11 Friedrich von Schiller Quotes on Art

Friedrich von Schiller quotes on art

15. Appearance should never attain reality, And if nature conquers, then must art retire.

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45. The voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself bodily above necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and not by that of matter. But in our day it is necessity, neediness, that prevails, and bends a degraded humanity under its iron yoke. Utility is the great idol of the time, to which all powers do homage and all subjects are subservient. In this great balance of utility, the spiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of all encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time. The very spirit of philosophical inquiry itself robs the imagination of one promise after another, and the frontiers of art are narrowed, in proportion as the limits of science are enlarged.

46. It is through beauty that we arrive at freedom.

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51. As noble Art has survived noble nature, so too she marches ahead of it, fashioning and awakening by her inspiration. Before Truth sends her triumphant light into the depths of the heart, imagination catches its rays, and the peaks of humanity will be glowing when humid night still lingers in the valleys.

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52. No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.

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55. The Greeks put us to shame not only by their simplicity, which is foreign to our age; they are at the same time our rivals, nay, frequently our models, in those very points of superiority from which we seek comfort when regretting the unnatural character of our manners. We see that remarkable people uniting at once fullness of form and fullness of substance, both philosophising and creating, both tender and energetic, uniting a youthful fancy to the virility of reason in a glorious humanity.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

58. Life is earnest, art is gay.

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90. I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of nature, - through the world's history: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo.

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94. Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the harmonious development of both society and the individual.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

97. Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

140. Truth exists for the wise, beauty for the feeling heart.