Quotes About Art

Wherever one looks in the realms of creative endeavor, one finds the greatest architecture, music, art, sculpture, drama, ritual placed in the service of non-sense, the exalted realm of the ideal, the possible.

Don't have stories; have sentences.

manual of virtuous character traits that describes qualities to nurture in ourselves and to seek in our friends and lovers. At the top of the list would be kindness, a willingness to give of oneself to another. This most desirable of virtues governs all the others, including a capacity for empathy and love. Like other forms of art, we may find it hard to define, but when we are in its presence, we feel it.

It would be narrowness to suppose that an artist can only care for the impressions of those who know the methods of his art as well as feel its effects. Art works for all whom it can touch.

Great artists say that the most beautiful thing in the world is a baby. Well, the next is an old lady, for every wrinkle is a picture.

And so, every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

An artist cannot talk about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.

Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul — and you answer.

[W]hat was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself, — life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose?

Art doesn't have to matter to a lot of people to matter a lot.

Let your imagination take you wherever you want to be. This piece of canvas truly is your world.

Alas, Art is long, and Life short!

[S]ometimes, for an artist chronic pain can be a gift.

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

Painting is my escape from reality. I can literally create any kind of world that I want — with tranquility and peace. All my little animal friends, they all live right here with me.

The object of true art is to charm the imagintion...

I want to reach that condensation of sensations that constitutes a picture.

An artist makes visual the rhythms and arrhythmias of the universe.

What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art. A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection. The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious.

We don't make mistakes — we just have happy accidents every once in a while.

There is no such thing as amateur art... You never yet made an artist by paying him well.

Artists talk to themselves on canvas, mumbling scattered colors of emotion.

When painting, an artist must take care not to trap his soul in the canvas.