Man Ray Quotes

Art is not about objects of high monetary exchange. It's about reasserting our firsthand experience in present time.

An amateur may not be an artist, though an artist should be an amateur.

In the world of art, as in the whole of creation, freedom and progress are the main objectives.

I think if you're a creative person, then you're always kinda looking to move things along - 'Where else can I go? Where can I take this?' From painters to photographers - anything creative in the arts - if you're a true artist, I think you'll always look to do something else. 'Where else can I go with it?' Do you know what I mean?

Leave to the masters of art trained by a lifetime of devotion the wonderful process of picture-building and picture creation. Go out into the sunlight and be happy with what you see.

On the ridge where the great artist moves forward, every step is an adventure, an extreme risk. In that risk, however, and only there, lays the freedom of Art.

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.

The different styles I have been using in my art must not be seen as an evolution, or as steps towards an unknown ideal of painting. Everything I have ever made was made for the present and with the hope that it would always remain in the present.

Art changes all the time, but it never "improves." It may go down, or up, but it never improves as technology and medicine improve.

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

In art there is no progress, only fluctuations of intensity.

The practise of an art is essential to the whole man, not because of what art is but because of what art does to the artist.

Why not spend that time on art: painting, sculpting, charcoal, pastel, oils? Are words or numbers more important than images? Who decides this? Does algebra move you to tears? Can plural possessives express the feelings in your heart? If you don't learn art now, you will never learn to breathe!

I find it hard to believe that the machine would go into the creative artist's hand even were that magic hand in true place. It has been too far exploited by industrialism and science at expense to art and true religion.

I had no idea what art was. There was one art class in high school, but it didn't make a big impression on me. Then I went to college and thought I'd become a writer.

Artwork is not like a commercial business; there is no such thing as a schedule for art. You can't hurry art.

Some of the most radical work is being done in the most commercially pop venues, and some of the most boring work is being done in avant-garde territory.

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.

I enjoyed art in school. I've always done little drawings and stuff like that. I don't really know what I'm doing with the painting, but I experiment.

The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.

Whatever art form you're working in, it's crucial to see it clearly, to feel it clearly, and not to worry about the results, or how someone else will see it.

You really can't bring about anything new with art.

I always loved art shows at schools. My friends with kids would go, and I would go with them. It's some of my favorite art... It's more about creativity than the grand statement of an agenda.

I feel like every artist has an opportunity to create something new and to challenge themselves to reach out to a new crowd.