Ilya Ehrenburg Quotes

When I go to galleries in New York, I feel like I'm in school. I know that there's good contemporary conceptual art, but I have a really hard time caring about it. I'd rather look at images of people and things I can relate to. Then again, I didn't go to art school.

A work of art... is not a living thing... that walks or runs. But the making of a life. That which gives you a reaction. To some it is the wonder of man's fingers. To some it is the wonder of the mind. To some it is the wonder of technique. And to some it is how real it is. To some, how transcendent it is. Like the 5th Symphony, it presents itself with a feeling that you know it, if you have heard it once.

I know when I watch certain actors or if I watch Thom Yorke sing on stage, I'm affected by it emotionally. I guess that's what we are all striving for in art but that's such a beautiful thing that happens between two people that may never even meet. So when you do get to meet someone who was affected in that way, it's awesome.

"A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist."

What's great about art is that if you can reach people, if they hear or see what you do and it moves them, there's a commonality.

When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.

In music, you feel a connection to the voice and think about the person behind it. In art that's secondary.

Art is essentially communication. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. That's why people make art, so other people can relate to it.

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

I think folks who are resistant to engaging in art become less so once they encounter art that really reflects them.

All art is contemporary art because it had to be made when it was now.

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'.

The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions.. the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their color relationships then you miss the point.

People have experiences in art museums today that they used to have in church.

If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so I'm sure it's a good one—and the same goes for paintings.

The starting-point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion. The objects that provoke this emotion we call works of art.

The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.

In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.

The arts can bring the heart to the aid of the head, the personal to the political.

Patti, did art get us?' I looked away, not really wanting to think about it. 'I don't know, Robert. I don't know.' Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art; or a saint.

We cannot appreciate the art of any age without first acquiring an equivalent of the experience it depicts.

If I could prescribe a single rule for looking at a work of art it would be to enjoy it. If we're honest with ourselves, we have to admit we enjoy our tears just as much as we enjoy our laughter. The only moments of life that are a bore are when we don't care one way or another.

The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.

I think there's just a lot of compassion in art. Again, when you're doing something that resonates with somebody else, you're going through an experience another person has had, whether it's been a painful experience or a joyous experience or a happy experience.

There are no personal revelations other than feelings arising from the work itself