William Wycherley Quotes

Artistic qualities that once seemed undeniable don't seem so now. Sometimes these fluctuations are only fickleness of taste, momentary glitches in an artist's work, or an artist getting ahead of his audience (it took me ten years to catch up to Albert Oehlen). Other times, however, these problems mean there's something wrong with the art.

Critics? Don't talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don't.

There are many artists that I present that I admit I like less than I do others. But I think that they warrant being presented by my own, personal standards.

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

If your choice enters into it, then taste is involved - bad taste, good taste, uninteresting taste. Taste is the enemy of art, A-R-T.

I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.

It's not a science when you are judging art, but we'd be remiss to say you can't look at something and say, 'This is more well done than that.'

Bad critics judge a work of art by comparing it to pre-existing theories. They always go wrong when confronted with a masterpiece because masterpieces make their own rules.

In our democratic culture people often think it is threatening to judge another person's taste. Some are even offended by the suggestion that there is a difference between good and bad taste, or that it matters what you look at or read or listen to.

In my vocabulary there are two bad words: art and good taste.

There are three distinct kind of judges upon all new authors or productions; the first are those who know no rules, but pronounce entirely from their natural taste and feelings; the second are those who know and judge by rules; and the third are those who know, but are above the rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy. Next to them rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that are formed by the rules.

The connoisseur of painting gives only bad advice to the painter. For that reason I have given up trying to judge myself.

Most works of art are, necessarily, bad...; one suffers through the many for the few.

It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art... Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes.

While the authority of the doctor or plumber is never questioned, everyone deems himself a good judge and an adequate arbiter of what a work of art should be and how it should be done.

I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.

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

I will try to account for the degree of my aesthetic emotion. That, I conceive, is the function of the critic.

Unless you are a born connoisseur of art, you will not be able to judge by yourself why certain art is superior to other art.

I have generally found that persons who had studied painting least were the best judges of it.

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

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.

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

There's a point where art is not subjective, and my example for that is Picasso. If you don't like Picasso, that's your problem.

As a composer and as a musician I'm a true believer - and this is not to be overly diplomatic - I'm a believer that there's artistry in everything from a lawn gnome to a desk chair to a symphony to an Andy Warhol painting. There's art in absolutely everything.