Anton Chekhov Quotes about Art

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If you want to work on your art, work on your life.

If you want to work on your art, work on your life.

Anton Chekhov

Art, Growth, Want

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

Anton Chekhov

Art, Roles, Answers

Art, especially the stage, is an area where it is impossible to walk without stumbling. There are in store for you many unsuccessful days and whole unsuccessful seasons: there will be great misunderstandings and deep disappointments… you must be prepared for all this, expect it and nevertheless, stubbornly, fanatically follow your own way.

Anton Chekhov

Inspirational, Motivational, Art

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1973). “Letters of Anton Chekhov”, Viking Adult

He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.

Anton Chekhov

Funny, Sarcastic, Art

Cross out as many adjectives and adverbs as you can. ... It is comprehensible when I write: "The man sat on the grass," because it is clear and does not detain one's attention. On the other hand, it is difficult to figure out and hard on the brain if I write: "The tall, narrow-chested man of medium height and with a red beard sat down on the green grass that had already been trampled down by the pedestrians, sat down silently, looking around timidly and fearfully." The brain can't grasp all that at once, and art must be grasped at once, instantaneously.

Anton Chekhov

Art, Writing, Men

An artist observes, selects, guesses, and synthesizes.

Anton Chekhov

Art, Artist

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Michael Henry Heim, Simon Karlinsky (1973). “Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentary”, p.117, Northwestern University Press

There is nothing new in art except talent.

Anton Chekhov

Art, Genius, Literature

This man, who for twenty-five years has been reading and writing about art, and in all that time has never understood anything about art, has for twenty-five years been hashing over other people's ideas about realism, naturalism and all that nonsense; for twenty-five years he has been reading and writing about what intelligent people already know and about what stupid people don't want to know--which means that for twenty-five years he's been taking nothing and making nothing out of it. And with it all, what conceit! What pretension!

Anton Chekhov

Art, Stupid, Reading

The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on; science and art are as well.

Anton Chekhov

Art, Wealthy, Wells

"A Dreary Story". Short story by Anton Chekhov, 1889.

A woman is fascinated not by art but by the noise made by those in the field.

Anton Chekhov

Art, Noise, Fields

Wherever there is degeneration and apathy, there also is sexual perversion, cold depravity, miscarriage, premature old age, grumbling youth, there is a decline in the arts, indifference to science, and injustice in all its forms.

Anton Chekhov

Art, Miscarriage, Grumbling

Letter to A.S. Suvorin, December 27, 1889.