Andrew Sarris Quotes

Not all art is great; most of it's rubbish.

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

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.

I have never collected an object or figure from Africa or Oceania because of anything curious about it or because of its utility or historic interest. Everything has been chosen entirely because of its aesthetic significance; its form, feeling, structure, and plastic values.

People go to see beautiful paintings to see how much they cost. Wow. The practical value is that it shows you what the human spirit can do.

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.

Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different.

Painting becomes interesting when it becomes timeless.

Art is the ultimate luxury good, but one that can make you think, give a you a blast of beauty and enhance your life. Even if the work's made of plasticine.

If the standard for art is the decency of its creators, we're going to have a lot of empty museums.

Movie, being an art form, should have artistic value and should do justice to the artistes.

The frame is the reward of the artist.

Most works of art are, necessarily, bad...; one suffers through the many for the few.

a work that intends to be art must first be entertaining.

I just don't think it honors God to create mediocre art.

It is better to have a good painting with ten holes than ten bad paintings without any holes.

The first virtue of a painting is to be a feast for the eyes.

A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.

Greatness in art is always a by-product.

People want to be successful, and they want to be acknowledged for what they do. Sometimes they make really great art and aren't. Historically, the best artists weren't. But their work survived.

Harmony of colouring is destructive of art? it is like the smile of a fool.

I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it.

I don't how I can describe the quality that is only found in art (be it music, literature, painting, or whatever), this quality, it's just there, and it endures.

The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity.

It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.