A Quote by Sean Lennon

I don't really believe in political art. I feel in my heart the purpose of art transcends cultural and class and politics. I think something like the Sistine Chapel is something that goes beyond just being a Christian thing. It transcends its Christianity and becomes sort of a universal beauty. And I think that's true of music and art and literature.

Sean Lennon

Quote Topics

Art Beauty Becomes Being Believe Beyond Chapel Christian Christianity Class Cultural Feel Goes Heart Just Just Be Just Being Like Literature Music My Heart Political Political Art Politics Purpose Purpose Of Art Really Sistine Sistine Chapel Something Sort Thing Think Transcends True Universal

Quote Author

Sean Lennon
American - Musician
Born: October 9, 1975

What makes art Christian art? Is it simply Christian artists painting biblical subjects like Jeremiah? Or, by attaching a halo, does that suddenly make something Christian art? Must the artist’s subject be religious to be Christian? I don’t think so. There is a certain sense in which art is its own justification. If art is good art, if it is true art, if it is beautiful art, then it is bearing witness to the Author of the good, the true, and the beautiful

R. C. Sproul

The complete and definitive work of art is created beyond one's individuality... ...The universal transcends such a level. Mere spontaneity has never created a work of art which possesses a lasting cultural value. The method leading to universal form is based upon calculations of measure and number.

Theo van Doesburg

Maybe this is a utopian view of art but I do believe that art can function as a vehicle, that it isn't just a cultural pursuit, something that happens in art galleries. Unless art is linked to experience and the fear and joy of that, it becomes mere icing on the cake.

Antony Gormley

I write some art criticism, and one thing that's clear to me is that politics is fashionable in the American art world in a way it maybe isn't in American fiction. Your work of art becomes fashionable the moment it has some kind of political commentary. I think this has its dangers - the equation between fashion, politics, and art is problematic for obvious reasons. Nonetheless, the notion of politics as being de rigueur in the world of fiction is almost unthinkable. In fiction in America at the moment, the escape into whimsy is far more prevalent than the political.

Katie Kitamura

The religion of art, like the religion of politics, was born from the ruins of Christianity. Art inherited from the old religion the power of consecrating things and endowing them with a sort of eternity; museums are our temples, and the objects displayed in them are beyond history. Politics--or more precisely, Revolution--co-opted the other function of religion: changing human beings and society. Art was an asceticism, a spiritual heroism; Revolution was the construction of a universal church.

Octavio Paz

Art can mean a lot of things. At the heart of it, art is doing something you really believe in. Like my wife, she volunteers helping underprivileged kids, that's her art. To me, anything that you do that you truly believe in makes you an artist. It doesn't necessarily mean being a painter or a film maker. That's art, but there's more to it than that. As long as you're pouring your heart and soul into what you're doing, that's the weapon.

Ray Toro

I'm just a middle-class farm boy from Dodge City, Kansas. And I always thought that acting was art, writing was art, music was art, painting was art, and I've tried to keep that cultural vibe to my life.

Dennis Hopper

I don't feel like literature has the power to alienate. I think that's something people feel if they don't connect with a work of art. But I don't think a work of art can actively reject the person who's looking at it or reading it.

Eleanor Catton

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.

Ai Weiwei

I think…to give. In the best way I can, through song and through dance and through music. I mean, I am committed to my art. I believe that all art has as its ultimate goal the union between the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine. I believe that to be the reason for the very existence of art. And I feel I was chosen as an instrument to just give music and love and harmony to the world. To children of all ages, and adults and teenagers.... I love people of all races from my heart, with true affection.

Michael Jackson

There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause.

Mao Zedong

I think when people try to use their art for political views, I think they're art becomes smaller, less interesting. And so for me, as an artist, I'm trying to speak about things in a universal way and not be pedantic or small-minded and try to convince other people of my political views. But having said that, every day I live in sort of complete terror because of what I read in the newspaper and what is going on in the world. I'm constantly, as I think many of us are, overwhelmed by the sort of, mass psychosis that's occurring.

Sean Lennon

I came to the conclusion that most people in America would really like to be able to get a job where they think they're doing something noble and nice and good and it isn't just for the money. But the reason they hate what they call the cultural elite is that they see it as a class that's grabbed all the jobs where you can get paid to do something that isn't just for the money - if it's art, if it's charity, if it's intellectual, if it's political, whatever it might be.

David Graeber

As a composer, I believe that music has the power to inspire a renewal of human consciousness, culture, and politics. And yet I refuse to make political art. More often than not political art fails as politics, and all too often it fails as art. To reach its fullest power, to be most moving and most fully useful to us, art must be itself.

John Luther Adams

Maybe that is the power of poetry. It somehow transcends news cycles, and becomes a part of our collective imagination. That is the beauty of the art form I like to play with.