Skip to content

There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what untrained eyes consider abominable.

— Goncourt brothers

On a souvent essayé de définir le Beau en art. Ce que c'est? Le beau, est ce qui paraît abominable aux yeux sans éducation.

Original text (French)

Another quote →

Topics

Beauty

More quotes by Goncourt brothers

If there is a God, atheism must strike Him as less of an insult than religion.

The art of pleasing consists in never speaking of oneself and always talking to others of themselves. Every one is aware of this, yet how often is it forgotten.

In the language of the bourgeoisie, the grandeur of the words is in direct proportion to the pettiness of the sentiments.

A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.

Critics must have been created on the seventh day. Because if God had created them on the first day, what on earth would they have done?

All Goncourt brothers quotes →

You may also like

Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

Democritus Freeman (1948)

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

William Wordsworth

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

André Gide The Immoralist (1902)

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.

William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Goncourt brothers (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.