True Art Is Incomprehensible/Quotes

"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,

Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!"

—W. S. Gilbert, Patience

It's confusing, obtuse, esoteric, and strange--in other words, it's a Far Side cartoon.

—Gary Larson, The PreHistory of The Far Side

"It's so awkwardly conceived, so nonsensical, such a glorious example of bad film-making, that I think it might actually be an art film."

—The Nostalgia Chick, on Showgirls

They speak in the way the French speak, as if it's not enough for an idea to be difficult, it must be incomprehensible as well.

—Roger Ebert on Anatomy of Hell

Dressing like your sister
Living like a tart
They don't know what you're doing
Babe, it must be art!

—U2, Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me

and what about the deal on that flying
trapeze got a peanut butter hand
but honey do drop in at the
dew drop inn

—Tori Amos, Muhammad My Friend

Ridicully: Funny thing, that. That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Senior Wrangler: It could be both.
Ridicully: And that comment is either very perceptive, or very trite.
Senior Wrangler: It might be bo--
Ridicully: Don't push it, Senior Wrangler.

—Discworld: Hogfather

Mountains. Heavy are the mountains. But that changes with the passage of time.
Sky, blue sky. What your eyes can't see. What your eyes can see.
The sun. One, only one.
Water. It is a grey pool. Commander Ikari.
Flowers. So many the same, so many without purpose.
Sky. Sky of red. Red the colour, the colour I hate.
The liquid flows. It drips, ripples, and pours. Blood. Scent of blood, woman who does not bleed.
On the red soil the humans come. Humans made by man and woman.
City. A human creation. EVA. A human creation as well.
What are humans? Are they creations of God? Humans, and that which is created by humans.
This is that which is mine. My life; my heart. I am a vessel for my thoughts.
The entry plug; the throne of the soul. Who is this? This is me.
Who am I? What am I? What am I? What am I? What am I...
I am I.
This object that is myself, that which forms what is me. This is the self that can be seen and yet it is not like that which is myself.
A strange feeling. My body feels as if it is melting. I can no longer see myself, my form, my shape...It fades from view.
Awareness dawns of someone who is not me; who was here, there, beyond me here.
Shinji? This person I know, Major Katsuragi. Doctor Akagi. People. My classmates. The pilot of Unit 02. Commander Ikari?
Who are you? Who are you? Who are you...

—Rei Ayanami, Neon Genesis Evangelion

To say that a work of art is good but incomprehensible to the majority of men is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but people cannot eat it.

—Leo Tolstoy

"The film is so cryptic as to be almost meaningless. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable"

—Unidentified British film censor, on Antonin Artaud's and Germanine Dulac's surrealist film La Coquille et le Clergyman

"I'm not saying I like my sci-fi films to be obvious. In fact, nothing could be more boring. But being obtuse just for the sake of being obtuse is, I think, a far greater sin. Because with a film like Zardoz, you know there's a lot of intelligence, skill, and talent up on the screen, but sadly it's all just wasted because no one can make head or tails of anything that's going on."

—The Agony Booth's recap of Zardoz

Gibberish For Art's Sake: Some writers are convinced that since great modern authors like Joyce and Faulkner are difficult to understand, writing that is difficult to understand is therefore great writing. This is a form of magical thinking, analogous to the belief that the warrior who dons the pelt of a lion thereby acquires its strength and cunning.

—How Not to Write A Novel

"Off to the National Gallery to peruse the Canadian public's latest artistic purchase, a canvas by Mark Rothko entitled 'No. 16' and bought for the highly reasonable price of $1.8 million. The picture consists of a square of white paint surrounded by some red paint. Yet, before the proletarian masses vomit their ignorance and philistinism at we art lovers, it might be worth instructing the unwashed in what this picture is really about. Its original title was 'Enormous Fucking Con Trick Played on the Stupid Bourgeois Cretins Who Run and Ruin the Fine Arts', and is actually part of a much greater and larger work aimed at revolutionizing perception and understanding. I suppose this will go above the heads of ordinary people -- how tiresome they are."

—From the regular feature "Michael Coren's Diary" in FRANK magazine, Issue 147, Aug. 5, 1993

Art is a fish in a bathtub.
Surrealist art is a motorcycle in a bathtub.
Postmodern art is a trapeze in a bathtub.

Just because you don't understand it, that doesn't make it art.

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that is very good but that most people can't eat it.

—Leo Tolstoy

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