A Quote by Marcel Duchamp

The artist performs only one part of the creative process. The onlooker completes it, and it is the onlooker who has the last word.

Marcel Duchamp

Quote Topics

Artist Creative Creative Process Last Only Part Process Word

Quote Author

Marcel Duchamp
French - Artist
July 28, 1887 - October 2, 1968

Society takes what it wants. The artist himself does not count, because there is no actual existence for the work of art. The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something - like electricity. But the onlooker has the last word, and it is always posterity that makes the masterpiece. The artist should not concern himself with this, because it has nothing to do with him.

Marcel Duchamp

For the artist who practises photography, capturing the image is learning how to sketch on some medium, but is only half the challenge; learning how to print is applying a subjective pallet to that sketch, and completes the creative process.

David Travis

Ninety percent of a shirt that not only was bright purple and green but with a design on it that, if you moved too quickly, might cause a seizure in an unsuspecting onlooker.

Lewis Black

The creative ability of an artist is manifested only if he succeeds in transforming the natural phenomena into 'another reality.' This part of the creative process as an independent element, if conscious and developed, hints at the possibility of creating a painting.

Frantisek Kupka

Art is polymorphic. A picture appears to each onlooker under a different guise.

Georges Braque

Whatever the nature of dance, it needs no onlooker, not even a single witness.

Curt Sachs

Granny Weatherwas was not a jouster in the lists of love, but, as an intelligent onlooker, she knew how the game was played.

Terry Pratchett

If the actions used in performing sleights are visible or even suspected by the onlooker, the whole illusion of magic is destroyed.

Jean Hugard

Humor is basically a cognitive process. And it's a creative process not only on the part of the cartoonist but on the part of the viewer.

Robert Mankoff

...people have always known, at least since Moses denounced the Golden Calf, that images were dangerous, that they can captivate the onlooker and steal the soul.

William J. Mitchell

The worst days of leadership beat the best days of being an onlooker.

Bill Hybels

When you're surrounded by friends and exes, there's a whole lot of stuff that starts crawling out. But however serious and traumatic those experiences may be to the participant, to the onlooker they're hilarious.

Steven Moffat

My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind, something has been accomplished.

Robert Frank

A good seat on a horse steals away your opponent's courage and your onlooker's heart-what reason is there to attack? Sit like one who has conquered?

Friedrich Nietzsche

It's impossible for a creative artist to be either a Puritan or a Fascist, because both are a negation of the creative urge. The only things a creative artist can be opposed to are ugliness and injustice.