Edmond de Goncourt Quotes

Keep good company - that is, go to the Louvre.

I like all sorts of art, that's why I love wandering around The National Gallery.

A good critic is the man who describes his adventures among masterpieces.

Most art is fragile and some should be placed and never moved away.

If I had a Salvador Dali painting, I would cuddle it to sleep.

Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art.

These are the people who are going to see the pictures in my museum.

I have some beautiful 20th-century drawings and a few paintings, but I'm not a collector, and I'm not particularly attached to objects.

People look at film in a gallery, and if they walk out after two minutes they know they haven't seen the whole work. But then people look at a painting for two minutes and think they've seen it. Certain paintings are made to be consumed fast. But some require a slowed-down time. You have to go back to them.

These small shows were decidedly a success. The exhibitions were not too large to be seen easily. It was not an effort, as larger collections of pictures usually are.

No one blames themselves if they don't understand a cartoon, as they might with a painting or 'real' art; they simply think it's a bad cartoon.

Every week someone rings me up wanting to open a new Messner museum, but I'm not interested.

Some art needs to be hung on the wall and stared at inquisitively, while other pieces require a more active approach.

Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance.

Like any artwork, things become richer if you know more about them; but I don't think that's crucial.

A trip to the picture framer's, with a selection of prints, is the most joyous outing I can imagine. I've spent more money on framing than on anything else I own.

Fine art is really something I want to get into.

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?'

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

I think words come between the spectator and the picture.

If someone stands in front of one of my paintings and says, 'This is just a mess', the word 'just' is not so good, but 'mess' might be right. Why not a mess? If it makes you say, 'Wow, I've never seen anything like that', that's beautiful.

I have long been a fan and enthusiast where art is concerned.

The nice thing about the gallery shows is that without having to pay any money you can just go and see it.

Museums are not normally presenting the works on the walls as provocations to work. It's more like going to a Jacuzzi.

Man is used to the fact that there are languages which he does not at first understand and which must be learned, but because art is primarily visual he expects that he should get the message immediately and is apt to be affronted if he doesn't.