Felix Mendelssohn Quotes

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.

Art has always been and is in its very essence the boldest departure from nature. It is the bridge into the spirit world.

Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness.

There’s a real question as to what beauty is and why it’s important to us. Many pseudo-philosophers try to answer these questions and tell us they’re not really answerable. I draw on art and literature, and music in particular, because music is a wonderful example of something that’s in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds.

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.

Art is... a reflection of a greater divine creation. There really is no separation.

Art makes the spirit soar. And when the spirit is lifted, life follows.

Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.

You need the art in order to love the life.

A great work of Art demands a great thought or a thought of beauty adequately expressed. - Neither in Art nor Literature more than in Life can an ordinary thought be made interesting because well-dressed.

I believe in Michelangelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen.

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.

A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.

There's only one reason for my whole life, and that's art. Nothing else counts; nothing else gives me pleasure; nothing else gives me satisfaction.

To be able to do art, it was a luxury to me.

Painting, for me, is a dynamic balance and wholeness of life; it is mysterious and transcending, yet solid and real.

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

Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to the human spirit.

I get to sing and act and write and create and produce for a living and share art with people, and I feel like a piece of that is in honor of those who came before me.

Art is the objectification of feeling.

If I had a place with a studio where I could paint I'd be happy.

If I'm away from painting for a week, I get bored.

I try to figure out - intellectually, philosophically, psychologically - what the experience of beauty is.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.