Originality In Art Quotes & Sayings

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it. — Laurence J. Peter

A poor original is better than a good imitation. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. — Marie Antoinette

If an artist wants to be original, he should not look to art for inspiration, for art seeks its model in life, not art - and only life is rich enough to simulate originality. — Anthony Marais

By exposing the multiplicity, the facticity, the repetition and stereotype at the heart of every aesthetic gesture, photography deconstructs the possibility of differentiating between the original and the copy. [Photography calls] into question the whole concept of the uniqueness of the art object, the originality of the author, the coherence of the oeuvre within which it was made, and the individuality of so-called self-expression. — Rosalind E. Krauss

I don't believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We're always borrowing. — Bill Viola

I don't believe too much in originality ... you learn art from other art and then looking into somebody's face or landscape is the point of departure to do your work of art. — Paterson Ewen

The mentality of today seeks in fact to reduce everything to temporal categories: a work of art, a thought, a truth have no value in themselves and independently of any historical classification, but only as a result of the time in which they are rightly or wrongly placed; everything is considered the expression of a "period", not of a timeless and intrinsic value, and this is entirely in conformity with modern relativism and with a psychologism or biologism that destroys essential values . This philosophy derives a maximum of originality from what in effect is nothing but a hatred of God; but since it is impossible to abuse directly a God in whom one does not believe, one abuses Him indirectly through the laws of nature , and one goes so far as to disparage the very form of man and his intelligence, the intelligence with which one thinks and abuses. But there is no escaping immanent Truth: "The more he blasphemes," says Meister Eckhart, "the more he praises God. — Frithjof Schuon

Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity — Vladimir Nabokov

Originality is what distinguishes art from craft. It is the yardstick of artistic greatness. — H. W. Janson

This is the time for every artist in every genre to do what he or she does loudly and consistently. It doesn't matter to me what your position is. You've got to keep asserting the complexity and the originality of life, and the multiplicity of it, and the facets of it. This is about being a complex human being in the world, not about finding a villain. This is no time for anything else than the best that you've got. — Toni Morrison

No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. ... Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; ... [but] I do not know of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. ... A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it is useless to expect him to have original ideas. — G.H. Hardy

If it aint broke, break it. Then build something better. — Jonathan Culver

Through reproductive technology, postmodernist art dispenses with the aura. The fiction of the creating subject gives way to a frank confiscation, quotation, excerptation, accumulation, and repetition of already existing images. Notions of originality, authenticity, and presence ... are undermined. — Douglas Crimp

I believe in originality, primarily. However, it's important to know what there has been before to aim in that direction. Art history informs us. It informs our mind. I like to look at books, exhibitions, paintings, as a computer, subconsciously taking on information. — Philip Treacy

Artistry, perhaps, is at its core being able to control change in interesting ways. — Jeff Ryan

We can never be entirely original, as artists or as people. The genius and vision of those who came before us is too great for us to digress from entirely. Though, as creatures that are compelled to test and surpass our own creative abilities, we must always strive for that originality in everything we do in order to move the world forward. — Jessica Lave

Cerebration is the enemy of originality in art. — Martin Ritt

Great artists are a little too gifted to be bound by boxes and labels, and in saying that, the label 'artist' is to be used lightly. — Criss Jami

If a work of architecture consists of forms and contents that combine to create a strong fundamental mood powerful enough to affect us, it may possess the qualities of a work of art. This art has, however, nothing to do with interesting configurations or originality. It is concerned with insights and understanding, and above all truth. Perhaps poetry is unexpected truth. It lives in stillness. Architecture's artistic task is to give this still expectancy a form. The building itself is never poetic. At most, it may possess subtle qualities, which, at certain moments, permit us to understand something that we were never able to understand in quite this way before. — Peter Zumthor

From an art perspective, I don't know how you get better than 'Beetlejuice.' In terms of originality and a look, it's 100% unique. — Michael Keaton

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. — C.S. Lewis

Art builds upon art, builds upon art ... nothing is purely original. We're all inspired by something ... or someone. It's a never-ending chain of ideas ... and it's magical. — Shannon Taylor Hodnett

Originality is the art of concealing your source. — Someone

Be yourself. An original is worth more than a copy. — Suzy Kassem

The human spirit's unquenchable drive for originality and compulsion for creating art is the compelling force of our humanity. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The bad teacher imposes his ideas and his methods on his pupils, and such originality as they may have is lost in the second-rate art of imitation. — Stephen Neill

Originality in art puts charm where it wasn't. — Eli Siegel

A lot of great art comes from the Afro-American male experience. Black men are geniuses, and many times their desperation, their position as being pariahs, leads them to great originality. — Ishmael Reed

Here's another analogy. Human beings bring only a handful of facial features to the blueprint of how we look - two eyes, two eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, a pair of cheekbones, and two ears, all pasted onto a somewhat ovular-to-round face. That particular blueprint doesn't often vary much, either. Interestingly enough, this is about the same number of essential storytelling parts and milestones that each and every story needs to showcase in order to be successful. Now, consider this: With only these eleven variables to work with, ask yourself how often you see two people who look exactly alike. In a crowd of ten thousand faces, you would be able to differentiate each and every one of them, other than a set of twins or two in attendance. Where we humans are concerned, the miracle of originality resides in the Creator, who applies an engineering-driven process - eleven variables - to an artistic outcome. Where art is concerned, there is something to be learned from that. — Larry Brooks

An educated person's ideas of Art are drwan naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real perfection depends. — Oscar Wilde

Originality is another criterion of aesthetic value. We may formulate an originality principle, according to which highly valuable works of art provide hitherto unavailable insights ... Notice that, although originality is a necessary condition of high aesthetic value, it is far from a sufficient condition. Many original works have little or no aesthetic value. An artwork may present a novel but uninteresting perspective, or one that is original but wrong. — James Young

You will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it ... Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. — C.S. Lewis

We are the ORIGIN of our art, its homeland. Viewed this way, ORIGINALITY is the process of remaining true to ourselves. — Julia Cameron

The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know. — Arthur Koestler

For me, the arts are just an endless source of intelligence, brilliance, imagination, and originality. — Gail Levin

Originality is the most deadly mirage in all of art. You can chase it from now until doomsday, and you'll only find yourself lost and dying of thirst. — Caitlin R. Kiernan

In the days of Prismatic Color
not in the days of Adam and Eve, but when Adam
was alone; when there was no smoke and color was
fine, not with the refinement
of early civilization art, but because
of its originality; with nothing to modify it but the
mist that went up, obliqueness was a variation
of the perpendicular, plain to see and
to account for: it is no
longer that; nor did the blue-red-yellow band
of incandescence that was color keep its stripe — Marianne Moore

To admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of originality. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The artist's duty is to defend the exceptional: the imagination. — Marty Rubin

Don't worry about your originality. You couldn't get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do. — Robert Henri

The value of an artist is more because of his originality than his skill. — Amit Kalantri

Absurdity and anti - absurdity are the two poles of creative energy. — Karl Lagerfeld

The creative triangle connects three dimensions: the individual, the domain (the particular symbolic system in which the individual works) and the field (other people working in the domain). So imagine, for example, a sculptor called Kate. To assess Kate's chances of becoming recognised as a highly creative artist, we need to consider not only Kate's own talent and originality (the individual), but also the history and current state of sculpture, in particular the kind of sculpture that Kate produces (the domain), and her connections with curators, journalists, critics, art buyers and other gatekeepers (the field) who contribute to establishing who becomes recognised and celebrated. Without a knowledge of the domain, and connection with the field, Kate is unlikely to make an impact. — David Gauntlett

With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing. — Wassily Kandinsky

Creativity is the art of concealing your sources. — Coco Chanel

Creativity is not simply originality and unlimited freedom. There is much more to it than that. Creativity also imposes restrictions. While it uses methods other than those of ordinary thinking, it must not be in disagreement with ordinary thinking-or rather, it must be something that, sooner or later, ordinary thinking will understand, accept, and appreciate. Otherwise the result would be bizarre, not creative. — Silvano Arieti

Forge your iron; shape it by force,
not into a flower you already know
but into what can also be a flower
if you think it is and it is so. — Joao Cabral De Melo Neto