The conscience of an artist worthy of the name is like an incurable disease which causes him endless torment but occasionally fills him with silent joy.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I've always believed that the artiste is the one who has his pulse on the society and who, in many ways, represents the conscience of society in terms of engaging standards that we need to live by.
There are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration.
The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.
Among the mysteries of the creative ego is how the transcendence of what artists do is their own response to the darkness of who they are, and the same personal darkness that is at odds with the art is what propels artists to the light of what they create.
He was one of those inexplicable gifts of nature, an artist who leaps over boundaries, changes our nervous systems, creates a new language, transmits new kinds of joy to our startled senses and spirits.
Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
The real artist has no idea that he is sacrificing himself for art. He does what he does for one reason and one reason only-he can't help doing it.
I subscribe to the myth that an artist's creativity comes from torment. Once that's fixed, what do you draw on?
Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.
The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.