A Quote by W. H. Auden

All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.
I have a lot left inside. I believe my art will last 500 years, 1,000 years and forever. For me, art is everything. I will strive to create works of art until I die, in the hope that my work will continue to touch the hearts of people even after I have died.
But all categories of art, idealistic or realistic, surrealistic or constructivist (a new form of idealism) must satisfy a simple test (or they are in no sense works of art): they must persist as objects of contemplation.
A life lived in chaos is an impossibility for the artist. No matter how unstructured may seem the painter's garret in Paris or the poet's pad in Greenwich Village, the artist must have some kind of order or he will proudce a very small body of work. To create a work of art, great or small, is work, hard work, and work requires discipline and order.
It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry. If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let them take tea together three times a week.
The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.
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
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is "man" in a higher sense— he is "collective man"— one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic forms of mankind.
If we marvel at the artist who has written a great book, we must marvel more at those people whose lives are works of art and who don't even know it, who wouldn't believe it if they were told. However hard work good writing may be, it is easier than good living.
Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good and not so good.
The concept of who your audience is becomes more important than your site. Sometimes you can be commissioned to do a piece in Strasburg, and it works. Sometimes you're commissioned to do a piece somewhere else and it doesn't work, but then it moves to another city, the people embrace it, and becomes part of them. You just misjudged the needs of the people. Art is about giving people material and things to work with to fulfill whatever needs they have.
Every great artist must begin by learning to draw with the single line, and my advice to young animators is to learn how to live with that razor-sharp instrument or art. An artist who comes to me with eight or ten good drawings of the human figure in simple lines has a good chance of being hired. But I will tell the artist who comes with a bunch of drawings of Bugs Bunny to go back and learn how to draw the human body. An artist who knows that can learn how to draw ANYTHING, including Bugs Bunny.
I love making up visual works of art in language. I get to be an artist without actually being an artist in that sense.
Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.
The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. He must return to the material world in order to do his work. It's the artist's responsibility to balance mystical communication and the labor of creation.
Stop thinking about writing as art. Think of it as work. If you’re an artist, whatever you do is going to be art. If you’re not an artist, at least you can do a good day’s work.
For the multifold secret to work only one thing is necessary. You must take action. You must give. You must share. You must act with abandon. Send out waves of love and kindness into the world and then simply wait for the response. Or, better yet, continue to send out more waves. Why wait? The response will come. Keep sending waves and enjoy the reaction.
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