Art need no longer be an account of past sensations. It can become the direct organization of more highly evolved sensations. It is a question of producing ourselves, not things that enslave us. Guy Debord (b. 1931), French Situationist philosopher. Internationale Situationist, no. 1 (Paris, June 1958).

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment. Lionel Trilling (1905-75), U.S. critic. Beyond Culture, Preface (1965).

to say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian novelist, philosopher. What Is Art? ch. 10 (1898; published in Tolstoy on Art, ed. by Aylmer Maude, 1924).

Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp. Jean Dubuffet (1901-85), French sculptor, painter. "Notes for the Well-Read" (1946; repr. in Jean Dubuffet: Towards an Alternative Reality, ed. by Marc Glimcher, 1987).

Art-the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised. James Thurber (1894-1961), U.S. humorist, illustrator. Forum and Century (June 1939; also included in Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time, 1939).

feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly I think, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. It is art which will take the great human themes-love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself-and render them fully human. It may also, though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme, one as great and as rich as those others-should we call it "joy"? Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946), U.S. feminist critic. "Feminism, Art, and My Mother Sylvia," speech, 16 April 1974, at Smith College, Northampton, Mass. (published in Our Blood, ch. 1, 1976).

The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn't make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it. Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), U.S. author. "How Writing Is Written," in Choate Literary Magazine (Feb. 1935; repr. in How Writing Is Written, ed. by Robert Bartlett Haas, 1974).

Art never improves, but . . . the material of art is never quite the same. T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), Anglo-American poet, critic. "Tradition and the Individual Talent," in Egoist, sct. 1 (London, Sept. and Dec. 1919; repr. in Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot, ed. by Frank Kermode, 1975).

Much of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible. By getting us used to what, formerly, we could not bear to see or hear, because it was too shocking, painful, or embarrassing, art changes morals. Susan Sontag (b. 1933), U.S. essayist. On Photography, "America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly" (1977).

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Three Plays by Brieux, Preface (1909).

As noble Art has survived noble nature, so too she marches ahead of it, fashioning and awakening by her inspiration. Before Truth sends her triumphant light into the depths of the heart, imagination catches its rays, and the peaks of humanity will be glowing when humid night still lingers in the valleys. Friedrich Von Schiller (1759-1805), German dramatist, poet, essayist. On the Aesthetic Education of Man, "Ninth Letter" (1795).

The effort of art is to keep what is interesting in existence, to recreate it in the eternal. George Santayana (1863-1952), U.S. philosopher, poet. The Life of Reason, "Reason in Art," ch. 8 (1905-6; rev. ed., 1953).

Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing-to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Journals, vol. 8, "A Self On Trial" (1909-14), entry for 22 March 1839.

Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Representative Men, "Plato" (1850).

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth. George Sand (1804-76), French novelist. The Haunted Pool, ch. 1 (1851).

I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face. John Ruskin (1819-1900), English art critic, author. Letter, 18 June 1877 (published in Ruskin's Fors Clavigera, 1871-84), referring to Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket. Oscar Wilde commented that the painting was "worth looking at for about as long as one looks at a real rocket, that is, for somewhat less than a quarter of a minute." Whistler took more seriously Ruskin's remarks, which he made the subject of a lawsuit. See WHISTLER ON VALUE.

Not even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long. It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it to, in the case of literature, its readers; to be, for a secular, materialist culture, some sort of replacement for what the love of god offers in the world of faith. Salman Rushdie (b. 1947), Indian-born British author. "Is Nothing Sacred?" Herbert Reade Memorial Lecture, 6 Feb. 1990.

Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it. . . . Advanced art today is no longer a cause-it contains no moral imperative. There is no virtue in clinging to principles and standards, no vice in selling or in selling out. Harold Rosenberg (1906-78), U.S. art critic, author. "The Cultural Situation Today," in Partisan Review (New Brunswick, N.J., Summer 1972; repr. as Discovering the Present, Introduction, 1973).

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass. William Faulkner (1897-1962), U.S. novelist. Interview in Writers at Work (First Series, ed. by Malcolm Cowley, 1958).

Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), German poet. Letter, 24 June 1907, to his wife (published in Rilke's Letters on Cézanne, 1952; tr. 1985).

n a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it. Ernst Fischer (1899-1972), Austrian editor, poet, critic. The Necessity of Art, ch. 2 (1959; tr. 1963).

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), U.S. author. The Crack-Up, "Notebook L" (ed. by Edmund Wilson, 1945).

Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden . . . it is the best evidence we can have of our dignity. E. M. Forster (1879-1970), British novelist, essayist. Address to PEN Club Congress. Quoted in: Huw Weldon, Monitor (1962).

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you. Robert Wilson (b. 1941), U.S. theater director, designer. Quoted in: International Herald Tribune (Paris, 22 May 1990).

When I am finishing a picture I hold some God-made object up to it-a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand-as a kind of final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it is bad art. Marc Chagall (1889-1985), French artist. Saturday Evening Post (New York, 2 Dec. 1962).

Art consists of limitation. . . . The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. Tremendous Trifles, "The Toy Theatre" (1909).

Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. "House Decoration," lecture, 1882 (published in Aristotle at Afternoon Tea: The Rare Oscar Wilde, 1991).

Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious, and their method too clearly defined. One exhausts what they have to say in a very short time, and then they become as tedious as one's relations. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Gilbert, in The Critic as Artist, pt. 2 (published in Intentions, 1891).

Art, like Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous voices. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 11 (1891).

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse. Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman, author. Address to Royal Academy of Arts. Quoted in: Time (New York, 11 May 1954).

The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art . . . is merely romantic fiction. . . . The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened. Tom Wolfe (b. 1931), U.S. journalist, author. The Painted Word, ch. 2 (1975).

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), British philosopher. Dialogues, 10 June 1943 (1954).

Art is science made clear. Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French author, filmmaker. Le Rappel à l'Ordre, "Le Coq et l'Arlequin" (1926; repr. in Collected Works, vol. 9, 1950).

That shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life? William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English poet. Home at Grasmere (written 1800; published as The Recluse, 1888).

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication. Rebecca West (1892-1983), British author. Ending in Earnest, "Journey's End Again" (1931).

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Polish-born English novelist. The Nigger of the Narcissus, Preface (1897). Conrad continued, "Art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect."

Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs. Charlotte Saunders Cushman (1816-76), U.S. actor. Quoted in: Emma Stebbins, Charlotte Cushman (1879).

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct . . . and to refrain from destruction. Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic. The Pre-War Notebook (1933-39; published in First and Last Notebooks, ed. by Richard Rees, 1970).

Those who write for lucre or fame are grosser Iscariots than the cartel robbers, for they steal the genius of the people, which is its will to resist evil. Edward Dahlberg (1900-1977), U.S. author, critic. Alms for Oblivion, "For Sale" (1964).

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along. Evelyn Waugh (1903-66), British novelist. Interview in Writers at Work (Third Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1967).

I can't work without a model. I won't say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true. Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90), Dutch painter. Letter, Oct. 1888 (published in The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, vol. 3, no. B19, 1958).

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to. . . . The feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures. Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90), Dutch painter. Letter, 21 July 1882, to his brother Theo (published in The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, vol. 1, 1958).

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. . . . We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding. Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), Rumanian-born French Dadaist. Dada 3, "Dada Manifesto 1918" (1918; repr. in The Dada Painters and Poets, ed. by Robert Motherwell, 1951).

This grandiose tragedy that we call modern art. Salvador Dali (1904-89), Spanish painter. Dali by Dali, "The Futuristic Dali" (1970).

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art. Kenneth Tynan (1927-80), British critic. "Ionesco and the Phantom," in Observer (London, 6 July 1958; repr. in Eugène Ionesco, Notes and Counter-Notes, 1962).

If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant. Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Russian revolutionary. Literature and Revolution, ch. 7 (1924).

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation. Angela Davis (b. 1944), U.S. political activist. Women, Culture, and Politics, "Art on the Frontline" (written 1984; first published 1985).

All great art, and today all great artlessness, must appear extreme to the mass of men, as we know them today. It springs from the anguish of great souls. From the souls of men not formed, but deformed in factories whose inspiration is pelf. Alexander Trocchi (1925-83), Italo-Scottish novelist, poet, translator. Cain's Book (1960; repr. 1973, p. 145) ["pelf" means money, wealth].

In art, one idea is as good as another. If one takes the idea of trembling, for instance, all of a sudden most art starts to tremble. Michelangelo starts to tremble. El Greco starts to tremble. All the Impressionists start to tremble. Willem de Kooning (b. 1904), Dutch-born U.S. artist. "A Desperate View," paper, 18 Feb. 1949, delivered to friends (published in Thomas B. Hess, Willem de Kooning, 1968).

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself. Henry Miller (1891-1980), U.S. author. The Wisdom of the Heart, "Reflections on Writing" (1947).

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe; he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life. Henry Miller (1891-1980), U.S. author. The Cosmological Eye, "An Open Letter to Surrealists Everywhere" (1939).

Experiment is necessary in establishing an academy, but certain principles must apply to this business of art as to any other business which affects the artis tic sense of the community. Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language. Robert Menzies (1894-1978), Australian Liberal politician, prime minister. Argus (Sydney, 28 April 1937).

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted. Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French artist. Comment recalled in obituaries reporting his death, 5 Nov. 1954.

We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervour of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizons; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd. Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), Italian playwright. "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism," in Figaro (20 Feb. 1909; repr. in Marinetti: Selected Writings, ed. by R. W. Flint, 1972).

There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause. Mao Zedong (1893-1976), Founder of the People's Republic of China. "Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art" (May 1942; published in Selected Works, vol. 3).

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people. Norman Mailer (b. 1923), U.S. author. "Hip, Hell, and the Navigator," in Western Review, no. 23 (Winter 1959; repr. in Conversations with Norman Mailer, ed. by J. Michael Lennon, 1988).

Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother's face,
Her aspect and her attitude. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), U.S. poet. Keramos.

Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand. Gunther Grass (b. 1927), German author. Interview in New Statesman & Society (London, 22 June 1990).

Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can't force it. Bella Lewitzky (b. 1916), U.S. dancer. Quoted in: San Francisco Chronicle (4 March 1979).

In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman. Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), U.S. novelist. Babbitt, ch. 14, sct. 3 (1922), giving the annual address at the Zenith Real Estate Board.

There is only one art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth. . . . Thus, from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideas the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideas at all. Vbclav Havel (b. 1936), Czech playwright, president. Living in Truth, pt. 1, sct. 5, "Six Asides About Culture" (1986).

Art is the objectification of feeling. Suzanne K. Langer (1895-1985), U.S. philosopher. Mind, An Essay on Human Feeling, vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 4 (1967).

Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible. Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss artist. Creative Credo (1918; sct. 1 repr. in The Inward Vision, 1957).

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen
     was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves "It's
     pretty, but is it Art?" Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), British author, poet. The Conundrum of the Workshops, of "Our father Adam," who "sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould."

Art, that great undogmatized church. Ellen Key (1849-1926), Swedish author, feminist. The Renaissance of Motherhood, pt. 2, ch. 1 (1914).

Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue. Benjamin Haydon (1786-1846), British artist. Correspondence and Table Talk, vol. 2, "Table Talk" (ed. by Frederic Wordsworth Haydon, 1876).

In free society art is not a weapon. . . . Artists are not engineers of the soul. John F. Kennedy (1917-63), U.S. Democratic politician, president. Speech, 26 Oct. 1963, Amherst College, Massachusetts.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize. Pauline Kael (b. 1919), U.S. film critic. Going Steady, "Movies as Opera" (1968).

Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end. James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish author. Stephen Dedalus, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 5 (1916).

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), English author, lexicographer. Quoted in: James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 5 April 1776 (1791).

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance . . . and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process. Henry James (1843-1916), U.S. author. Letter, 10 July 1915, to author H. G. Wells. Wells wrote in reply (13 July), "I don't clearly understand your concluding phrases. . . . I can only read a sense into it by assuming that you are using 'art' for every conscious human activity. I use the word for a research and attainment that is technical and special." Both letters are included in Letters of Henry James, vol. 4 (1984).

A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind. Eugune Ionesco (1912-94), Rumanian-born French playwright. Notes and Counter-Notes, pt. 2, "An Address Delivered to a Gathering of French and German Writers" (Feb. 1960; published 1962).

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), British author. Ends and Means, ch. 12 (1937).

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed. David Hockney (b. 1937), British artist. Hockney On Photography, "New York: September 1986" (ed. by Wendy Brown, 1988), from conversations with Paul Joyce.

Art is on the side of the oppressed. Think before you shudder at the simplistic dictum and its heretical definition of the freedom of art. For if art is freedom of the spirit, how can it exist within the oppressors? Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923), South African author. "The Essential Gesture," lecture, 12 Oct. 1984, University of Michigan (published in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. by Sterling M. McMurrin, 1985; repr. in The Essential Gesture, ed. by Stephen Clingman, 1988).

Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth. Laura Riding (1901-91), U.S. poet. Selected Poems: In Five Sets, Preface (1975).

There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist's relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist's concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle. Adrienne Rich (b. 1929), U.S. poet. Blood, Bread and Poetry, title essay (1986).

One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape . . . it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear. Marilyn French (b. 1929), U.S. author, critic. The Women's Room, ch. 3, sct. 1 (1977).

Art is too serious to be taken seriously. Ad Reinhardt (1913-67), U.S. artist. Notes quoted in Lucy R. Lippard, Ad Reinhardt, pt. 1 (1981).

Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model. Northrop Frye (1912-91), Canadian literary critic. Fables of Identity (1963). Quoted in: Stephen Vizinczey, Truth and Lies in Literature, "Rules of the Game" (1986).

Art is either plagiarism or revolution. Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), French artist. Quoted in: Huneker, Pathos of Distance, p. 128.

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left. Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French novelist. Remembrance of Things Past, vol. 12, ch. 3, "Time Regained" (1927; tr. by Stephen Hudson, 1931).

Good art however "immoral" is wholly a thing of virtue . . . Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise. Ezra Pound (1885-1972), U.S. poet, critic. Egoist (London, 1913). Quoted in: Humphrey Carpenter, A Serious Character, pt. 2, ch. 10 (1988).

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it "the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul." The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of "Artist." Edgar Allan Poe (1809-45), U.S. poet, critic, short-story writer. "Marginalia," in Southern Literary Messenger (Richmond, Va., June 1849; repr. in Essays and Reviews, 1984).

Through art we express our conception of what nature is not. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist. "Picasso Speaks," in The Arts (New York, May 1923; repr. in Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art, 1946).

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist. "Picasso Speaks," in The Arts (New York, May 1923; repr. in Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art, 1946).

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public. Henry Geldzahler (b. 1935), Belgium-born U.S. curator, art critic. "The Art Audience and the Critic," in Hudson Review (New York; Spring 1965; repr. in The New Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. by Gregory Battcock, 1966; rev. 1973).

The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity. Andre Gide (1869-1951), French author. Journals 1889-1949 (ed. by Justin O'Brien, 1951), entry for 23 Nov. 1940.

Wherever art appears, life disappears. Francis Picabia (1878-1953), French painter, poet. "L'Humour Poetique," in La Nef, no. 71-72 (Paris, Dec. 1950/ Jan. 1951; repr. in Écrits, vol. 2, "1950-1953," ed. by Olivier Revault d'Allones and Dominique Bouissou, 1978).

What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism. Octavio Paz (b. 1914), Mexican poet. Alternating Current, "Invention, Underdevelopment, Modernity" (1967).

Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness. Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), Spanish essayist, philosopher. The Dehumanization of Art, "Art a Thing of No Consequence" (1925).

Art is skill, that is the first meaning of the word. Eric Gill (1882-1940), British sculptor, engraver, writer, typographer. Art, ch. 1 (1934).

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher. The Birth of Tragedy, ch. 24 (1872).

To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination. George Jean Nathan (1882-1958), U.S. critic. "Art," in American Mercury (July 1929).

Fortunately art is a community effort-a small but select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh. Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties, "Mexico and Return to U.S." (ed. by Gordon Ball, 1977), entry for 11 July 1954.

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods. Iris Murdoch (b. 1919), British novelist, philosopher. Plato (aged 20), in Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues, "Art and Eros: A Dialogue about Art" (1986). The dialogue was first performed on stage in Feb. 1980.

The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with. Robert Motherwell (1915-91), U.S. artist. The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, Preface (ed. by Robert Motherwell, 1951).

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930), French filmmaker, author. "What Is Cinema?" in Les Amis du Cinéma (Paris, 1 Oct. 1952; repr. in Godard, on Godard, ed. and tr. by Tom Milne, 1968).

As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture. Goncourt Edmond de (1822-96) and Jules de (1830-70), French writers. The Goncourt Journals (1888-96; repr. in Pages from the Goncourt Journal, ed. by Robert Baldick, 1962), entry for 7 Dec. 1860.

Art is man's expression of his joy in labour. William Morris (1834-96), English artist, writer, printer. "Art under Plutocracy" (1883; repr. in Collected Works of William Morris, vol. 23, 1910-15).

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it. Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English author. Samuel Butler's Notebooks (1951, p. 275).

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it. Anthony Burgess (1917-93), British author, critic. Face (London, Dec. 1984).

Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane. Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69), German philosopher, sociologist, music critic. Prisms, "Perennial Fashion-Jazz" (1967).

What is art,
But life upon the larger scale, the higher,
When, graduating up in a spiral line
Of still expanding and ascending gyres,
It pushes toward the intense significance
Of all things, hungry for the Infinite?
Art's life,-and where we live, we suffer and toil. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61), English poet. Aurora Leigh, bk. 4 (1857).

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values. A. Alvarez (b. 1929), British critic, poet, novelist. The Savage God, pt. 4, "Dada: Suicide as an Art" (1971).

Art is an experience, not the formulation of a problem. Lindsay Anderson (1923-94), British film director. Times (London, 29 March 1989).

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere. Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), Italian-born French poet, critic. The Cubist Painters, "On Painting" (1913).

Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's womb. Jean Arp (1887-1948), French-German artist, poet. Cahiers d'Art, vol. 22, "Art is a Fruit" (1947; repr. in On My Way, ed. by Robert Motherwell, 1948).

The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal. Andre Breton (1896-1966), French surrealist. Mad Love, ch. 1 (1937; tr. 1987).

Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future. J. G. Ballard (b. 1930), British author. Interview in Books and Bookmen (London, April 1971; repr. in Re/Search, no. 8/9, San Francisco, 1984).

I can't tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. . . . Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts, and honour. John Berger (b. 1926), British author, critic. Miners, exhibition catalogue (1989; repr. in Keeping a Rendezvous, 1992).

The first mistake of Art is to assume that it's serious. Lester Bangs (1948-82), U.S. rock journalist. Who Put the Bomp (Winter/Spring 1971; repr. in Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung, "James Taylor Marked for Death," 1987).

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity. Daniel Barenboim (b. 1942), Argentinian-born Israeli pianist, conductor. International Herald Tribune (Paris, 20 Jan. 1989).

A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else. Charles Baudelaire (1821-67), French poet. L'Ecole Païenne (1852; repr. in Complete Works, vol. 2, ed. by Yves-Gérard le Dantec, rev. by Claude Pichois, 1976).

The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), German critic, philosopher. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, sct. 12 (1936; repr. in Illuminations, ed. by Hannah Arendt, 1968).

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess? Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), German composer. Letter, 11 Aug. 1810, to author Bettina von Arnim.

In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), French novelist, essayist. The Ethics of Ambiguity, ch. 1 (1948).

As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are comming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth. Stephen Bayley (b. 1951), British design critic. Commerce and Culture, ch. 1 (1989).

It is impossible to give a clear account of the world, but art can teach us to reproduce it-just as the world reproduces itself in the course of its eternal gyrations. The primordial sea indefatigably repeats the same words and casts up the same astonished beings on the same seashore. Albert Camus (1913-60), French-Algerian philosopher, author. The Rebel, pt. 2, "Absolute Affirmation" (1951; tr. 1953).

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers. Willa Cather (1873-1947), U.S. author. On Writing, "Four Letters: Escapism" (1949).

Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other. Neal Cassady (1926-68), U.S. beat hero. Letter, 7-8 Jan. 1948, to Jack Kerouac. Quoted in: Gerald Nicosia, Memory Babe, ch. 5, sct. 5 (1983).

Fine art, that exists for itself alone, is art in a final state of impotence. If nobody, including the artist, acknowledges art as a means of knowing the world, then art is relegated to a kind of rumpus room of the mind and the irresponsibility of the artist and the irrelevance of art to actual living becomes part and parcel of the practice of art. Angela Carter (1940-92), British author. The Sadeian Woman, "Polemical Preface" (1979).

A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Al Capp (1909-79), U.S. cartoonist. Quoted in: National Observer (Silver Spring, Md., 1 July 1963), referring to abstract art.