J. M. W. Turner Quotes

Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use.

Every good piece of art... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it.

What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration.

All the beautiful orders of architecture and creations of the pencil, all the conceptions of the beautiful in nature and art and humanity, are inventions extorted, as it were, from the mind to extend and increase the pleasures of sense.

You're confusing product with process. Most people, when they criticize, whether they like it or hate it, they're talking about product. That's not art, that's the result of art. Art, to whatever degree we can get a handle on (I'm not sure that we really can) is a process. It begins in the heart and the mind with the eyes and hands.

A work of art is an act of love. Critics are crab lice.

The starting-point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion. The objects that provoke this emotion we call works of art.

We live in a culture where the one who shouts the loudest gets the most attention. It's not in the vulgar, it's not in the shock that one finds art. And it's not the excessively beautiful. It's in between; it's in nuance.

I feel like at the end of the day, as entertaining as movies are, when you're part of them in a way, it's this beautiful art form and that's what it feels like for me. I'm not a painter, but I can express myself visually in a way that allows me to artistically create.

High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature; but in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure;' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis.

Creative vision creates art" - he motioned around the gallery - "that shows the rest of the world a new angle. That's beautiful thing." "Or some sort of madness", she said.

The creative process lies not in imitating, but in paralleling nature - translating the impulse received from nature into the medium of expression, thus vitalizing this medium. The picture should be alive, the statue should be alive, and every work of art should be alive.

In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is thereforeuseful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.

You can't make something beautiful by trying to make something beautiful. Something becomes beautiful in the process of trying to be something else.

This was my first encounter with art as art (he saw 'Pinky' painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence and 'The Blue Boy" painted by Thomas Gainborough).. ..somebody actually MADE those paintings.. ..(it) was the first time I realized you could be an artist.

Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird?

It fascinates me to create beautiful paintings with the simplest means.

I don't consider my own clothing to be outrageous. The truth is that people just don't have the same references that I do. To me it's very beautiful and it's art, and to them it's outrageous and crazy.

I know when I watch certain actors or if I watch Thom Yorke sing on stage, I'm affected by it emotionally. I guess that's what we are all striving for in art but that's such a beautiful thing that happens between two people that may never even meet. So when you do get to meet someone who was affected in that way, it's awesome.

A work of art is not a matter of thinking beautiful thoughts or experiencing tender emotions , but of intelligence, skill, taste, proportion, knowledge, discipline and industry; especially discipline.

Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.

They are works of art that can be considered works of art but don't have to be in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum.

I’m interested in natural growth patterns, and the beautiful forms that only nature creates. How that flows through me and how that comes out is what I’m trying to understand.

Artists are people who create beauty. That's the bottom line.

Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes.