Quotes from Robert Henri

The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook.

A man must be master of himself and master of his word to achieve the full realization of himself as an artist.

Beauty is no material thing. Beauty cannot be copied. Beauty is the sensation of pleasure on the mind of the seer. No thing is beautiful. But all things await the sensitive and imaginative mind that may be aroused to pleasurable emotion at sight of them. This is beauty.

In great art there is no beginning and end in point of time. All time is comprehended.

Those who express even a little of themselves never become old-fashioned.

I have heard it very often said that an artist does not need intelligence, that his is the province of the soul

The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation.

Art tends toward balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in.

There are people who buy pictures because they were difficult to do, and are done. Such pictures are often only a record of pain and dull perseverance. Great works of art should look as though they were made in joy. Real joy is a tremendous activity, dull drudgery is nothing to it.

Beauty is an intangible thing; can not be fixed on the surface, and the wear and tear of old age on the body cannot defeat it.

Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out.

The more simply you see, the more simply you will render. People see too much, scatteringly.

Be venturesome. Try new things that appeal to you. Examine others. Have a pioneer spirit. Prevent your drawing from being common. Put life into it.

Art is certainly not a pursuit for anyone who wants to make money.

Some one has defined a work of art as a "thing beautifully done." I like it better if we cut away the adverb and preserve the word "done," and let it stand alone in its fullest meaning. Things are not done beautifully. The beauty is an integral part of their being done.

To award prizes is to attempt to control the course of another man's work. It is a bid to have him do what you will approve. It affects not only the one who wins the award, but all those who in any measure strive for it.

The object is not to make art, but to be in the wonderful state which makes art inevitable.

If a certain activity, such as painting, becomes the habitual mode of expression, it may follow that taking up the painting materials and beginning work with them will act suggestively and so presently evoke a flight into the higher state.

Art is simply a result of expression during right feeling. It's a result of a grip on the fundamentals of nature, the spirit of life, the constructive force, the secret of growth, a real understanding of the relative importance of things, order, balance. Any material will do. After all, the object is not to make art , but to be in the wonderful state which makes art inevitable.

Battle against obscurity

Your only hope of satisfying others is in satisfying yourself. I speak of a great satisfaction, not a commercial satisfaction.

An artist must first of all respond to his subject, he must be filled with emotion toward that subject and then he must make his technique so sincere, so translucent that it may be forgotten, the value of the subject shining through it.

Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. None of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence.

We are troubled by having two selves, the inner and the outer. The outer one is rather dull and lets great things go by.