Bad Art Quotes

You can die from kitsch. And we're close to it.

It was a tribute to Raphael that lesser artists wanted to copy his work, but this… this was a travesty. The fresco consisted of Galatea’s apotheosis, wherein she is surrounded by mythical creatures. A beautiful scene, with all the potential in the world, but very poorly executed here. Galatea herself looked vapid and empty. The rest of the painting indicated pure ignorance on the part of the painter. I shook my head in confusion. The giant Polyphemus was depicted with two normal eyes, when clearly he ought to have but one. Triton, for his horn, was using not a shell but an actual trumpet of brass. I nearly laughed aloud at that observation; would not such an instrument be completely destroyed by seawater? Who the devil had painted this monstrosity?

As an artist she finds Dick's work hopelessly naive, yet she is a lover of certain kinds of bad art, art which offers a transparency into the hopes and desires of the person who made it. Bad art makes the viewer much more active. (Years later Chris would realise that her fondness for bad art is exactly like Jane Eyre's attraction to Rochester, a mean horse-faced junkie: bad characters invite invention.