Quotes About Art

To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.

To know how to suggest is the art of teaching.

Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.

Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.

All that is not useful in a picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety; for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements.

The only valid thing in art is the one thing that cannot be explained, to explain away the mystery of a great painting would do irreplaceable harm, for whenever you explain or define something you substitute the explanation or the definition for the

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.

Precision is not reality.

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

Drawing is putting a line round an idea.

An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.

What I dream of is an art that is equilibrated, pure and calm, free of disturbing subject matter, an art that can be for any intellectual worker, for the business man or the writer, a means of soothing the soul, something like a comfortable armchair in which one can rest from physical fatigue.

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.

What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure. It is through it that I best succeed in expressing the almost religious feeling I have towards life.

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

Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.

You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject.

Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.

Exactitude is not truth.

From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.