[Abstract art is] a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly¹ bewildered.

Al Capp (1909 - 1979)

Art is the imposing² of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic³ enjoyment⁴ is recognition of the pattern.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947), Dialogues (1954)

Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary

Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.

Amy Lowell (1874 - 1925)

Art is a collaboration⁵ between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term -- meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail⁶ as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching -- there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

Aristophanes (450 BC - 388 BC), Wasps⁷, 422 B.C.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth.

Barbra Streisand (1942 - )

I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.

Ben Shahn (1898 - 1969)

So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient⁸, happy idling, dawdling⁹ and puttering.

Brenda Ueland

I suppose no matter what I'm drawing, there will always be some sort of question in my mind about it. A work of art (even cartoon art)is never really finished; it is abandoned.

Brooke McEldowney, Pibgorn commentary, 03-31-05

I can't criticize what I don't understand. If you want to call this art, you've got the benefit of all my doubts.

Charles Rosin, Northern Exposure, Aurora¹⁰ Borealis, 1990

Art is born of the observation and investigation¹¹ of nature.

Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

Art forms of the past were really considered elitist. Bach did not compose for the masses, neither did Beethoven. It was always for patrons, aristocrats¹², and royalty¹³. Now we have a sort of democratic version of that, which is to say that the audience is so splintered in its interests.

David Cronenberg, Rocketboom, 07-19-06

The idea of a mass audience was really an invention of the Industrial Revolution.

David Cronenberg, Rocketboom, 07-19-06

I don't understand why people think everything has to have meaning. While painting the Mona Lisa did Leonardo Da Vinci intend for it to have greater meaning than a work of art that he made?

Devin J. Monroe (1983 - )

If you were in a burning house and there was a cat and a Rembrandt, what would you save? The cat...you would save the cat, because the cat is alive. The art is dead. It's just paint on a canvas, ink on a page. To live for art is to deny life. It's just to destroy life.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Cicely, 1992

I merely took the energy it takes to pout¹⁴ and wrote some blues¹⁵.

Duke Ellington (1899 - 1974)

Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake.

E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970)

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity¹⁶, the dread¹⁷ of doing what has been done before.

Edith Wharton (1862 - 1937)

Art is on the side of the oppressed. Think before you shudder¹⁸ at the simplistic dictum and its heretical definition of the freedom of art. For if art is freedom of the spirit, how can it exist within the oppressors?

Edith Wharton (1862 - 1937)

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

Edmond de Goncourt (1822 - 1896)

It is all very well, when the pen flows, but then there are the dark days when imagination deserts one, and it is an effort to put anything down on paper. That little you have achieved stares at you at the end of the day, and you know the next morning you will have to scrape it down and start again.

Elizabeth Aston, The True Darcy Spirit, 2006

Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that you live, if you do.

Elizabeth Bowen (1899 - 1973)

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain¹⁹ it in anything.

Eugene Delacroix (1798 - 1863)

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely²⁰ this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.

Federico Fellini (1920 - 1993)

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993)

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)