Quote

THE ARTISTIC IMAGE IS ALWAYS A METONYM, WHERE ONE THING IS SUBSTITUTED FOR ANOTHER, THE SMALLER FOR THE GREATER. TO TELL OF WHAT IS LIVING, THE ARTIST USES SOMETHING DEAD TO SPEAK OF THE INFINITE, HE SHOWS THE FINITE.

Andrei Tarkovsky

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Andrei Tarkovsky
Age: 54 †
Born: 1932
Born: April 4
Died: 1986
Died: December 28
Actor
Biographer
Director
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Writer
Screenwriter
Theatrical Director
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky
Andrej Tarkovskij
Andrei Tarkovski
Andrej Tarkovszkij
And. Arsenʹevich Tarkovskiĭ
Andrey Arsenyevich Tarkovsky
Andreĭ Arsenʹevich Tarkovskĭi
Andrei Tarkovskij
Andreĭ Arsenévich Tarkovskiĭ
Andrey Tarkovsky
Andreĭ Arsen'evich Tarkovskiĭ
Andrej Tarkowskij
Andreiĭ Arsen'evich Tarkovskiĭ
Andrei Arsen'evich Tarko
Tell
Image
Art
Infinite
Shows
Dead
Another
Greater
Substituted
Thing
Living
Finite
Something
Use
Smaller
Always
Speak
Uses
Artist
Artistic

More quotes by Andrei Tarkovsky

Image
The film [Stalker] needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
Art could be said to be a symbol of the universe, being linked with that absolute spiritual truth which is hidden from us in our positivistic, pragmatic activities.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
Being silent for a while is good. Words can't really express a person's emotions.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I'd say that film is the sculpting of time.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
History is not Time nor is evolution. They are both consequences. Time is a state: the flame in which there lives the salamander of the human soul.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent for the moment it is nothing.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God?
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
Knowledge is truthful only if it’s based in morality.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
No 'mise en scène' has the right to be repeated, just as no two personalities are ever the same. As soon as a 'mise en scène' turns into a sign, a cliché, a concept however original it may be, then the whole thing - characters, situation, psychology - become schematic and false.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
Where am I when I'm not in reality or in my imagination?
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
When less than everything has been said about a subject, you can still think on further. The alternative is for the audience to be presented with a final deduction (...) no effort on their part. What can it mean to them when they have not shared with the author the misery and joy of bringing an image into being?
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
I'VE NOTICED, FROM MY EXPERIENCE, IF THE EXTERNAL, EMOTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF IMAGES IN A FILM ARE BASED ON THE FILMMAKER'S OWN MEMORY, ON THE KINSHIP OF ONE'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE FABRIC OF THE FILM, THEN THE FILM WILL HAVE THE POWER TO AFFECT THOSE WHO SEE IT.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
The only condition of fighting for the right to create is faith in your own vocation, readiness to serve, and refusal to compromise.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
For me the most interesting characters are outwardly static, but inwardly charged by an overriding passion.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Image
A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he’s worth something. And if I know for sure that I’m a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?
Andrei Tarkovsky