belief.

A movie is just like a work of art or a book or a piece of music. The intent of its maker is one thing, but its interpretation by an audience is something else. I don't stop at what the filmmaker wanted to do.

Art can be very political but that can't be the purpose of art, it can't be the driving force. It isn't with any of the books that I love, anyway.

The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.

What Artistic and Scientific Experience Have in Common - Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking, and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively as meaninful, then we are engaged in art. Common to both is the loving devotion to that which transcends personal concerns and volition.

In our time, we have become too interested in the artist and his or her character and experience as a way of understanding art. In my view, you should be able to read a book or see a film without knowing a single thing about conditions or circumstances or character of the artist, and experience the work to the full without such information. Sometimes I feel - speaking for myself - that people know much too much about me, and I wish people knew less and could just read these books and respond to them purely as words on a page.

Most of the books that I've adapted I'm doing because I love the book and I feel like it's a great work of art in itself, and when it's a great book I feel as a director or a writer that I have a responsibility to rise to the level of the original. It makes me try to reach higher.

My pictures are not that interesting, nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of facts; my book is more like a collection of Ready-mades.

God and other artists are always a little obscure.

If I was an artist, and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.

Nowadays, an artist is someone who makes art mean the things he does.

There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.

I often told the fanatics of realism that there is no such thing as realism in art: it only exists in the mind of the observer. Art is a symbol, a thing conjuring up reality in our mental image. That is why I don't see any contradiction between abstract and figurative art either.

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means.

Art is an expression of joy and awe. It is not an attempt to share one's virtues and accomplishments with the audience, but an act of selfless spirit.

God does not ask for 'religious' art or 'Catholic' art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth

In fact, every day I'll read a chapter of some art book. I don't know why. It's just a habit.

The closer and more completely you can come to explaining what a work of art means, the less like art it seems.