Franz Grillparzer Art Quotations

Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process.

Art compares to nature like wine to the grape.

The Germans believe that, no matter where, they can get by on knowledge alone. Art, however, requires skill.

In Germany, a certain artistic sense is fairly common, but the artist's sense is foreign there.

Bunglers and pedants judge art according to genre; they approve of this and dismiss that genre, but instead of genres, the open-minded connoisseur appreciates only individual works.

As far as the arts and the sciences are concerned, the German mind appreciates most highly that which it does not understand of the latter, and that which it does not enjoy of the former.

If someone took the finest marble and knew how to shape it artfully: Prometheus' material was lowly clay, but his statues walked.

Recently, the Germans have developed a tendency to prefer the so-called first (youthful) style of great artists to their mature works. Could it be that they do not realize that their aesthetic criteria, generally speaking, are juvenile?

A flutist who is moved to tears by his own performance will soon make the listeners laugh because of the sounds that he produces.

The manifestation of poetry in external life is formal perfection. True sentiment grows within, and art must represent internal phenomena externally.

Why must ancients, and provided the same talent, be better than modern authors? Free to exploit the vast realm of the simpleand the natural, they did not have to be artificial in order to be original (which every artist aspires to be).

The art of acting presupposes three phases: understanding a part, intuiting a part, and contemplating the essence of a part.

How frightening it is to have reached the height of human accomplishment in art that must forever borrow from life's abundance.

Art is eternally young, but the poet ages. If only he remained as young as art! If only it aged with him!

In the arts, foolhardiness is always harmful; even worse, however, is clumsiness.