Beauty is a physiological reaction. Beauty is not an object.

Beauty makes us more like ourselves and more like each other.

I'm absolutely convinced that people cannot look and read at the same time. Not any more than you can kneel and jump at the same time. It's a completely different physiological setting.

Everything I've learned about art was (a) because I was actually interested, or (b) I was actually interested in covering my ass because of what I was writing about.

For Rembrandt, reality is role-playing.... Everyone is portrayed in relation to a social hierarchy.

Black and white can show how something is. Color adds how it is, imbued with temperatures and humidities of experience.

Matisse can make you hate your life for its comparatively insipid joys.