The ultimate, if distant, aim of the Bauhaus is the unified work of art - the great structure - in which there is no distinction between monumental and decorative art.
— Walter Gropius
The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.
— Walter Benjamin
The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.
— Walter Bagehot
I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.
— Walt Whitman
The genuine artist is never 'true to life.' He sees what is real, but not as we are normally aware of it. We do not go storming through life like actors in a play. Art is never real life.
— Wallace Stevens
I was interested in making work that physically changed as it circulated through the art world.
— Walead Beshty
When I started writing about art, there were no curators.
— Waldemar Januszczak
I think all art is, by nature, intended to motivate society for change, and the only reason change doesn't happen is because within the target population, courage is lacking.
— Wadada Leo Smith
Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
— W. Somerset Maugham
'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
— W. H. Auden
It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
All art is propaganda, and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.
— W. E. B. Du Bois
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
— Voltaire
For me art and chess are closely related, both are forms in which the self finds beauty and expression.
— Vladimir Kramnik
Most female artists - to do what you have to do and to be as honest as you have to be, to be as selfish as you have to be, as tunnel-visioned as you have to be to make art, not entertainment - you can't compromise, really.
— Viv Albertine
The mere existence of 'Buffy' proves the declinists wrong about one thing: Hollywood commercialism can produce great art. Complex and evolving characters. Playful language. Joy and sorrow, pathos and elation. Episodes that dare to be different - to tell stories in silence or in song. Big themes and terrible choices.
— Virginia Postrel
With its fluctuating forms and needless decoration, fashion epitomizes the supposedly unproductive waste that inspired 20th-century technocrats to dream of central planning. It exists for no good reason. But that's practically a definition of art.
Architects, sculptors painters, we all must return to the crafts! For art is not a 'profession.' There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman.
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
People who think about art as an investment are pathetic.
— Walter Annenberg
I never called my work an 'art'. It's part of show business, the business of building entertainment.
— Walt Disney
Intolerance respecting other people's religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people's art.
The ability to make somebody feel something: that's art. However you look at it, whether you're an author, a painter, a singer, a rapper, a spoken-word artist - art.
— Wale
The real problem with the art world is not the money men scavenging in its wake - they've always been there - but the pirates who've taken over the ship. I am thinking, of course, of that awful art world species: the curator.
All art is political. Yes. Even the stuff that sounds like bubble-gum songs. I think all art is, by nature, intended to motivate society for change, and the only reason change doesn't happen is because within the target population, courage is lacking.
All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.
Art is born of humiliation.
A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.
I've read that the ancient Chinese art of feng shui can bring a sense of peace, well-being, and positive energy to a home - same as beer.
— W. Bruce Cameron
To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute.
— Vladimir Nabokov
You've got to invest in the world, you've got to read, you've got to go to art galleries, you've got to find out the names of plants. You've got to start to love the world and know about the whole genius of the human race. We're amazing people.
— Vivienne Westwood
But I, Caesar, have not sought to amass wealth by the practice of my art, having been rather contented with a small fortune and reputation, than desirous of abundance accompanied by a want of reputation.
— Vitruvius
Religion, art, and science flourish best in a free society. True, freedom does not afford much opportunity for grand gestures. It has little room for martyrs. But life is not supposed to be about dying well. It is about living well.
Behind the criticism of fashion as an artistic medium is a highly ideological prejudice: against markets, against consumers, against the dynamism of Western commercial society. The debate is not about art but about culture and economics.
We want a vernacular in art. No mere verbal or formal agreement, or dead level of uniformity but that comprehensive and harmonizing unity with individual variety which can be developed among people politically and socially free.
— Walter Crane
The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
Gerry Dow - he's like a fourth member. He lives in Sweden; his art work is more important than... it's just as important as the music and the stage show.
— Walshy Fire
In my mind, the plays I was writing were extreme examples of art for art's sake. I didn't necessarily think that other people would love them, though I thought they probably would.
— Wallace Shawn
Not everybody is a great rapper; not everybody lives for the art of lyricism.
I always felt of myself as a composer, performer, improviser. I've never called myself a jazz man. I make art.
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.
What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.
Real art has been... what's the word? Kidnapped? No, that's not it. But, OK, kidnapped by business.
Really I don't like human nature unless all candied over with art.
— Virginia Woolf
The Elgin Marbles were supposed to be on the Parthenon. For many works of art, a museum is an artificial setting - a zoo, not a natural habitat.
