Ernest Flagg - Art Quotes

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Clarity or Decision.... without it there is uncertainty, hesitation, obscurity, instability... incomparable with good art. The meaning and object of the design should be clear... it should be frank, as the French say.

Ernest Flagg
In the human figure as it approaches perfection... is contained the sure guide for the determination of all true principles of design.... it was because the ancient Greeks... realized this truth that they excelled all others in art.

Ernest Flagg
Simplicity and Dignity are so nearly related that they may be considered together.... A quiet air of reserved power is characteristic of dignity, and that is best obtained by simple means and the absence of apparent effort. Simplicity is the mark of genius. The giant in art does his work easily, without straining and without affectation; his ways are direct and to the point.

Ernest Flagg
With dignity and simplicity come repose... the natural state of one at home in his surroundings and sure of his ground. Repose is a distinguished characteristic of Greek art.

Ernest Flagg
The most perfectly constructed object in nature, and also the most beautiful object in nature, is the human form as it approaches perfection. This, then, is the criterion of construction as it is of design. The study of its beauties is the veritable key to art...

Ernest Flagg
The best art, and the only art which will ever lead to great results, must have for its basis the interpretation of beauty in nature.

Ernest Flagg
It is clearly apparent that in building the best results should accrue in proportion as every element in the structure is fitted both to the function it has to perform and the materials of which it is made. It follows from this that disguise and complication are hindrances, both to good construction and good design, and as complication and disguise are expensive and wasteful, that the interests of good art and true economy run on parallel lines.

Ernest Flagg
The qualities called personal... and the ability to impart them, in greater or less degree, is the gage of genius in art.

Ernest Flagg
How few people, even among the supposedly well educated, can give an intelligent explanation of the qualities of a design!... the essential ones... are necessary in order that the design may be worthy to be classed at all as a work of art. Among the essential qualities are reason, unity, harmony, clarity, and variety. Among the desirable qualities are imagination, interest, refinement, simplicity, dignity, and style.

Ernest Flagg
The most economical way of obtaining good results is to apply the great, fundamental principles of art; and depend on them for beauty, rather than upon the use of either applied ornament or more expensive materials... much better results are likely to accrue from truth than falsehood, and from architectural [rather] than archaeological methods.

Ernest Flagg
Style... the very hall-mark of great art... there is little use in trying to define style.

Ernest Flagg
Greek art was extremely simple and direct; both in design and construction the Greek mind abhorred complicaton.

Ernest Flagg
For more than two thousand years architectural design by the use of a modulus, except in the case of the classic orders, had been a lost art.

Ernest Flagg
A master in art need not go into the highways and byways for affects; he knows the straight course and follows it.

Ernest Flagg
Why can there not be a new art founded on the only principle which can produce great art—the principle that art is the interpretation or extraction of the essence of beauty in nature, and all else is secondary?

Ernest Flagg
Reason... to suppose any production, worthy to be called a work of art, can be made without its use is foolish.... By the use of reason many mistakes in design may be avoided and many counterfeits of art readily detected.... Beauty alone is an excellent reason for many things, but when a design is in direct conflict with common sense it cannot be a work of art.

Ernest Flagg
Imagination... implies originality. It results in a reflection... of the working mind of the designer.... Imagination may be called the dynamic force in art.... It is the quality which distinguishes the artistic from the photographic representation of nature.

Ernest Flagg
When the true principles of design are forgotten; when, in art, the bizarre and novel is the aim rather than the beautiful; when complication and mystery take the place of what should be as simple and clear as the atmosphere, design runs amuck, and becomes so helplessly involved in difficulties that such manifestations as cubism, impressionism, futurism, and art nouveau shoe their ugly heads and pose as art.

Ernest Flagg
We here have... an architectural discovery which may prove of inestimable value to future art.... Like fire, it is a good servant but a bad master. The danger is that it may lead to a cramped and mechanical design. One may easily become a slave to the module, and do things because of it which his taste or reason would not otherwise commend.... How can the danger be avoided and the benefits secured?

Ernest Flagg