George Stillman Hillard Quotes

If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.

The appreciation of the merits of art (of the emotions it conveys) depends upon an understanding of the meaning of life...

To me, art begets art. Painting feeds the eye just as poetry feeds the ear, which is to say that both feed the soul.

The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

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

It's funny how the beauty of art has so much more to do with the frame than the artwork itself.

I don't know if it's art, but I know I like it.

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.

Art objects are inanimate sad bits of matter hanging in the dark when no one is looking. The artist only does half the work; the viewer has to come up with the rest, and it is by empowering the viewer that the miracle of art gains its force.

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

Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird?

I am one of the heretics who believes that art must be enjoyed first and analyzed later.

Understanding is a form of blindness. Good art, I think, can never be understood.

An artistic impression is substantially the resultant of two components. One what the work of art gives the onlooker - the other, what he is capable of giving to the work of art.

I have to assume that everybody interprets a piece of art they're exposed to as if it's already perfect in its wholeness, without knowing any backstory.

I enjoy looking, learning, smiling, and engaging with art, sometimes even rejecting it.

Grant that the true organ with which the beautiful is apprehended is the imagination, and it follows that all arts are likely to affect the feelings indirectly.

The forms of art are inexhaustible; but all lead by the same road of aesthetic emotion to the same world of aesthetic ecstasy.

Art is the provocation for talking about enigma and the search for sense in human life. One can do that by telling a story or writing about a fresco by Giotto or studying how a snail climbs up a wall.

It's really interesting with art-movies too, but art especially - to see how your attitude toward artists and works and your level of appreciation of them is always shifting and changing over the years.

Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste.

You're going to react to a painting in a way that the painting demands you react.

People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

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