Quotes & Sayings About Viewing Art

A fine remedy for our anxieties over our low status in society may be to travel - whether literally or figuratively, by viewing works of art - through the gigantic spaces of the world. — Alain De Botton

[After viewing the Palace of Electricity at the 1900 Trocadero Exposition in Paris]
[Saint-Gaudens and Matthew Arnold] felt a railway train as power; yet they, and all other artists, constantly complained that the power embodied in a railway train could never be embodied in art. All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres. — Henry Adams

Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' Creative viewing. — William S. Burroughs

Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his conscious reflection, his progressive steps, mysterious even to himself, should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition. — Rainer Maria Rilke

The Artist's impressions of a walk in the woods. The Artist's view on viewing. The Artist on Art. How do you get your ideas for stories, Mr. Valentine? Well, I simply exploit everything I come into contact with. One ended, of course, by losing all spontaneity. You saw people as characters, sunsets as an excuse for similes - — David Sedaris

The U.S. stock market was now a class system, rooted in speed, of haves and have-nots. The haves paid for nanoseconds; the have-nots had no idea that a nanosecond had value. The haves enjoyed a perfect view of the market; the have-nots never saw the market at all. What had once been the world's most public, most democratic, financial market had become, in spirit, something more like a private viewing of a stolen work of art. — Michael Lewis

The durational aspect of video art is very different from photography or sculpture. The idea of looping things interferes with that a little bit. It eliminates that finite viewing period which I think is not so expressive sometimes. — Marco Brambilla

By viewing nature, nature's handmaid art, Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow: Thus fishes first to shipping did impart, Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow. — John Dryden

My focus on silence is to be understood as an intrinsic part of the body's search for meaning amongst the noisy assaults of everyday life ... What quilts have brought to the viewing of art generally is this intervening layer of silence, of collected thought and concerted attention. — Radka Donnell

The most important lesson I received from Conceptual art consisted in the recording of simple and obvious things, and viewing them under a whole new light. — Luigi Ghirri

You'll find that the more closely you embrace the art of viewing, the less you'll be able to escape all that makes us human. You'll eventually learn to live beyond sorrow and anguish, and countless other emotions. Of course you'll always feel them, but you'll understand them unconditionally, and that understanding will give you the wisdom you need to survive. So don't be ashamed of your emotions. Release them freely. We all do around here; it's healthy." He was briefly silent. "Now tell me more about your friend Foley. — David Morehouse

Perfection does not take into account the viewer.' Pheidias had once said to me. 'It exists on it own, independent of and unconcerned with opinions or utility. — Karen Essex

What I am trying to say is that it is not without any value. The value of copies is that they can direct us towards the original. I was recently at the Louvre Museum and I was filming people who were viewing the Mona Lisa. I noticed the number of ordinary people, astonished, mouths agape, standing still for long stretches looking at the work, and I wondered, "Where does this come from? Are these people all art connoisseurs?" They are like me; through the years, we've seen this work in our schoolbooks or art history books, but when we stand before the original, we hold our breath. — Abbas Kiarostami

The entire spread-out field comes through both slits and fills the region between source and screen, but...this field must deposit its quantum of energy all at once, in a single instant, because the field cannot carry some fraction of one quantum-it must always contain either exactly one or exactly zero quanta of energy. When the field deposits its quantum of energy on the viewing screen, the entire spread-out field must instantaneously lose this much energy. — Art Hobson

Above Constance's desk were nude photographs of women in 1930s France, draped in provocative poses. She had put them there for Bob's viewing pleasure and in return he had placed African art of naked men above his desk for her. — Cecelia Ahern

At issue for Peladan is the potency of the visual image: art's ability to construct images for viewing that can mobilize, concentrate and redirect instinctive responses. He brings out into the open the recognition underlying all decadent art; that is, the political function of the fascinated gaze. — Jennifer Birkett

Your kids might feel more apt to try some art of their own after viewing contemporary works that are far less intimidating than those of the Old Masters. — Lynda Resnick

In every form of art, you really want the experience of the images to transcend the medium, for the medium to disappear into the greater experience of viewing the work. So that you forget you are looking at a painting, or a photograph. — Bill Henson