Quotes About Art

I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.

I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.

Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue

Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul

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

Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.

I do not distinguish between the construction of a book and that of a painting and I always proceed from the simple to the complex." - 1946

El artista comienza con una visión, una operación creativa que requiere un esfuerzo. La creatividad requiere coraje.

Creativity takes courage

The mere ambition to write a poem is enough to kill it.

Art is a barren route, of which glory is the oasis.

Mida te nimetate õnneks? Kas kirge, mis paneb inimese sellisesse seisukorda nagu Jacques praegu? Näidake talle nüüd mõnda meistriteost, ja ta ei vaataks selle poolegi. Ja selleks et kas või kord veel näha oma kallimat, on ta valmis talluma Tiziani või Raffaeli maalil. Vaat minu kallim on surematu ega reeda mind iialgi. Ta elab Louvre'is ja tema nimi on Mona Lisa.

Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket.

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

The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public.

Art is man's expression of his joy in labor.

The artist labors while he may, But finds at best too brief the day; And, tho' his works outlast the time And nation that they make sublime, He feels and sees that Nature knows Nothing of time in what she does, But has a leisure infinite Wherein to do her work aright.

I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist.

From cradle to grave this problem of running order through chaos, direction through space, discipline through freedom, unity through multiplicity, has always been, and must always be, the task of education, as it is the moral of religion, philosophy, science, art, politics and economy; but a boy's will is his life, and he dies when it is broken, as the colt dies in harness, taking a new nature in becoming tame...

Yet faith is evidence, and hope Substance, and love sufficient fire; And Art in these finds ampler scope Than in fulfilled desire.

Where there is no passion there can be no poetry.

Rhythm is a conception, not a physical reality. It is true that, to be realized in music, rhythm must be marked by some sort of sound, but this sound is not itself the rhythm.

This world is but a canvas to our imaginations.