artistic disillusionment Quotes

I had given up ( around 1950, fh) any ambition of making a career as an artist…..I had lost all interest in the art shown in galleries and museums, and I no longer aspired to fit in that world. I loved the paintings done by children, and my only desire was to do the same for my own pleasure.

Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true art. And after that, the whip came down.

There's no single artwork I even want to mention or that I can even really think about it to have any feeling, to be proud of it.

I was like, what the hell is my life coming to? I'm a trained actor! I've done Shakespeare and here I am having farting contests with an imaginary dog!

I used to tell everyone I met to be an artist..... I don't do that any more.

I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world.

The funniest novel you've never read. . . . Afternoon Men is a revelation to sophisticated readers of every stripe, but especially to a certain kind of artist manqu on the brink of discovering that life is a more difficult business than he ever had reason to expect. . . . The subject matter is 'relatable,' as my students like to say. Better still, though, is what you can learn about the craft of writing from this marvelous book. . . . Indeed, if you're looking for a funny, nonportentous Hemingway, then the early Powell is your man.

Inside the museum infinity goes up on trial. Voices echo, 'This is what salvation must be like after a while.' But Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues; you can tell by the way she smiles.

I think a lot of artists no longer want to participate in or be associated with narrative because of its corruptedness in contemporary culture.

The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.

Everything that I spent my entire life dedicated to, which is this art of mentalism, of magic... I don't see it and feel it and experience it like I first did when I was getting involved in this art. I try to look at it as a spectator but unless I get amnesia I still can't overlook that. I can appreciate the performance but I would love to be fooled.

I speak for an art ... weary of its puny exploits, weary of pretending to be able, of being able, of doing a little better the same old thing, of going a little further along a dreary road.

It was Richepin who said somewhere, 'The love of art means loss of real love'... True, but on the other hand, real love makes you disgusted with art.

I'm afraid that eating in restaurants reflects one's experiences with movies, art galleries, novels, music - that is, characterized by mild amusement but with an overall feeling of stupidity and shame. Better to cook for yourself.

What all this posturing and fake glamor results in is a vast detachment and cynicism on the part of the artists. Since it's impossible to have respect for an audience that'll take just about anything you care to dish out, and the impassive demeanor is so central to the role, a general numbnose is all that can be expected.

It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realise his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realise their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realised, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting-point for an ideal that is other than itself.

It was easy to leave the art world after I found out that it was just another corporation. When they told me I had to create the same thing, I rebelled.

Retiring from writing is to avoid the inevitable bitterness which a writing career is bound to deliver as its end product in almost every case.

I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.

I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song.

I never lost my interest in acting but I did lose my interest in the business and what I had to go through to make a film. I felt saturated, you know, like a sponge when it's saturated - it's not good.

I feel like I'm living in the dead weeds of hip-hop. I live in the graveyard of what went wrong with hip-hop.

School is such an encouraging and safe environment. It's filled with idealism and just really working on your craft. When you enter the business world - where art meets commerce - it can become quite depressing.

I wanted to be an artist after all, and my teachers told me these were the best authors the 20th century had to offer. But these books sucked. They were so boring and sloppy and plotless. And Bob Dylan's lyrics seemed nonsensical to me - almost like he had just gotten high and written down whatever random thoughts occurred to him.

I noticed that the large windows between the paintings [in the Musee d'Art Moderne] interested me more than the art exhibited. From then on, painting as I had known it was finished for me.