Richard Phillips Quotes

Art is a habit-forming drug. Art has absolutely no existence as veracity, as truth. People always speak of it with this great, religious reverence, but why should it be so revered?

All good art, to me, is uncertainty.

We have no other means of recognising a work of art than our feeling for it.

How can anybody learn anything from an artwork when the piece of art only reflects the vanity of the artist and not reality?

Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different.

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

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

Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art.

It's clever, but is it Art?

I think it's always hard for people to get their head around the fact that populist, commercial films can also actually be great works of art.

I make pictures and someone comes in and calls it art.

Great art should be shown with great excitement.

We believed that there's no such thing as good art or bad art. Art is art. If it's bad, it's something else. It was a much, much harder line in the '50s and '60s than it is now, because the idea of art education didn't exist - they didn't have a fine arts program when I was a kid.

Art is always good. It just depends if you like or not.

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.

If you are great, 'El Topo' is a great picture. If you are limited, 'El Topo' is limited.

The philistine provides the best definition of art. Anything that makes him rage is first class.

There are a lot of bad films out there. There's a lot of bad architecture out there, and I think sometimes it takes a lot of time to begin to see what's really good. And I think what the test seems to be is, what really sticks with you. And what really becomes a part of your life.

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

Great Art is Great because it inspired you greatly. If it didn't, no matter what the critics, the museums and the galleries say, it's not great art for you.

No one blames themselves if they don't understand a cartoon, as they might with a painting or 'real' art; they simply think it's a bad cartoon.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.

I think in any work of art, there always will be randomness about what is good, what is bad.

A work of art is an echo chamber which repeats what people say about it.