Ingmar Bergman Quotes

I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work — not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.

Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto His glory.

When I see Tiffany windows in churches across the United States, I get a sense of spiritual upliftment from that.

It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God's heaven.

Why do we make records? Because we want to say something. Why are you in art? Because you want to say something. The second you don't have anything to say, you stop making art - you might start making product. And I'm interested in being an artist.

Art is kind of the lens through which I think about God.

The modern notion of art is an essentially religious or magical one in which the artist is viewed as a holy beast who in some way, big or small, receives flashes from the godhead, which is known as creativity.

Art itself, in all its methods, is the child of religion. The highest and best works in architecture, sculpture and painting, poetry and music, have been born out of the religion of Nature.

We do have to be a witness to our art.

I began to wonder - I knew I was an artist or wanted to be one - but I was wondering whether I really was an artist. I was doing such ordinary things that I could feel the difference. Most people would look at those things and say, 'Well, that's nothing. What did you do that for? That's just a wreck of a car or a wreck of a man. That's nothing. That isn't art.' They don't say that anymore.

All art worthy of the name is religious.

Art is its own excuse, and it's either Art or it's something else. It's either a poem or a piece of cheese.

Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person as a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism.

Art is... a reflection of a greater divine creation. There really is no separation.

Personally, I never believe an artist saying "I do it for myself" is saying the truth, because why would you go through the trouble of making something that goes out into the world if you didn't care about somebody else seeing it? It's like the difference between those who choose "more comfortably termed entertainment" versus what people think of as the "art life," which is supposedly more monastic or spiritual. I don't believe in those distinctions.

Art is the Godhead as revealed in the works of man.

God is the source of all creativity. You can be creative only when you are EN RAPPORT with God.

The highest art is always the most religious; and the greatest artist is always a devout man. A scoffing Raphael or Michael Angelo is not conceivable.

Art is an act of the soul, not the intellect. When we are dealing with people's dreams - their visions, really - we are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction of which we know only a little: the shadow, not the shape.

When I think upon my God, my heart is full of joy that the notes dance and leap from my pen.

The artist needs no religion beyond his work.

There's obviously always danger in making music or art for art's sake. Even as Christians we can be guilty of that, being more about the art than the Artist who gave us this gift.

The connection between art and Christ is like the connection between sunlight and the sun. It is, in fact, the connection between Sonlight and the Son.

All real art is, in its true sense, religious; it is a religious impulse; there is no such thing as a non-religious subject. But much bad or downright sacrilegious art depicts so-called religious subjects.

God does not ask for 'religious' art or 'Catholic' art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth