Denis Diderot Quotes

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.

A great painting is a great painting.

What makes art in general, and literature in particular, remarkable, what distinguishes them from life, is precisely that they abhor repetition. In everyday life, you can tell the same joke thrice and, thrice getting a laugh, become the life of the party. In art, though, this sort of conduct is called 'cliche.'

The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use; and that, however pleasant, wonderful, or impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these main objects, either to state a true thing, or to adorn a serviceable one.

As my uncle always says, 'If your vibe outweighs your substance, you're destined to be a novelty.' I think that is true in all art.

Expression, sentiment, truth to nature, are essential: but all those are not enough. I never care to look at a picture again, if it be ill composed; and if well composed I can hardly leave off looking at it.

A good painting should be the equivalent of a good deed.

The purpose of painting is to decorate the walls. Therefore it has to be as rich as possible

...The more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

It is not enough that poetry is agreeable, it should also be interesting.

The morality of art is in its very beauty.

No erotic work of art is filth if it is artistically significant; it is only turned into filth through the beholder if he is filthy.

Art is an end in itself; its values are intrinsic.

Art for art's sake is dead, if it ever lived.

Harmony of colouring is destructive of art? it is like the smile of a fool.

Art has to offer something other than stylized despair.

Even if virtually anything can be art, there are levels of quality.

grievance does not make for great art.

All bad art is the result of good intentions.

To give a price to an artwork, no matter how high or low, is always absurd. It's not something that can be measured by money or by certain numbers.

Less disappointing than life, great works of art do not begin by giving us all their best.

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.

He's [Constable] a great painter as far as it goes, but I don't think he's remotely interesting. Not really. It's very pretty and it's very thorough, but it's not evocative, it's not dramatic, it doesn't do what Beethoven does - it doesn't shake you down to the roots of your soul, which Turner does. Constable is just very nice, basically. And moving on to personality, Constable was a very dull character.

It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.

Although I do not care for the slogan "art for art's sake", there can be no question that what makes a work of fiction safe from larvae and rust is not its social importance but its art, only its art.