Artistic Nuance Quotes

The most potent elements in a work of art are, often, its silences.

There's kind of a cool feel that happens every now and then. I guess that feel is the thing that makes the score its own score. But, I don't know exactly what that is. So, it's hard for me to answer that question.

Conducting, I tried it once off the cuff, and quickly realized there were subtle aspects that I was missing. There is a lot more to it that I was able to grasp simply by watching conductors.

POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.

Even though Prince wasn't rapping and it was a whole different era, it shows how artists expressed themselves without saying too much, and that was the real beauty of the art.

In the case of 'Fantastic Woman,' I wanted to make it a more complex animal than just a 'cause' film. Even though I was sympathizing with the character's struggle, I didn't want to be trapped at that level - it's important, but it can be quite basic.

This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.

The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!

I don't work on poems and essays at once. They walk on different legs, speak with different tongues, draw from different parts of the psyche. Their paces are also different.

It struck me at some point that the things I wanted to say had to be wordless. I had to renounce words in order to go deep into the practice of making materials and textures that would express what I'm trying to say more accurately.

Poetry is a lyrical insinuation. Often, its melodic subtlety kisses the subconscious mind.

I like all different kinds of music. I never heavily molded myself after rappers. Sometimes they say when you think something and you go to say it, you lose a lot of color about what you're trying to say, so to me the best rappers are the people that don't lose that color.

There's more to music than just words over tracks.

Erik Satie does not say the opposite of Debussy; he says the same thing only the other way round.

Beautiful books are always written in a sort of foreign language.

I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement.

It's just about really being sensitive, and trying to play a music that is about music.

Blue is the only color that maintains its own character in all its tones…it will always stay blue.

In music, you can use metaphors with ease - if a person doesn't understand the parable, they can still enjoy the melody of the music. If, however, a person reads a book and misses the meaning of its metaphors, this will be extremely disheartening for both the reader as well as the author.

If you emphasize one part of the song, it trivializes the rest of the music.

Color is crucial in painting, but it is very hard to talk about.

What always attracted me to [Bob] Dylan, and what has sustained me as a Dylan listener, or has always continued to surprise me, is his voice, the way he sings, the way he wraps his voice around certain words, the way he backs off from melodic moments, the way he moves forward to grab something in a song that, were anybody else performing it, they would have no idea it was even there.

But the difference between the little pieces and the big pieces - I'm not actually sure which are the little pieces. With some of the big pieces, it's a lot of musical running around, whereas the little pieces, you can say everything you want to say.

I like the songs to appear very simple and to flow by without any kind of hiccup, but there has to be this impression of other currents underneath. Like if the songs aren't, on some level, multidimensional, we lose interest in them.

I do like how the music can be misunderstood.