Artistic Concealment Quotes

Art lies by its own artifice.

Art is brief. (Not in a temporal sense.) [...] Words are for concealment. Art is concealment.

To express himself well, the artist should be hidden. The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he's done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.

A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it.

The perfection of art is to conceal the sources.

This is what art is all about. It is weaving fabric from the feathers you have plucked from your own breast. But no one must ever see the process - only the finished bolt of goods. They must never suspect that that crimson thread running through the pattern is blood.

The purpose of subject matter is to veil technique. The great artist uses the cloak of resemblance to hide the means.

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

She paints her face to hide her face. Her eyes are deep water. It is not for Geisha to want. It is not for geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings. She entertains you, whatever you want. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret.

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

Somehow, as a writer, you tend to use words to paper over structural cracks.

There's a certain secret every actor must have in his work. If you reveal it, you're letting the audience in on the wrinkles and convolutions of your brain. All I want them to do is to see the effect.

It was any outcast's nightmare. If I looked carefully, I suspected I might find it beneath the black paint of the small acrylic by the window.