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It is not logical for art to be logical. Art goes against the grain of the times as readily as it goes with it and at the very same moment. Instead of seeking the nearest exit, art responds to a new situation by uncovering a labyrinth of problems.

— Harold Rosenberg Art & Other Serious Matters (1985)

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Art

More quotes by Harold Rosenberg

Belonging to a generation is one of the lowest forms of solidarity.

The Tradition of the New (1959)

The current demoralization of the art world is attributable at least in part to museum interference, ideological and practical, with ongoing creation in art.

Art on the Edge (1975)

Greatness in art is always a by-product.

Art on the Edge (1975)

Both art and the artist lack identity and define themselves only through their encounter with each other.

Art & Other Serious Matters (1985)

Art has arrived at the paradox that tradition itself requires the occurrence of radical attacks on tradition.

Art on the Edge (1975)

All Harold Rosenberg quotes →

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

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)

A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean.

George MacDonald The Fantastic Imagination (1893)

Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.

José Ortega y Gasset The Dehumanization of Art and Ideas about the Novel (1925)

Attribution

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