Art Quotes

Art Quotes

Life is short, art is long.

- Hippocrates

The artist needs but a roof, a crust of bread, and his easel, and all the rest God gives him in abundance. He must live to paint and not paint to live.

- Albert Pinkham Ryder

An artist has been defined as a neurotic who continually cures himeself with his art

- Lee Simonson

I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do.

- Lucian Freud

What distinguishes the artist from the dilettante? Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante looks only for pleasure in art.

- Odilon Redon

It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

- Camille Pissarro

I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.

- Frederick Franck, " The Zen of Seeing

From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs. but all I have done before the the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At a hundred I shall be a marvelous artist. At a hundred and ten everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokosai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.'

- Hokusai, The Drawings of Hokosai

The artist can truly understand surface forms only by knowing their underlying structures; their form and behavior under tension, stress, and activity. In a sense, the why of what is.

- Ian Mack

My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can. Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.

- Keith Haring

Drawing is deception.

- Maurits Cornelius Escher

Drawing and color are not separate at all; in so far as you paint, you draw. The more color harmonizes, the more exact the drawing becomes. When the color achieves richness, the form attains its fullness also

- Paul Cézanne

A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.

- Paul Gauguin

A line is a dot that goes for a walk.

- Paul Klee

What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

- Vincent van Gogh, "The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother

The fine art of painting, which is the bastard of alchemy, always has been always will be, a game. The rules of the game are quite simple: in a given arena, on as many psychic fronts as the talent allows, one must visually describe, the centre of the meaning of existense.

- Brett Whiteley

First I saw the mountains in the painting; then I saw the painting in the mountains.

- Chinese Proverb

I build a painting by putting little marks together--some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts.

- Chuck Close

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

- Claude Monet

Painting is very easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

- Edgar Degas

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

- Edgar Degas

Then very slowly I go to slightly lighter colors until little by little, the forms begin to take shape and I start to see what is happening. Since I never plan in advance but rather, simply let myself be led by instinct, and taste and intuition. And it is in this manner that I find myself creating visions that I have never before imagined. And little by little certain color effects develop that excite me and I find the painting itself leading me on and I become only an instrument of a greater, wiser force...or being...or intelligence than I myself am.

- Eyvind Earle

There is nothing harder to learn than painting and nothing which most people take less trouble about learning. An art school is a place where about three people work with feverish energy and everybody else idles to a degree that I should have conceived unattainable by human nature.

- G.K.Chesterton, "Autobiography

Painting is an attempt to come to terms with life. There are as many solutions as there are human beings.

- George Tooker

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

- Georgia O'Keeffe

So I said to myself-I'll paint what I see-what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it. I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

- Georgia O'Keeffe

Every good painter paints what he is.

- Jackson Pollock

The painting has a life of its own.

- Jackson Pollock

Painting or poetry is made as one makes love - a total embrace, prudence thrown to the winds, nothing held back.

- Joan Miro

Everytime I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

- John Singer Sargent

In fact, whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hands … it lies in his power to create them . . .

- Leonardo Da Vinci

To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.

- Man Ray, "Self Portrait"

Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

- Max Ernst

Whenever I see a Frans Hals I feel like painting, but when I see a Rembrandt I feel like giving up!

- Max Liebermann

Every painting is a war. You have to struggle every day, and to struggle every day with your inadequacies is a damn nuisance.

- Neil Welliver

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

- Pablo Picasso

Painting is stronger than I am. It can make me do whatever it wants.

- Pablo Picasso

Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.

- Pablo Picasso

Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.

- Rene Magritte

When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling… But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony… I go to great pains to mask [the agony]. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy.

- Richard Diebenkorn

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.

- Vincent Van Gogh

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.

- Vincent van Gogh

The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.

- Vincent van Gogh

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

- Vincent van Gogh

Once, after finishing a picture, I thought I would stop for awhile, take a trip, do things--the next time I thought of this, I found five years had gone by.

- Willem De Kooning

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

- John Ruskin

Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.

- Oscar Wilde

Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.

- Pablo Picasso

Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.

- Paul Klee

The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don't always know if it is green or violet, you can't even say it's blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray.

- Vincent van Gogh

What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

- Vincent van Gogh, "The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother

Art Quotes Life is short, art is long. - *Hippocrates* The artist needs but a roof, a crust of bread, and his easel, and all the rest God gives him in abundance. He must live to paint and not paint to live. - *Albert Pinkham Ryder* An artist has been defined as a neurotic who continually cures himeself with his art - *Lee Simonson* I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do. - *Lucian Freud* What distinguishes the artist from the dilettante? Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante looks only for pleasure in art. - *Odilon Redon* It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character. - *Camille Pissarro* I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle. - *Frederick Franck, " The Zen of Seeing* From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs. but all I have done before the the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At a hundred I shall be a marvelous artist. At a hundred and ten everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokosai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.' - *Hokusai, The Drawings of Hokosai* The artist can truly understand surface forms only by knowing their underlying structures; their form and behavior under tension, stress, and activity. In a sense, the why of what is. - *Ian Mack* My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can. Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic. - *Keith Haring* Drawing is deception. - *Maurits Cornelius Escher* Drawing and color are not separate at all; in so far as you paint, you draw. The more color harmonizes, the more exact the drawing becomes. When the color achieves richness, the form attains its fullness also - *Paul Cézanne* A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets. - *Paul Gauguin* A line is a dot that goes for a walk. - *Paul Klee* What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. - *Vincent van Gogh, "The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother* The fine art of painting, which is the bastard of alchemy, always has been always will be, a game. The rules of the game are quite simple: in a given arena, on as many psychic fronts as the talent allows, one must visually describe, the centre of the meaning of existense. - *Brett Whiteley* First I saw the mountains in the painting; then I saw the painting in the mountains. - *Chinese Proverb* I build a painting by putting little marks together--some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts. - *Chuck Close* I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. - *Claude Monet* Painting is very easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do. - *Edgar Degas* Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. - *Edgar Degas* Then very slowly I go to slightly lighter colors until little by little, the forms begin to take shape and I start to see what is happening. Since I never plan in advance but rather, simply let myself be led by instinct, and taste and intuition. And it is in this manner that I find myself creating visions that I have never before imagined. And little by little certain color effects develop that excite me and I find the painting itself leading me on and I become only an instrument of a greater, wiser force...or being...or intelligence than I myself am. - *Eyvind Earle* There is nothing harder to learn than painting and nothing which most people take less trouble about learning. An art school is a place where about three people work with feverish energy and everybody else idles to a degree that I should have conceived unattainable by human nature. - *G.K.Chesterton, "Autobiography* Painting is an attempt to come to terms with life. There are as many solutions as there are human beings. - *George Tooker* I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for. - *Georgia O'Keeffe* So I said to myself-I'll paint what I see-what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it. I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers. - *Georgia O'Keeffe* Every good painter paints what he is. - *Jackson Pollock* The painting has a life of its own. - *Jackson Pollock* Painting or poetry is made as one makes love - a total embrace, prudence thrown to the winds, nothing held back. - *Joan Miro* Everytime I paint a portrait I lose a friend. - *John Singer Sargent* In fact, whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hands … it lies in his power to create them . . . - *Leonardo Da Vinci* To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society. - *Man Ray, "Self Portrait"* Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation. - *Max Ernst* Whenever I see a Frans Hals I feel like painting, but when I see a Rembrandt I feel like giving up! - *Max Liebermann* Every painting is a war. You have to struggle every day, and to struggle every day with your inadequacies is a damn nuisance. - *Neil Welliver* Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. - *Pablo Picasso* Painting is stronger than I am. It can make me do whatever it wants. - *Pablo Picasso* Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen. - *Pablo Picasso* Life obliges me to do something, so I paint. - *Rene Magritte* When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling… But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony… I go to great pains to mask [the agony]. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy. - *Richard Diebenkorn* It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures. - *Vincent Van Gogh* Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion. - *Vincent van Gogh* The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech. - *Vincent van Gogh* If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. - *Vincent van Gogh* Once, after finishing a picture, I thought I would stop for awhile, take a trip, do things--the next time I thought of this, I found five years had gone by. - *Willem De Kooning* The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most. - *John Ruskin* Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. - *Oscar Wilde* Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions. - *Pablo Picasso* Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter. - *Paul Klee* The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don't always know if it is green or violet, you can't even say it's blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray. - *Vincent van Gogh* What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. - *Vincent van Gogh, "The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother*