In sheer genius Pascal ranks among the very greatest writers who have lived upon this earth. And his genius was not simply artistic; it displayed itself no less in his character and in the quality of his thought.
Beethoven in c minor has come to symbolize his artistic character...where he seems to be most impatient of any compromise.
I do believe every artwork has its own charisma. Sometimes it's different from what I expect. When a work is finished, it exudes its own charisma and lives its life independently.
What people don't understand is that how you are as an artist depends on how you are emotionally.
A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.
If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul.
I'm interested in music as an extension of character.
Artists who are relevant today won't be tomorrow unless someone does the right thing by their character and preserves it in the dialogue of a movie.
To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.
How much the work of an artist owes to an art movement to which he belongs can never be determined exactly, if only because the movement derives its character from the individual creations of its members.
Most famous artists are created by their work and the idea of them as a character, and if they're smart and ambitious, they reinforce that character because they want to win. They want their views to prevail.
It is the addition of strangeness to beauty that constitutes the romantic character in art.
Flaubert spoke true: to succeed a great artist must have both character and fanaticism and few in this country are willing to pay the price. Our writers have either no personality and therefore no style or a false personality and therefore a bad style; they mistake prejudice for energy and accept the sensation of material well-being as a system of thought.
