Top 67 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Hughes - Page 2

It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say 'this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian'. Specific books, perhaps; but as far as one can tell, no paintings or sculptures. The difference between us and the artists of the 1920's is that they they thought such a work of art could be made. Perhaps it was a certain naivete that made them think so. But it is certainly our loss that we cannot.

In America, nostalgia for things is apt to set in before they go.

But the existence of a cult does not mean that images appropriate to it automatically follow.

The desire to be primitive was very much a function of fin-de-siècle imperialism; it appealed to strong egos and domineering minds.

Perhaps the rhinos and she-crocodiles whose gyrations between Mortimer's and East Hampton gives us our vision of social eminence today are content to entrust their faces to Andy Warhol's mingily cosmetic Polaroidising, but one would bet they would rather go to Sargent.

On Platini's presidential watch... he has to balance all the leagues, all the dreams and needs of hundreds of clubs across his continent.

Nothing they design ever gets in the way of a work of art