Duane Michals Quotes

A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.

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

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

The reason the art world doesn't respond to Kinkade is because none - not one - of his ideas about subject-matter, surface, color, composition, touch, scale, form, or skill is remotely original. They're all cliche and already told.

People understand what art is supposed to look like, and so it's easy to make something that looks like art but isn't - especially in an abstract form.

Any work of art that can be understood is the product of journalism.

It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism.

I think that some works are more accessible than others.

Painting is the aesthetic side of the object but it has never been original, has never been its own goal.

The writer concerned more with technique than truth becomes a technician, not an artist.

That should be something that an artist can respond to as well in terms of a painting.

A good painting should be the equivalent of a good deed.

If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.

Painting is something that takes place among the colors.

We may call painting the grandchild of nature.

All art is bad, but modern art is the worst.

The fact that cartoons are reproduced doesn't mean anything to me as far as whether they are "real art" or not.

What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but, whatever adjective is used, we must call it art, and bad art is still art in the same way that a bad emotion is still an emotion.

I had the impression in art school that cartooning was thought of as a lesser art than painting because cartoons are reproduced, so the "work" is not the single thing like a painting, but instead is the reproduced image.

The painters have no copyright on modern art!... I believe in, and make no apologies for, photography: it is the most important graphic medium of our day. It does not have to be, indeed cannot be - compared to painting - it has different means and aims.

Ethics are no more a part of poetry than theyare of painting.

There is no such thing as #1 in art.

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.

A work of art, so far as it is a work of art, cannot - whatever the artist's personal intention - advocate anything at all.

Art can excite, titillate, please, entertain, and sometimes shock; but its ultimate function is to ennoble.