Art Appreciation Quotes

“Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“A photograph is usually looked at- seldom looked into.”
― Ansel Adams

“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical, criticism.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood

“In my young days I praised the master whose pictures I liked, but as my judgment matured I praised myself for liking what the masters had chosen to have me like.”
― Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea

“For most people, art is only valuable if other people say it is; and artists are only worthwhile if they are either rich and famous, or dead.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“It has been said that art is a tryst; for in the joy of it, maker and beholder meet.”
― Kojiro Tomita

“In my own opinion, the average American's cultural shortcomings can be likened to those of the educated barbarians of ancient Rome. These were barbarians who learned to speak--and often to read and write--Latin. They acquired Roman habits of dress and deportment. Many of them handily mastered Roman commercial, engineering and military techniques--but they remained barbarians nonetheless. They failed to develop any understanding, appreciation or love for the art and culture of the great civilization around them.”
― J. Paul Getty, How to Be Rich

“One is reminded in this connection of a story concerning Kobori-Enshiu. Enshiu was complimented by his disciples on the admirable taste he had displayed in the choice of his [art] collection. Said they, "Each piece is such that no one could help admiring. It shows that you had better taste than had Rikiu, for his collection could only be appreciated by one beholder in a thousand." Sorrowfully Enshiu replied: "This only proves how commonplace I am. The great Rikiu dared to love only those objects which personally appealed to him, whereas I unconsciously cater to the taste of the majority. Verily, Rikiu was one in a thousand among tea-masters.”
― Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea

“Reading, like other types of art appreciation, is intensely personal. So what appeals to people is going to depend on who they are. It depends on what is happening in their life at any given moment. On what has happened to them over the course of their personal history and what makes them feel any number of things. The value of art, when it comes to being appreciated by the beholder makes the person consuming it part of that process. Failing to appreciate that integral part of the process is done at your own peril.

[*Pulls Ranty Pants Up* In Which Lauren Dane Discusses Art, Publishing, Trash and Writing What you Want, Blog Post, May 16, 2013]”
― Lauren Dane

“I quite lost myself, gazing at this work of art. . . It thrilled me, that sculpture. For one thing, it reminded me that in my new life, I may have other such experiences. I needn't always be an ignorant girl. The world will offer itself to me like a chalice brimming with immortal wine, and I will quaff from it.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“The first step in any encounter with art is to do nothing, to just watch, giving your eye a chance to absorb all that's there. We shouldn't think "This is good," or "This is bad," or "This is a Baroque picture which means X, Y, Z." Ideally, for the first minute we shouldn't think at all. Art needs time to perform its work on us.”
― Patrick Bringley, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

“I´ve often wondered why people who could look at incredible new art and laugh at it bothered to involve themselves with art at all. And yet you'd run into so many of these types around the art scene.”
― Andy Warhol, POPism: The Warhol Sixties

“One's assessment of an object must be free and unhampered, with nothing between you and the object. You must look directly at it. To decide that a particular piece must be valuable because it has a particular [artist's signature] seal is weak and demeaning. Your assessment only gains meaning when you look at the object directly, free and unfettered.”
― Soetsu Yanagi, The Beauty of Everyday Things

“The eyes of the world are fixed on Mars at the moment, sir. Everywhere I look the arts are being shunted aside for technology. It's not necessarily a bad thing but, maybe in some small way, this could redress the balance a little. History--the new sex. Sir.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“You should look, but you should also see. You should pay attention, render creation it’s due.”
― Robert Clark

“Dreams are the clay through which we mold our art.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Oneironaut’s Diary

“But in my profession I know one miraculous name. You will be very much surprised. This name is Piet Mondrian. That man painted extremely simple panels, where on a seemingly white ground, divided by what seems to merely be black lines of different sizes and some rectangles of color. If you sit in front of that picture or in front of any of his pictures, but you cannot see it quick, you see it certain times. You have to conentrate and suddenly in front of your eyes, the background recedes, the airy, wonderful structure is advancing towards your eyes and you see the green going far and red coming nearer and the yellow going out of sight. And in front of your eyes is the structure. You are assisting at something that becomes in front of your eyes, that's veritably a becoming, you are assisting at the birth of a form. It is miraculous to recreate the form, but to make you see form being born in front of you -- it is a great miracle.
[-- Martin A. Ryerson Lecture, 20 February 1951]”
― Pavel Tchelitchew

“But in my profession I know one miraculous name. You will be very much surprised. This name is Piet Mondrian. That man painted extremely simple panels, where on a seemingly white ground, divided by what seems to merely be black lines of different sizes and some rectangles of color. If you sit in front of that picture or in front of any of his pictures, but you cannot see it quick, you see it certain times. You have to concentrate and suddenly in front of your eyes, the background recedes, the airy, wonderful structure is advancing towards your eyes and you see the green going far and red coming nearer and the yellow going out of sight. And in front of your eyes is the structure. You are assisting at something that becomes in front of your eyes, that's veritably a becoming, you are assisting at the birth of a form. It is miraculous to recreate the form, but to make you see form being born in front of you -- it is a great miracle.
[-- Martin A. Ryerson Lecture, 20 February 1951]”
― Pavel Tchelitchew

“Art takes what in life is an accidental pleasure and tries to repeat and prolong it.”
― Edwin Denby

“Don’t think about whether the artwork or exhibit appeals … think about the emotion it stirs within you.”
― Lisa Medved, The Engraver's Secret

“When you listen to an old record, there can be no illusion that you are present at a performance. You are listening through a gray drizzle of static, a sound like rain. You can never forget how far away you are. You always hear it, the sound of distance in time. But what is the connection between the listener and the musician? Does it matter that one of you is alive and one is dead, and which is which?”
― Hari Kunzru, White Tears