Artistic Freedom Quotes

“It is impossible to be truly artistic without the risk of offending someone somewhere.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“Anyone I love takes away part of my freedom, but in that case it is I who wished it; and there is so much pleasure in loving that one gladly sacrifices something for its sake. Any one who loves me takes away all my freedom. Anyone who admires me (as a writer) threatens to take it away from me. I even fear those who understand me, which is why I spend so much time covering my tracks - both in my private life and in the persona I express through my books. What would have delighted me, had I loved god, is the thought that god gives nothing in return.”
― Henry de Montherlant, Les jeunes filles

“Freedom is the soul of art.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lives to Serve Before I Sleep

“Even science is art, when it flows pure and free - literature is art, when it flows pure and free - mathematics is art, when it flows pure and free. Any act of the mind that flows pure and free, is art, for freedom is the soul of art.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lives to Serve Before I Sleep

“Every emotion, every phrase or sentence, every bit of human action, can be a form of art. Art is not necessarily bound to the stereotypical notions of the human society. Art can come in the form of a little sentence, art can come in the form of a simple brush-stroke, art can come in the form of an everyday snapshot, art can come in the form of a plain strumming on the fret of an old guitar. Art doesn't require definition, and more importantly, art cannot be bound by the descriptions of words, yet words themselves can form the most rejuvenating and liberating form of art.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Handel's yearning for independence from the traditional chains of patronage and his persistence in monitoring his productions resulted with unique developments concerning Baroque 'opera seria'; however, paradoxically his personal obsession to obtain complete artistic freedom generated disastrous side-effects that eventually impeded the progress of opera in London.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Handel's Path to Covent Garden

“What’s ensued is a battle over ethical conduct, artistic freedom, and censorship in which every side—the activist zealots who threatened violence, the shock-tactic artists, and the controversy-courting, then risk-averse museum—has come out a loser.”
― Andrea K. Scott

“Art is the newly sprung river that keeps flowing at its own pace, based on its own unconditional knacks, passion, and its nature. Nature itself is art, and as such, art can be found in everything that belongs to nature. And in the world we live, there is nothing that doesn't belong to nature, for everything is nature, hence, everything is art. Even science is art, when it flows pure and free - literature is art, when it flows pure and free - mathematics is art, when it flows pure and free. Any act of the mind that flows pure and free, is art, for freedom is the soul of art.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lives to Serve Before I Sleep

“When I began writing stories as a child, I wrote copies of what I read, and in many respects, that is what I’ve have continued doing, in only a slightly less obvious way. The illusion of artistic freedom is just that, an illusion. No words are “my words”—I merely arrange and use them in a certain way.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Translating Myself and Others

“This is our moment in the mighty continuum of art and life. Real art knows no boundaries; it communicates across all times, across all cultures. Art is as much an aspect of our species as the opposable thumb, and just as prevalent.”
― Richard Bledsoe, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization

“Average acting is like jerking without an orgasm.”
― Giovanni Morassutti

“A work of art is a declaration of freedom. There has never been anything so difficult for mankind to bear as freedom.”
― Oskar Schlemmer , The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer

“We said that we had to please ourselves first, that was the point of what being an artist was all about. If you didn't keep your integrity in the face of hard commercial decisions, you were lost. Your soul was dead.”
― Mick Fleetwood, Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac

“Artists are one the final holdouts. Virtually every profession is being driven towards commodification. And corporations, with their profit-driven standardization, building consensus, obfuscation, and aversion to risk, are the ENEMY of art.”
― Kate Kretz, Art from Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice

“No matter what controversy erupts, you'll find that artists just keep doing what artists have been doing since the beginning of time.

Pushing the edges. Exploding the margins. Making something so compelling you can't look away even when it disturbs you, even when it awakens something dormant inside your being that threatens the status quo you depend on.
We are here to rewire the rules of creation. Here to make work that refuses to be ignored.
Writing and singing and dancing our way out of the closets and out of the churches and out of the pyres they built to burn us.

It's our job as makers, as writers and singers and painters and dancers and actors and those born to act as mirrors to a world that sought to contain us inside a dogma meant only for the meek and compliant.

It's the entire reason, full stop, the ending and the beginning of the story, of every story, Over and over and over again.

So, the conservative talking heads, the hellfire and brimstone preachers, the right-wing bible thumpers, and those who have proclaimed themselves the bastions of moral superiority can keep clutching their pearls and beating their breasts.

We'll just keep making art that moves you.

You're welcome.”
― Jeanette LeBlanc

“The worst thing you can do to an artist is demand they explain themselves. Stanislavsky said a raised voice has no place in art — nor does cross-examination. An ambiguous space to breathe in is the lifeblood of all creativity. Despite the implied tag of ownership from financial benefactors, the artist must resist becoming a preserved butterfly on a pin for study.”
― Stewart Stafford