William Morris Quotes

There are things going on in galleries recently that have shocked me. What I'm going to say is really controversial, but what I find the most provocative is the commerciality of art in general. And the fact that a lot of people have forgotten what the meaning of art is and what the intention behind it is.

I don't put a great deal of stock in art trophies.

If you cannot learn to love real art, at least learn to hate sham art and reject it.

What's called art now probably has some legitimate things happening in it, but I've become more and more distrustful of a lot of it because it seems like an extension of the fashion trade and the stock market.

And if out of a million visitors there is even one to whom art means something, that is enough to justify museums.

It's in our nature. If you are a plumber, there is an objective way to establish whether you put together a great piping system or not. Art is a bit more slippery than that. So, when you fill a gallery with dirt and someone comes along waving wads of bills, it's difficult not to take them because they become a tangible acknowledgement that what you've been doing actually makes sense.

Those who are concerned with the arts are often asked questions, not always sympathetic ones, about the use or value of what they are doing. It is probably impossible to answer such questions directly, or at any rate to answer the people who ask them.

I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.

I am not fond of lengthy descriptions of phony artworks.

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'.

This idea of art for art's sake is a hoax.

The art is more important than the artist. The work is more important than the person who does it. You must be prepared to sacrifice all the you could possibly have, be, or do; you must be willing to go all the way for your art. If it is a question between choosing between your life and a work of art -- any work of art -- your decision is made for you.

The only things that distinguish the photographer from everybody else are his pictures: they alone are the basis for our special interest in him. If pictures cannot be understood without knowing details of the artist's private life, then that is a reason for faulting them; major art, by definition, can stand independent of its maker.

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.

I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.

I am afraid that as evangelicals, we think that a work of art only has value if we reduce it to a tract.

Beautiful art sells. If it sells itself, it is an idolatrous commodity; if it sells anything else, it is a seductive advertisement.

I doubt that art needed Ruskin any more than a moving train needs one of its passengers to shove it.

I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.

I hate performers who debase great works of art; I long for their annihilation.

All serious art is being destroyed by commerce. Most people don't want art to be disturbing. They want it to be escapist. I don't think art should be escapist. That's a waste of time.

Henry James proposed asking of art three modest and appropriate questions: What is the artist trying to do? Does he do it? Was it worth doing?

People want Art. And they are given it. But the less Art there is in painting the more painting there is.

In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.

The entire world of art has reached such a low level, it has been commercialized to such a degree that art and everything related to it has become one of the most trivial activities of our epoch.