Quotes About Beauty

Visionaries are those in the field of art and science who recognize novel patterns. They see beauty before the rest of us do.

Everything that surrounds you can give you something.51 —Hungarian photographer André Kertész

While human ingenuity may devise various inventions to the same ends, it will never devise anything more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than nature does, because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art

If the painter wishes to see beauties that charm him, it lies in his power to create them, and if he wishes to see monstrosities that are frightful, ridiculous, or truly pitiable, he is lord and God thereof.

If the painter has clumsy hands, he will be apt to introduce them into his works, and so of any other part of his person, which may not happen to be so beautiful as it ought to be. He must, therefore, guard particularly against that self-love, or too good opinion of his own person, and study by every means to acquire the knowledge of what is most beautiful, and of his own defects, that he may adopt the one and avoid the other.

How may paintings have preserved the image of a divine beauty which in its natural manifestation has been rapidly overtaken by time or death. Thus, the work of the painter is nobler than that of nature, its mistress.

A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not." ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Wenn auch der menschliche Geist durch vielfache Erfindungen mit verschiedenen Instrumenten auf dasselbe Ziel zugeht, nie wird er eine Erfindung machen, die schöner, leichter und kürzer wäre als die Natur.

Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen.

It was the opinion of Leonardo that the temporary nature of music caused its inferiority to painting. Although durability was in itself no absolute test,—else the work of coppersmiths would be the highest art,—yet in any final scale, permanence could not altogether be disregarded. Music perished in the very act of its creation, while painting preserved the beautiful from the hand of time.

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.

The search for truth and the desire for beauty were the twin ideals he strove to attain. The keenness of this pursuit saved him from the blemish of egoism which aloofness from his surroundings would otherwise have forced upon him.

Raphael, on the other hand, found only beautiful sweetness everywhere. The tragedies of life failed to touch the young painter, who blotted from view all struggle and sorrow, and, in spite of the misery which had befallen his nation, could still rejoice in the sensuous beauty of the world. There was another side to the Renaissance, dependent neither on beauty nor heroic grandeur, yet sharing in both through qualities of its own.

Titian, who painted the living man of action, the man of parts, susceptible alike to the appreciation of ideal beauty and heroic impulse, but guided withal by expediency, reflected this more practical aspect of life. In his portraiture he expressed the statecraft for which Italians found opportunity beyond the Alps, since in Italy it was denied them; and Titian found even Venice too narrow for the scope of his art.

Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art.

Perhaps her mind simply did not want to stop at one thought—just as a bird that soars with ease, which sees endless horizons, and to which all space, all the depth, all the joy of the soft and caressing azure are accessible.

Anyone who has chanced like me to roam through desolate mountains and studied at length their fantastic shapes and drunk the invigorating air of their valleys can understand why I wish to describe and depict these magic scenes for others.

How do you press a wildflower into the pages of an e-book?

Do you suppose she's a wildflower?

If it had grown up, it would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently?

I said you LOOKED like an egg, Sir. And some eggs are very pretty, you know.