Quotes About Painting

The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.

Because fashion essentially is art, and as an artist and someone who is also a musician and an artist in regards to drawing and painting, anything I can do that expresses my feelings is something I'm really drawn to.

My secret pleasure is painting these little mini figures that you send into battle - they're called Warhammer figures. It's the nerdiest thing in the world, but it's a lot of fun. It's relaxing; that's the main reason I do it.

I like painting, I think it's relaxing. I also like designing; I don't really like the manual labor, to be honest.

The theory of thought is like painting: it needs that revolution which took art from representation to abstraction. This is the aim of a theory of thought without image.

The history of philosophy isn't a particularly reflective discipline. It's rather like portraiture in painting. Producing mental, conceptual portraits. As in painting, you have to create a likeness, but in a different material: the likeness is something you have to produce, rather than a way of reproducing anything (which comes down to just repeating what a philosopher says).

Dan moved forward and replaced Jonah at the helm. I've got a plan! That's my man! The famous grin disappeared as Jonah took in the grim determination in Dan's features. His expression was as flat and expressionless as a naked skull. Dan steered the hurtling boat directly toward the rocky shore. Amy, hang onto that painting! That's not a plan! Jonah shouted. That's suicide!

Walt Garrity stands beside them like a tired cowboy who mistakenly wandered into the painting and can't find his way out.

Is there a relative value of beauty? Is evanescence - fleetingness - a necessary element of the thing that most moves us? A shooting star dazzles more than the sun. A child captivates like an elf, but grows into grossness, an ogre, a harpy. A flower splays itself into color - the lilies of the field! - more treasured than any painting of a flower. But of all these things, women's grace, shooting stars, flowers, and paintings, only a painting endures.

There was a belief after World War I that painting could be an act of civil revolt. I want this exhibition, 'New Museum,' to be an act of civil disobedience. It's not so much about the New Museum on the Bowery, but the idea of challenging museums as projections of cultural authority. It's painting as insurgency.

I'm in a really nice position because I can be selective with the modeling jobs that I do and just work with brands I'm passionate about. The two worlds balance out nicely for me because modeling is so social - it has travel, you meet people, it's extroverted. Whereas painting is very solitary - when I paint, I'm kind of in my own world.

Of course you can still paint landscape - it's not been worn out.

I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall.

In abstract painting, I worried about the limited range of possibilities that, as time went on, became increasingly important to me. I wanted to express or deal with differences that an all-over paint and canvas 'presence' neutralized.

I seldom have my stuff up unless I'm testing it. If I'm worrying about a painting, I put it up and see if I detest it quickly or slowly. Otherwise I have things by other artists.

I taught a lot of art history, especially Chinese, Japanese, and Indian. But the painting classes came back. The nudes came back. Not so much the still lifes. So now our department is the worst department, partly because it has the worst facilities.

I don't think I can do this - painting under observation. It's the worst thing there is, worse than being in the hospital.

Nobody really needs a painting. It's something you kind of create value for in a way that you don't with a company. It's an act of collective faith what an object is worth. Maintaining that value system is part of what a dealer does, not just making a transaction but making sure that important art feels important.

Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness.

I paint from the top down. From the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people.

I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality.

I equate inspiration with desire – the desire that moves us to be artists in the first place. To attempt to make a painting without this motivation is a waste of time.

Rembrandt was way ahead of his time. It's as if he was painting an amateur theatrical, or a professional theatrical, in his studio. It's a kind of performance.

I'm so busy writing and editing two books a year that I don't have time for painting anymore.