Art & Beauty

“..wherever you are, you find the sun, a blade of grass, the spirals of the dragonfly. Courage consists of staying at home, close to nature, which could not care less about our disasters. Each grain of dust contains the soul of something marvellous. [Miró admonished art-critic w:Georges Duthuit ]”

“... I believe that space exploration is part of building the future ...”

“One might think that through ecstasy we would have access to a world as far from reality as that of the dream. – The repugnant can become desirable, affection cruelty, the ugly beautiful, faults qualities, qualities black miseries.”

“[to] think, in a certain way, of the power and severity of Romanesque paintings.. .Go to the beach and make graphic signs in the sand, draw by pissing on the dry ground, design in space by recording the songs of the birds, the sounds of water and wind.. ..and the chant of insects.”

“Everywhere there is craft and technique, everywhere there is artistry and form. Art itself, technique, is ponderous and clumsy, and because of it awkwardness it obstructs that inner element.. .All craft, technique, and artistry, like anything beautiful, results in futility and vulgarity. [critical quote on Constructivism artists]”

“So, André Breton, if tonight I dream I am screwing you, tomorrow morning I will paint all of our best fucking positions with the greatest wealth of detail.”

“There is movement and movement. There are movements of small tension and movements of great tension and there is also a movement which our eyes cannot catch although it can be felt. In art this state is called dynamic movement. This special movement was discovered by the futurists as a new and hitherto unknown phenomenon in art, a phenomenon which some Futurists were delighted to reflect.”

“If now you shall think that "How many are the countries which King Darius held?" look at the sculptures [of those] who bear the throne, then shall you know, then shall it become known to you: the spear of a Persian man has gone forth far; then shall it become known to you: a Persian man has delivered battle far indeed from Persia.”

“Father, let me have the Bull of Heaven<br />To kill Gilgamesh and his city.<br />For if you do not grant me the Bull of Heaven,<br />I will pull down the Gates of Hell itself,<br />Crush the doorposts and flatten the door,<br />And I will let the dead leave<br />And let the dead roam the earth<br />And they shall eat the living.<br />The dead will overwhelm all the living!”

“As seen in my loneliness, there was this difference between the Bible and the newspapers. The one reminded one that, apart from God, my life was but a bubble of air, and it bade me remember my Creator; the other fostered arrogance and loneliness.”

“If we give the attributes of a medium to the artist, we must then deny him the state of consciousness on the aesthetic plane about what he is doing or why he is doing it. All this decisions in the artistic execution of the work rest with pure intuition and cannot be translated into a self-analysis, spoken or written, or even thought out.”

“..we must remember that this 'art coefficient' is a personal expression of art 'à l'état brute', that is, still in a raw state, which must be 'refined' as pure sugar from molasses, by the spectator; the digit of this coefficient has no bearing whatsoever on his verdict.. ..the role of the spectator is to determine the weight of the work on the aesthetic scale.”

“I could either watch it happen, or be part of it.”

“When you're on Earth, if you go to the top of a mountain, the stars look much brighter than they do at sea level. And because the space shuttle is above Earth's atmosphere, it's like being on a very, very high mountain. So they look brighter, but not bigger.”

“Lautrec was still satisfying his rather classical art-teacher Cormon in Paris. The unreal conventions of Cormon imposed and discouraged him, according to Henri Perruchot”

“Picasso was wild about it and said it was one of the best things I have ever made. [on Miro's exhibition in Paris, 1938 where he showed a big frieze, made for a children's room; commissioned by art-dealer Pierre Matisse in New York]”

“The wisdom obtained in the higher states of consciousness is different from that obtained by inference and testimony as it refers to particulars.”

“..[that] the overturning of the old world of arts will be etched across your 'palms' (recto)”

“to try also, inasmuch as possible, to go beyond easel painting, which in my opinion has a narrow goal, and to bring myself closer, through painting, to the human masses I have never stopped thinking about.”

“Personally, I regard alcohol, used in moderation, as a medicine in the Polar regions. ... It is another matter on sledge journeys: there ... alcohol must be banished ... on account of the weight and space. ... Two men who have fallen out a little in the course of the week are reconciled at once by the scent of rum; the past is forgotten, and they start afresh in friendly co-operation.”

“The first thing to change in my painting was the color [c. 1908-09]. I forsook natural color for pure color. I had come to feel that the colors of nature cannot be reproduced on canvas. Instinctively I felt that painting had to find a new way to express the beauty of nature.”

“A blossom yet unsmelt, <br> A tender shoot unpinched, <br> A gem uncut, <br> Untasted, fresh-fermented honey-wine, <br> The fruit of proper actions <br> Still intact— <br> A beauty without fault or flaw.”

“Reveal Thy presence, <br /> And let the vision and Thy beauty kill me, <br /> Behold the malady <br /> Of love is incurable <br /> Except in Thy presence and before Thy face. ~ 11”

“Thus Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Æropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles.”

“I sleep poorly. This long abstinence is destroying me. My nature needs frequent contacts with the beautiful gender. I don't understand how priests can live like this.”

“Now therefore give pledges, I pray thee, to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.”

“Tereshkova was the first woman in space. She completed 48 orbits of the Earth, she spent 2 days 22 hrs 50 mins in space during her first and only orbital mission, she is – to date – the only woman to fly solo beyond our atmosphere and she is still the youngest woman ever to enter space, aged just 26 years.”

“In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me, <br /> Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.”

“..the art of futurism.. ..achieved great momentum in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century and remains a basic stimulus in the following forms of new art: Suprematism, Simultaneism, Purism, Odorism, Pankinetism, Tactilism, Haptism, Expressionism, and Légerísm [referring to Fernand Léger in the last ...ism, mentioned]”

“A Bird cannot fly with one wing only. Human space flight cannot develop any further without active participation of women... If women can be railroad workers in Russia, why can't they fly in space?”

“Telephone, pedal washbasin, white refrigerators gleaming with Ripolin [French paint], bidet, small phonograph.. ..objects of authentic and pure poetry (MPC p. 11).. ..The Parthenon was not built as a ruin. It was built on a new surface without patina, like our automobiles. / we will not always bear on our shoulders the weight of our father's corpse.”

“What strange arts necessity finds out.”

“I can't do it, I can't do it. I simply can't help turning a deaf ear to it and banging my head against the wall - yes - and all for an art that escapes me and will never know all the trouble I have taken on its behalf.”

“Come abitante temporanea di un avamposto umano nello spazio, condividerò la prospettiva orbitale e condurrò virtualmente nello spazio tutti quelli che vorranno prendere parte a questo viaggio.<br>translation: As a temporary inhabitant of a human outpost in space, I will share the orbital perspective and virtually lead into space all those who want to take part in this journey.”

“I can hit it farther on the moon. But actually, my swing is better here on Earth.”

“E fu in quel tempo che io montai quassù, e dissi che io non era mandato a predicarti da uomo del mondo, né da signore alcuno, ma da colui che è signore dei signori e dalla santa Trinità.”

“If you wanted to be close to the cutting edge, particularly in technology, you came to North America.”

“Though its fame is much restricted by its specialized nature, there is no doubt that Panini's grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the 19th century in any part of the world.”

“I love Brittany; I find wildness and primitiveness there. When my wooden shoes ring on this granite, I hear the muffled, dull, and powerful tone which I try to achieve in painting.”

“Painting is over and done with. Who could do anything better than this propeller? Look, could you do that?”

“I transformed myself in the zero of form and emerged from nothing to creation, that is, to Suprematism, to the new realism in painting – to non-objective creation.”

“The square is not a subconscious form. It is the creation of intuitive reason. The face of the new art. The square is a living, regal infant. The first step of pure creation in art.”

“Just now I'm painting a beautiful woman, smiling, burnt to a crisp, with feathers of all colors, held up by a small die of burning marble; the die is in turn held up by a little puff of smoke, churned and quite; in the sky there are asses with parrot-heads, grasses and beach sand, all about to explode, all clean, incredible objective..”

“In the degree that the images of concrete irrationality approach phenomenal reality, the corresponding means of expression approach those of the great realist painters - Velasquez and Vermeer of Delft - to paint realistically according to irrational thought, according to the unknown imagination.”

“I am working again on my painting 'Moscow' ['Moscow I' ('Москва I'), 1916]. It is slowly taking shape in my imagination. And what was in the realm of wishing is now assuming real forms. What I have been lacking with this idea was depth and richness of sound, very earnest, complex, and easy at the same time.”

“A battle with the Netherlands must be a surprise on our part, we must suddenly present ourselves there with weapons, disrupt the order, and keep the provinces that want to join, let the others go free as they please.”

“My brother [the sculptor artist Raymond Duchamp-Villon had a kitchen in his little house in Puteaux, and he had the idea of decorating it with pictures by his buddies. He asked Gleizes, Metzinger, , and I think Leger [all Cubist painters, then] to do some little paintings of the same size, like a sort of frieze. He asked me too, and I painted a coffee grinder which I made to explode.”

“The bride has entered <br /> The pleasant and desirable garden, <br /> And there reposes to her heart’s content; <br /> Her neck reclining <br /> On the sweet arms of the Beloved. ~ 22”

“The pope is a good-natured and extremely free-hearted man, who avoids every difficult situation and above all wants peace; he would not undertake a war himself unless forced into it by his advisors; he loves learning; of canon law and literature he possesses remarkable knowledge; he is, moreover, a very excellent musician.”

“As touching nature I am a worm of this earth, and yet a subject of this commonwealth; but as touching the office wherein it has pleased God to place me [head of the Reformed church in Scotland], I am a watchman...For that reason I am bound in conscience to blow the trumpet publicly.”

“How do you see this tree? Is it really green? Use green, then, the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow, rather blue? Don't be afraid to paint it as blue as possible.”

“When my pencil starts moving, it must be allowed its head or - bang! - nothing more happens.”

“[Their] things [works of Die Brücke-artists] must be exhibited. But I think it is incorrect to immortalize them in the document [Almanac] of our modern art (and, this is what our book ought to be) or as a more or less decisive, leading factor. At any rate I am against large reproductions [of Die Brücke paintings in The Blaue Reiter Almanac].”

“O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore begrudge me this bit of earth that covers my bones.”

“Don't copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction; as you dream amide nature, extrapolate art from it and concentrate on what you will create as a result.”

“Let Earth and Heaven his timeless death deplore,<br />For both their worths shall equal him no more.”

“God wants nothing of you but the gift of a peaceful heart.”

“Consequently, in the chain of reactions accompanying the creative act, a link is missing. This gap which represents the inability of the artist to express fully his intention, this difference between what he intended to realize and did realize, is the personal 'art coefficient', contained in the work.”

“If we observe the totality of Camille Pissarro's works, we find there, despite the fluctuations, not only an extreme artistic will which never lies, but what is more, an essentially intuitive pure-bred art.. .He looked at everybody, you say! Why not? Everyone looked at him, too, but denied him. He was one of my masters and I do not deny him.”

“How did I think up my drawings and my ideas for painting? Well I'd come home to my Paris studio in Rue Blomet at night, I'd go to bed, and sometimes I hadn't any supper. I saw things, and I jotted them down in a notebook. I saw shapes on the ceiling..”

“I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. ... If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible.”

“Many people say that I don't know how to draw because I don't draw particular forms. When will they understand that execution, drawing and color (in other words, style) must be in harmony with the poem?”

“Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity; to all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.”

“Tipu ordered that ‘40,000 captives, unhappy families of the Koorg country and other parts of the Mallabar Coast are to be circumcised [converted].’”

“What I think needs to be done in 2018 is more dialogue around the ethics, the principles that we can use for the engineers and companies that are building AI [artificial intelligence], so that the choices we make do not cause us to create systems with bias.”

“Leo X succeeded Julius II, and under his pontificate, Latin Christianity assumed a pagan, Greco-Roman character, which, passing from art into manners, gives to this epoch a strange complexion. Crimes for the moment disappeared, to give place to vices; but to charming vices, vices in good taste, such as those indulged in by Alcibiades and sung by Catullus.”

“Also Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came to him and distressed him, and did not assist him. For Ahaz took part of the treasures from the house of the Lord, from the house of the king, and from the leaders, and he gave it to the king of Assyria; but he did not help him.”

“Asanas bring perfection in body, beauty in form,grace, strength, compactness, and the harness and brilliance of a diamond.”

“The principle of this art [as Mondrian proposes his view on modern art] is not a negation of matter, but a great love of matter, whereby it is seen in the highest, most intense manner possible, and depicted in the artistic creation.”

“I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.”

“The papists abuse this text, not only to the end they may commend feigned miracles, which they say are done at the graves of martyrs, but also that they may try and sell us their relics. Why, say thy, shall not the grave, or garment, or the touching of the bones of Peter have as much power to heal, as his shadow had?”

“To be looked at [from the other side of his art-work 'The Glass'] with one eye, close to, for almost an hour.”

“"Don't waste the Earth — it is our Jewel!"”

“The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.”

“Nor, in truth, is it of little importance to prevent the suspicion of any difference having arisen between us from being handed down in any way to our posterity; for it is worse than absurd that parties should be found disagreeing on the very principles, after we have been compelled to make our departure from the world.”

“Usar in ogni cosa una certa sprezzatura, che nasconda l'arte e dimostri ciò che si fa e dice venir fatto senza fatica e quasi senza pensarvi.”

“Je veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre.”

“Kandinsky, Wassily – painter, printmaker and author – the first painter to base painting on purely pictorial means of expression and abandon objects in his pictures.”

“But, as sculpture and painting are gifts of God, what I insist on is, that both shall be used purely and lawfully, that gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon us, for His glory and our good, shall not be preposterously abused, nay, shall not be perverted to our destruction.”

“Of the 16 years that I have been living in Germany, I have given myself entirely to the German art world. How am I now suddenly supposed to feel myself a foreigner?”

“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.”

“Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of an abstract art. Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man.”

“Her great heart performs her bidding.”

“..the works of Mozart. They create a welcome pause amidst the storms of our inner life, a vision of consolation and hope, but we hear them like sounds of another, vanished and essential unfamiliar age. Clashing discords, loss of equilibrium..”

“Beauty itself doth of itself persuade<br />The eyes of men without an orator.”

“freely and madly; you will make progress.. .Above all, don't sweat over a painting; a great sentiment can be rendered immediately..”

“Roman alphabet:<br>siṃho vyākaraṇasya kartur aharat prāṇān priyān pāṇineḥ”

“Everything is soothed by oil, and this is the reason why divers send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because it smooths every part which is rough.”

“<p>Upon my flowery breast <br /> Kept wholly for Himself alone <br /> There He stayed sleeping <br /> And I caressed Him <br /> And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.</p><p>The breeze blew from the turret as I parted His locks. <br /> With His gentle hand He wounded my neck <br /> And caused all my senses to be suspended.</p>”

“Pluck up your hearts, since fate still rests our friend.”

“Did the great Creator first draw her in a masterpiece, <br> And then touch life into his art? <br> Or did he make her in his mind alone, <br> Drawing on beauty’s every part? <br> No—considering her singular perfection <br> And her maker’s true omnipotence, <br> I suppose her some quite unique creation <br> In femininity’s treasure house.”

“In your composer Schönberg's works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my painting.”

“We see many fine sunsets here, unique in the splendour of their colour. No doubt the surroundings in this fairyland of blue and white do much to increase their beauty.”

“opened his mouth, <br /> saying to Gilgamesh: <br /> "where you've set your mind begin the journey,<br /> let your heart have no fear, keep your eyes on me!"”

“I believe that in our period it is definitely necessary that, as far as possible, the paint is applied in pure colours, set next to each other in a pointillist or diffuse manner. This is stated strongly, and yet it relates to the idea which is the basis of meaningful expression in form, as I see it. It seems to me that the clarity of ideas should be accompanied by a clarity of technique.”

“You must have heard that last autumn I almost got married, but I am glad I realized in time that it had been an illusion, all those beautiful things. Although I have always lived for art, I am also attracted to the beautiful in life and so I sometimes do things that seem strange for me.”

“The reason generally assigned for this absence of early records is that Diocletian burned all writings of the Egyptians bearing upon alchemy, because, as he said, these taught the art of making gold and silver; and, by destroying them, he took away... the power of enriching themselves and rebelling against the Romans.”

“I’ve always hated the danger part of climbing, and it’s great to come down again because it’s safe … But there is something about building up a comradeship — that I still believe is the greatest of all feats — and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.”

“I am quite incapable of doing them [making landscapes], even the shadow. My trees look like spinach and my sea like heaven knows what.. ..[the Mediterranean landscape was] the devil to paint, precisely because it is so beautiful.”

“Classical Sanskrit theatre flourished during the first nine centuries CE. Aphorisms on acting appear in the writings of Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian of the 5th century BCE, and references to actors, dancers, mummers, theatrical companies, and academies are found in Kautilya’s book on statesmanship, the Artha-shastra (4th century BCE).”

“Per eseguire e fare come gli altri, giostrai in sulla piazza di Santa Croce con grande spesa, e grande sunto; nella quale trovo si spese circa fiorini 10 mila di sugello; e ben che d’armi e di colpi non fussi molto strenuo, mi fu giudicato il primo onore, cioè un elmetto fornito d’ariento, con un Marte per cimiero.”

“Frankly, I think there is something wrong with Jawlensky's dots [in his paintings, then]. Anybody can pick up that style if they want to.”

“Nature has mysterious infinities and imaginative power. It is always varying the productions it offers to us. The artist himself is one of nature's means.”

“I paint things as they are. I don't comment. I record.”

“Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations.”

“how old was I when I got permanently fascinated with the early Antarctic explorers, Scott particularly, and all those ones, those early British ones who wrote about it, and some of the others too. They were such good writers, marvelous writers, Scott himself and Shackleton.”

“I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space.”

“The coolest thing for me is the experience of floating and not feeling my weight. And hanging by a window just after sunset and watching the stars in the big black dome of the sky as the earth moves underneath.”

“O crystal well! <br /> Oh that on Thy silvered surface <br /> Thou wouldest mirror forth at once <br /> Those eyes desired <br /> Which are outlined in my heart! ~ 12”

“I have tried to draw realistically and not ideally.. .It may be a defect, for I have no mercy on warts, and I like adorning them with wanton hairs, rounding them off and giving them a bright surface.. . - A painter in embryo.. ..- Write me a line soon. I am feverish with anxiety.”

“Tacitus refers to him as “'iners”', which can be translated as inept. Tartaglia always looks dazed, with a slightly silly smile. Seneca says that “his voice resembled that of a sea calf”. A bon vivant, very fond of sex, a great eater and drinker, he spends a lot of time at the table, gorging himself and getting very drunk.”

“A thousand graces diffusing <br /> He passed through the groves in haste, <br /> And merely regarding them <br /> As He passed <br /> Clothed them with His beauty. ~ 5”

“It was starting to get dim outside, so you got to see your own reflection. And there is the Earth, and you can still see the Earth’s surface and the dark sky overhead. And I could then see my reflection in the window and in the retina of my eye the whole earth and the sky could be seen reflected. So I called all the crew members one by one and they saw it, and they said, 'oh wow'.”

“I wanted to kill art for myself.. ..a new thought for that object.”