What does one prefer? An art that struggles to change the social contract, but fails? Or one that seeks to please and amuse, and succeeds?

Robert Hughes
About This Quote

This quote is about the nature of art and what defines success. The art that struggles to change the social contract and fails is not good art. It’s not art that is truly appreciated by society because it goes against what society considers to be right and wrong. The art that seeks to please and amuse the audience and succeeds is good art.

It’s art that does what it’s supposed to do and makes the audience happy. Sometimes, we need to go against society in order to make us feel like we’re truly alive. This quote is about the power of art and some great examples of how it has helped some people express themselves and make us all better off as a result.

Source: The Shock Of The New

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  2. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done. - Vincent Van Gogh

  3. Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep. - Clive Barker

  4. Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. - Chuck Klosterman

  5. There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. - Vincent Van Gogh

More Quotes By Robert Hughes
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  2. It seems obvious, looking back, that the artists of Weimar Germany and Leninist Russia lived in a much more attenuated landscape of media than ours, and their reward was that they could still believe, in good faith and without bombast, that art could morally influence...

  3. It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say 'this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian'. Specific books, perhaps; but as far as one can tell, no paintings or sculptures. The difference between us and...

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