Art

Theodor Adorno - It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident anymore.

Ernst Gombrich (in The Sense of Order, 1979) - However we analyse the difference between the regular and the irregular, we must ultimately be able to account for the most basic fact of aesthetic experience, the fact that delight lies somewhere between boredom and confusion.

Eric Jarosinski - Yes, everything's already been said. But not by you.

Erica Jong - There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but having no outlet, it implodes in a great black fart of rage which smokes up all the inner windows of the soul.

Karl Kraus on Dada - As order has failed, let chaos be welcome.

Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb (in The New York Times, 1943) - It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way not his way.

Barnett Newman (in The Sublime is Now, 1948) - The impulse of modern art [is the] desire to destroy beauty.

Friedrich Nietzsche (in The Will to Power) - No artist tolerates reality.

Friedrich Nietzsche (in Be­yond Good and Evil: Pre­lude to a Phi­los­o­phy of the Fu­ture, §137) - Be­hind a re­mark­able scholar one often finds a mediocre man, and be­hind a mediocre artist, often, a re­mark­able man.

Donna Tartt - If the writer’s not having fun, the reader isn’t either.

Traditional - Art history is usually divided by American universities into three broad periods from cave painting to the present: Grotto to Giotto, Giotto to Watteau, and Watteau to Blotto.