Quotes About Art

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.

The idea is in my head; to put it down is nothing.

There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can't stand Picasso, those who can't stand Raphael and those who've never heard of either of them.

I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.

Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.

A good painter is to paint two main things, namely men and the working of man's mind.

All colours are the friends of their neighbours and the lovers of their opposites.

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

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Sir, when their backsides look good enough to slap, there's nothing more to do.

A painter who has the feel of breasts and buttocks is saved.

When I look at a painting it isn't only the painting that I see but the thing that I am. If there is more in the painting than I am, then I won't see it.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

Perfection is no more a requisite to art than to heroes.

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.

If you scratch a great photograph, you find two things: a painting and a photograph.

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Modern poets mix too much water with their ink.

Poets have a license to lie.

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.

Poetry is a mug's game.

Not reading poetry amounts to a national pastime here.

Bed is the poor man's opera.

Prayer is a fine, delicate instrument. To use it right is a great art, a holy art. There is perhaps no greater art than the art of prayer. Yet the least gifted, the uneducated and the poor can cultivate the holy art of prayer.