The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.  Aristotle

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. Oscar Wilde

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Pablo Picasso

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. Edgar Degas

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. Twyla Tharp

The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity. Alberto Giacometti

What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is in harmony parallel with nature. Paul Cezanne

Painting is a means of self-enlightenment. John Olsen

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. Claes Oldenburg