17 Albert Camus Quotes on Art

Albert Camus quotes on art

2. We turn our backs on nature; we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them, and the blood that trickles from them is the color of printer's ink.

22. Nothing is harder to understand than a symbolic work. A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing.

25. Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.

26. Great novelists are philosopher-novelists whom write in images instead of arguments.

47. If the world were clear, art would not exist.

52. Ironic philosophies produce passionate works. Any thought that abandons unity glorifies diversity! And diversity is the home of art. The only thought to liberate the mind is that which leaves it alone, certain of its limits and of its impending end. No doctrine tempts it. It awaits the ripening of the work and of life.

58. The actor's realm is that of the fleeting.

104. After all, ironic philosophies produce passionate works.

119. Creating is living doubly.

126. Every act of creation, by its mere existence, denies the world of master and slave. The appalling society of tyrants and slaves in which we survive will find its death and transfiguration only on the level of creation.

174. No great work has ever been based on hatred or contempt... Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and this is its whole secret.

181. One of the temptations of an artist is to believe himself solitary ...But this is not true. He stands in the midst of all, in the same rank

192. The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world.

199. The fecundity and the importance of a literary form are often measured by the trash it contains.

200. The great novelists are philosopher-novelists whom write in images instead of arguments.

212. The real universe which, by its radiance, calls forth bodies and statues receives from them at the same time a second light that determines the light from the sky.

246. We must accept the dangers: the era of chairbound artists is over. But we must reject the bitterness ... Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.