Clive Bell Quotes

It is better to have a good painting with ten holes than ten bad paintings without any holes.

Not all art is great; most of it's rubbish.

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

A proof of really great art is that it is generally true - it seldom falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable.

If it's good art, it's good.

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

If the standard for art is the decency of its creators, we're going to have a lot of empty museums.

I personally don't distinguish between artistic and commercial films.

All bad art is the result of good intentions.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

I feel that all good art is powerful and simple.

There is no reason for me to show my collection in New York, because it's not about craft and technique there.

I have never collected an object or figure from Africa or Oceania because of anything curious about it or because of its utility or historic interest. Everything has been chosen entirely because of its aesthetic significance; its form, feeling, structure, and plastic values.

And you know, art as commerce, doesn't really make too much sense, they don't go together.

But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY.

I don't think there's any formula for what makes great art.

No matter how hard I tried to popularize, I never cheapened a great work of art.

I believe that true art is universal in its appeal.

The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.

When art is defined by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, you've got a society that's impoverished.

When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.

I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?

You can't just take an image and randomly distort it and call it art - although many people in La Jolla where I come from do precisely that.

We don't really want to think that the artist is only very skilled, that he has merely devoted his life to perfecting a certain set of intelligible skills.

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.