Quote

With art criticism it's difficult to discuss beauty, to assess it, because there's always the possibility that we're insane.

Peter Schjeldahl

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Peter Schjeldahl
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 20
Art Critic
Journalist
Poet
Fargo
North Dakota
Difficult
Art
Always
Assess
Discuss
Insane
Criticism
Possibility
Beauty

More quotes by Peter Schjeldahl

Image
Smithson was someone of tremendous significance whose work was not beautiful at all. I think he was an iconoclast.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
To me, the greatest artists are almost entirely non-verbal.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
The artist is a strange being. I think it's safe to say that a real artist is conscious of having a personal singularity that is partly a blessing and partly a curse. An artist enjoys and suffers from isolation. As solitude, isolation can nurture. It can also destroy.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Art teachers are always the doormats of the previous generation.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Rembrandt was way ahead of his time. It's as if he was painting an amateur theatrical, or a professional theatrical, in his studio. It's a kind of performance.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Everything I've learned about art was (a) because I was actually interested, or (b) I was actually interested in covering my ass because of what I was writing about.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
The aesthetic experience has to be given. And beauty is a regular experience of every person - every person who is not clinically depressed!
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
All artists and creative people are basically unhappy people. If you were happy, that would mean you were content with the world as it was and why would you ever want to change it?
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Beauty is not a concept. It is the animal joy of the mind.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
It's possible I am the only art critic that a lot of people read. And maybe Robert Hughes, if he's still writing.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
It's my duty to sell the ideas. But there's always a question when it comes to beauty.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Education is this funny thing. You deal for several years with organized information, and then you go out into the world and you never see any of that ever again. There's no more organized information.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Beauty makes us more like ourselves and more like each other.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
I do have pleasure when I'm writing. I mean, I'm aware of pleasure. And sometimes I make myself laugh, with a joke or something or I feel gleeful.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
I find that the mask of the critic is to have distance.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Comic books, graphic novels, involve constant toggling and it's hard work. You get tired reading comic books, but you never get tired looking at pictures or reading words.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
A lot of writers and artists are like chefs who eat their own cooking in the kitchen and then deliver an empty plate with assurances that it's great.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Artists are sometimes in a position to tell the truth, but they're positioned as a Cassandra. They're gifted with impeccable prophecy and the assurance of never being listened to.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
Love and fear, the two strongest emotions we have. It all starts with emotion.
Peter Schjeldahl
Image
What I want to know from students, and I ask them right away, is, 'What do you want? I don't care what it is. I want to help you get it.
Peter Schjeldahl