Art Criticism

John Ruskin

Art

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

1819–1900

"Punishment is the last and least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime."

🇬🇧G. K. Chesterton

Literature

1874–1936

"'My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober'."

Sergei Diaghilev

Business

1872–1929

"Tchaikovsky thought of committing suicide for fear of being discovered as a homosexual, but today, if you are a composer and not homosexual, you might as well put a bullet through your head."

"It must be someone collecting for charity. Respectable women never call the family for any other reason."

🇫🇷Jean Metzinger

Literature

cubism

1883–1956

"Los Angeles County Museum of Art Database, LACMA"

🇬🇧John Berger

Art

1926–2017

"Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion."

🇺🇸Jerry Saltz

Journalism

b. 1951

"I'm looking for what the artist is trying to say and what he or she is actually saying, what the work reveals about society and the timeless conditions of being alive."

🇺🇸S. S. Van Dine

Literature

1888–1939

"A fairy tale in terms of blood—a world in anamorphosis—a perversion of all rationality.… It’s unthinkable, senseless, like black magic and sorcery and thaumaturgy. It’s downright demented."

🇬🇧Roger Fry

Art

Bloomsbury Group

1866–1934

"Only those who have experienced the elation and despair which comes from the attempt to express their feelings about vision in oil paint will know that it is impossible to speak with complete impartiality about art."

🇺🇸Frank Chin

Literature

b. 1940

"I am out of theatre. I will not work with any theatre, producer, writer, director, or actor who plays and lives the stereotype. So I write fiction, essays, and articles."

🇯🇵Okakura Kakuzō

Literature

1863–1913

"Tea is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its noblest qualities."