Kenneth Clark Quotes

The modern work of art, as I have said, is a symbol.

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life.

And, moreover, it is art in its most general and comprehensive form that is here discussed, for the dialogue embraces everything connected with it, from its greatest object, the state, to its least, the embellishment of sensuous existence.

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.

Art evokes emotion. It doesn't have to be a thing of beauty.

Politics is marginal, but literature moves along by indirection.

Art matters not merely because it is the most magnificent ornament and the most nearly unfailing occupation of our lives, but because it is life itself.

Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life.

In Rome it seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the world than pictures.

Even luxuries are arranged according to ideas and ideals, to make them reflect as much of thought-life as possible - and this is Art.

O painter skilled in anatomy, beware lest the undue prominence of the bones, sinews and muscles cause you to become a wooden painter from the desire to make your nude figures reveal all.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

A work of art is one of mystery, the one extreme magic; everything else is either arithmetic or biology.

Art in the art world, and culture in general, are branches of the media, which produces our political and social thinking climate.

O thou sculptor, painter, poet! Take this lesson to thy heart: That is best which lieth nearest; Shape from that thy work of art.

A painted landscape is always more beautiful than a real one, because there's more there. Everything is more sensual, and one takes refuge in its beauty.

Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made - I try to act in the gap.

High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature; but in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure;' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis.

The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musican, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce.

It entered the visual vocabulary of photographers, painters and sculptors and focused on what pictures and words look like and what they can mean.

The sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature.

The artist stands on the human being as a statue does on a pedestal.

I think that theater is the closest medium to music. It's very pure. It's for the elite of the society. It's not for everyone in the society.