Stanley Kubrick Quotes

Why should I need an artist to explain a work of art to me? Why should it not speak out to me itself?

Film is abstract, not definite. It is a dream.

I want there to be hints of narrative everywhere in the image so that people can make up their own stories about them. But I don't want to have my own narrative and force it on to them.

Once they're on paper, they're gone. I like to do as much with the words, as far as image goes, so that it's really left open for a lot of things, even though I remember a specific impression of something I had at the time. I can't say a song is about this or that; in fact, I wouldn't even want to. I just prefer to have people live it anyway they want. Because it's theirs after that. There's nothing I can do about it anymore

Part of the reason I make things realistic is, I don’t really want to have to explain my work. What I wish to communicate is done so people can make their own interpretation, and if it’s different to my idea it doesn't matter.

I love the medium of photography, for with its unique realism it gives me the power to go beyond conventional ways of seeing and understanding and say, This is real, too.

All art should have a certain mystery and should make demands on the spectator. Giving a sculpture or a drawing too explicit a title takes away part of that mystery so that the spectator moves on to the next object, making no effort to ponder the meaning of what he has just seen. Everyone thinks that he or she looks but they don't really, you know.

Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? ...people who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.

A work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience.

Art is so subjective, and people can react however they want.

I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.

I didn't want people to sit there and watch 10 minutes of film, and all they write about is 48 frames.

I prefer to leave the paintings to speak for themselves.

With most of the songs and music that I've composed, irrespective of the myriad videos made, I was always careful not to overly define the experience, leaving room for people to internalize things for themselves, making their experience more integral.

Painters hate having to explain what their work is about. They always say, 'It's whatever you want it to be' - because I think that's their intention, to connect with each person's subconscious, and not to try and dictate.

People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love.

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.

So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.

There's something imminent in the work, but the circle is only completed by the viewer.

The real change that paintings undergo is in the perceptions of the viewer.

Sometimes I think that there's a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

If I paint something, I don't want to have to explain what it is.

Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That's the thing about painting, photography, cinema.

I don't understand art-speak. My pictures are big doodles. I'm amazed what people come up with when they look at them. There's one of a figure with two heads that somebody thought must be a comment on the state of matrimony. None of it is a comment on anything.

Viewing abstract art requires more imagination. The result is more intense involvement of the viewer—more pleasurable.