What is art?

ART QUOTES

The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense. Pablo Picasso

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction. Pablo Picasso

We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. John F. Kennedy

Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious. Oscar Wilde

You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life. Joan Miro

If I paint something, I don’t want to have to explain what it is. Bob Ross

An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success. Henri Matisse

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. Leonardo da Vinci

I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality. Frida Kahlo

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all to prudent. Vincent van Gogh

The power of nature is such that it’s what all art strives to be. The more we can get in tune with the harmony of the planet, the more our art can benefit from that relationship. Rick Rubin

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize. Robert Hughes

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up. James Baldwin

Our primary function is to create an emotion and our secondary function is to sustain that emotions. Alfred Hitchcock

Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy. Albert Einstein

You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life. Salvador Dalí

To be an artist, you need to exist in a world of silence. Louise Bourgeois

The best reason to paint is that there is no reason to paint. Keith Haring

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud. Emile Zola

Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it. Leon Trotsky

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. Jerzy Kosinski

In the creative state a man is taken out of himself. E. M. Forster

A work is finished when an artist realizes his intentions. Rembrandt

Art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something. Rainbow Rowell

An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s. J. D. Salinger

The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness. Joan Miro

Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Edward de Bono

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. Edgar Degas

Art speaks where words are unable to explain. Unknown



THE MOST FAMOUS ART QUOTES

Art is never finished, only abandoned. Leonardo da Vinci

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen. Leonardo da Vinci

Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings. Agnes Martin

Bad artists copy. Good artists steal. Pablo Picasso

Everything you can imagine is real. Pablo Picasso

The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from. David Bowie

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. Vincent van Gogh

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. Vincent Van Gogh

If you hear a voice within you saying, ”You are not a painter,” then by all means paint… and that voice will be silenced. Vincent van Gogh

Art is my life and my life is art. Yoko Ono

Every artist was first an amateur. Ralph Waldo Emerson

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you. Oscar Wilde

A picture is a poem without words. Horace

Without tradition art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation it is a corpse. Winston Churchill

I guess I’m a little weird. I like to talk to trees and animals. That’s okay though; I have more fun than most people. Bob Ross

You don’t take a photograph, you make it. Ansel Adams

Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it. Salvador Dalí

I am not strange. I am just not normal. Salvador Dalí

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. Salvador Dalí

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. Michelangelo

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. Friedrich Nietzsche

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best. Frida Kahlo

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. Martin Luther King Jr

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist. Albert Einstein



SHORT ART QUOTES

Beauty will save the world. Dosteovsky

Painter, paint! Salvador Dalí

Art must destroy violence, only it can do it. Leo Tolstoy

Creativity is contagious. Pass it on. Albert Einstein

Art is the expression of the profoundest thoughts in the simplest way. Albert Einstein

Art is to look at not to criticize. Edgar Allen Poe

Art is a way of recognizing oneself. Louise Bourgeois

Personality is everything in art and poetry. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. Henri Matisse

Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom. Leonardo da Vinci

Painting is silent poetry. Plutarch

Sometimes with art, it is important just to look. Marina Abramović

Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity. Yoko Ono

Don’t think about making art… Andy Warhol

Every good painter paints what he is. Jackson Pollock

A true masterpiece does not tell everything. Albert Camus

Intensity is all that matters in painting. John Piper

To be an artist is to believe in life. Henry Moore

Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. Pablo Picasso

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary. Pablo Picasso

Art is a line around your thoughts. Gustav Klimt

Art is coming face to face with yourself. Jackson Pollock

I shut my eyes in order to see. Paul Gauguin

The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands. Leonardo da Vinci

Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to the horse, the rudder to a ship. Leonardo da Vinci

The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of. Leonardo da Vinci

Think eight hours, work two hours. Mirko Ilic

Choose only one master – Nature. Rembrandt

Art is not a thing, it is a way. Elbert Hubbard

To create one’s own world takes courage. Georgia O’Keeffe

I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate. Vincent van Gogh

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. Pablo Picasso

I shall be so brief that I have already finished. Salvador Dalí

It is absurd to look for perfection. Camille Pissarro

I must have flowers, always, and always. Claude Monet

Life is too short to remain unnoticed. Salvador Dalí

Knowing how to look is a way of inventing. Salvador Dalí

I’m in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint. Claude Monet

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different. Coco Chanel

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. Elbert Hubbard

To create, one must first question everything. Eileen Gray

Everything starts from a dot. Wassily Kandinsky

To gain freedom is to gain simplicity. Joan Miro

The more I work, the more I want to work. Joan Miro

I work like a gardener. Joan Miro

At the heart of all great art is an essential melancholy. Federico Garcia Lorca



INSPIRATIONAL AND UPLIFTING ART QUOTES

The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to. Frida Kahlo

Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches. Andy Warhol

Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working. Pablo Picasso

It is not a torment to be an artist. It is a privilege. Louise Bourgeois

Don’t be fooled by success and money. Don’t let anything come between you and your work. Louise Bourgeois

When you do things for their own sake, that’s when you create your best work. That’s when it’s art. Naval Ravikant

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. Leo Tolstoy

To be great, art has to point somewhere. Anne Lamott

When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection. Agnes Martin

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. Steven Pressfield

All you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction, and a vision in your mind. Bob Ross

A true artist is not one who is inspired but one who inspires others. Salvador Dalí

Make art that makes you happy. Make art that makes you better. Make art that makes you money. Make art that makes a difference. Sahil Lavingia

If I’m going to be anything more than average, if anyone is going to remember me, then I need to go further, in art, in life, in everything! Salvador Dalí

The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. Steve Jobs

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. William Faulkner

Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world. Leonardo da Vinci

With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance. Norman Mailer

The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation. Auguste Rodin

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. John F. Kennedy

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. John Lennon

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist. Francis of Assisi

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire. Dale Carnegie

It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly. Claude Monet

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it. Kurt Vonnegut

Stay firmly in your path and dare; be wild two hours a day. Paul Gauguin

I have been enlightened. I have fallen into poetry and it has swallowed me up. Keith Haring

Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else’s dreams? Tim Burton

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I accomplish. Michelangelo

Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. Peter O’Toole

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. James Baldwin

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. Vincent van Gogh

By working hard, old man, I hope to make something good one day. I haven’t yet, but I am pursuing it and fighting for it. Vincent van Gogh

One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with. Vincent van Gogh

If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open. Henri Matisse



FUNNY AND QUIRKY ART QUOTES THAT WILL MAKE YOU SMILE

We don’t make mistakes. We just have happy accidents. Bob Ross

I am not an inventor. I steal everything. Anne Bogart

We have always been shamelss about stealing great ideas. Steve Jobs

There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. Oscar Levant

It’s better to create something that others criticize than to create nothing and criticize others. Ricky Gervais

I just wanna make the world a better-looking place. If you don’t like it, you can paint over it! Banksy

People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish… but that’s only if it’s done properly. Banksy

We tell people sometimes: we’re like drug dealers, come into town and get everybody absolutely addicted to painting. It doesn’t take much to get you addicted. Bob Ross

There are three responses to a piece of design: yes, no and wow. Milton Glaser

If people would just look at the paintings, I don’t think they would have any trouble enjoying them. It’s like looking at a bed of flowers, you don’t tear your hair out over what it means. Jackson Pollock

As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance. Calvin

The fact I myself do not understand what my paintings mean while I am painting them does not imply that they are meaningless. Salvador Dalí

The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret. Salvador Dalí

If you understand a painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it. Salvador Dalí

I believe in general death but in the death of Dalí absolutely not. Salvador Dalí

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism. William Ralph Inge

Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons. Al Hirschfeld

I’m not performing miracles, I’m using up and wasting a lot of paint. Claude Monet

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic. Oscar Wilde

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums. Banksy



DEEP ART QUOTES (THAT WILL MAKE YOU THINK)

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. Francis Bacon

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star. Friedrich Nietzsche

My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind. Agnes Martin

All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation. Susan Sontag

If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for? Alice Walker

Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide. Donald Winnicott

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first. Arthur Schopenhauer

An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. James Baldwin

The achilles heel of an artist Lies in the hope that his art is good. Kapil Gupta

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual. Vladimir Nabokov

Forget yourself. Become one with eternity. Become part of your environment. Yayoi Kusama

The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls ‘inspiration’. Leon Trotsky

Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations. Albert Einstein

What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it. Salvador Dalí

People love mystery, and that is why they love my paintings. Salvador Dalí

An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he – for some reason – thinks it would be a good idea to give them. Andy Warhol

Not everyone is capable of madness; and of those lucky enough to be capable, not many have the courage for it. August Strindberg

Perhaps it’s true that I’m very hard on myself, but that’s better than exhibiting mediocre work… too few were satisfactory enough to trouble the public with. Claude Monet

It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare. Claude Monet

It is better to have done something than to have been someone. Claude Monet

I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could. Georgia O’Keeffe

The true painter must be able, with the most usual things, to have the most unusual ideas. Salvador Dalí

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. Henry David Thoreau

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control. Julia Cameron

I would like to paint the way a bird sings. Claude Monet

One person’s craziness is another person’s reality. Tim Burton

Art is a step in the known toward the unknown. Kahlil Gibran

Art helps us identify with one another and expands our notion of we – from the local to the global. Olafur Eliasson

Every line is the actual experience with its own unique story. Cy Twombly

The main thing in making art often is letting go of your expectation and your idea. Agnes Martin

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. Pablo Picasso

Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies. Erich Fromm

So much time is wasted on trying to be better than others. Elijah Wood

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world. George Santayana

The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul. Wassily Kandinsky



WISE ART QUOTES (WORDS OF WISDOM)

There is no must in art because art is free. Wassily Kandinsky

The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents. Salvador Dalí

The world is only as free as it allows its artists to be. Rick Rubin

The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution! Albert Einstein

The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later. Joan Miro

The public wants to understand and learn in a single day, a single minute, what the artist has spent years learning. Paul Gauguin

I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things. Henri Matisse

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. Henri Matisse

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. Herman Melville

It is better to paint from memory, for thus your work will be your own. Paul Gauguin

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do. Edgar Degas

If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint. Edward Hopper

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. Oscar Wilde

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite – getting something down. Julia Cameron

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. Oscar Wilde

The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist. Eric Gill

He only moves toward the perfection of his art whose criticism surpasses his achievement. Leonardo da Vinci

Contrary to general belief, an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs. Edgard Varese

Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know. Rembrandt

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. Edgar Degas

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. James Whistler



ART QUOTES ABOUT LOVE, PASSION, EMOTIONS

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. John Ruskin

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. Vincent van Gogh

All art, like all love, is rooted in heartache. Alfred Stieglitz

Hatred is a parasite that devours all. One doesn’t build upon hatred, but upon love. Henri Matisse

These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession. Claude Monet

I would rather die of passion than of boredom. Emile Zola

We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art. Maurice Ravel

Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. Chuck Klosterman

Works of art are of an infinite loneliness and with nothing so little to be reached as with criticism. Only love can grasp and hold and be just toward them. Rainer Maria Rilke

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. Pablo Picasso

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well. Vincent Van Gogh

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution. Steven Pressfield (The War Of Art)

It doesn’t matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said. Jackson Pollock

(On how he knows when he’s finished) How do you know when you’re finished making love? Jackson Pollock

When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. Jackson Pollock

I couldn’t give you something mediocre even if that’s all you asked for. Michelangelo

When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting. Fernando Botero

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing. Marc Chagall

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love. Claude Monet

Nothing can be accomplished without love. Henri Matisse

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art. Paul Cezanne

Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing. Marc Chagall



ART QUOTES ABOUT LIFE

I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint. Frida Kahlo

Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist. Rene Magritte

Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life. Agnes Martin

Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art. Neil Gaiman

Without anxiety and illness I should have been like a ship without a rudder. Edvard Munch

Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. Anais Nin

No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love. Edvard Munch

I build a kind of wall between myself and t he model so that I can paint in peace behind it. Otherwise, she might say something that confuses and distracts me. Edvard Munch

Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life. Edvard Munch

Someone else’s vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self. Live and die with it ’cause in the end it’s all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself. Georgia O’Keeffe

I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do. Georgia O’Keeffe

Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. Albert Einstein

The more ignoble I find life, the more strongly I react by contradiction, in humour and in an outburst of liberty and expansion. Joan Miro

One must work and dare if one really wants to live. Vincent van Gogh

There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke. Vincent van Gogh

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. Leonardo da Vinci

Whatever you do in life, if you want to be creative and intelligent, and develop your brain, you must do everything with the awareness that everything, in some way, connects to everything else. Leonardo da Vinci

Life is more important than art; that’s what makes art important. James Baldwin

Everything alters me, but nothing changes me. Salvador Dalí

Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature, understand them thoroughly. Salvador Dalí

In a sense, as we are creative beings, our lives become our work of art. Julia Cameron

All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness. Eckhart Tolle

I value those artists who embody the expression of their life. Wassily Kandinsky

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. Pablo Picasso

I paint objects as I think them not as I see them. Pablo Picasso



ART QUOTES ABOUT BEAUTY, APPRECIATION, HAPPINESS

There are always flowers for those who want to see them. Henri Matisse

To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage. Henri Matisse

Creativity is a lot like happiness. It shows up when you’re thinking of something else. Bert Dodson

Look around. Look at what we have. Beauty is everywhere – you only have to look to see it. Bob Ross

In my experience, the best creative work is never done when one is unhappy. Albert Einstein

Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man’s reasonable perception into feeling. Leo Tolstoy

Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen. Leo Tolstoy

Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life. John Lubbock

There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction. Salvador Dalí

Beauty should be edible, or not at all. Salvador Dalí

All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it. Claude Monet

Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it. Claude Monet

I haven’t many years left ahead of me and I must devote all my time to painting, in the hope of achieving something worthwhile in the end, something if possible that will satisfy me. Claude Monet

I think it’s so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary – you’re happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous. Georgia O’Keeffe

A simple line painted with the brush can lead to freedom and happiness. Joan Miro

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller

Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy – the joy of being Salvador Dalí – and I ask myself in rapture: What wonderful things is this Salvador Dalí going to accomplish today?” Salvador Dalí

After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well. Albert Einstein

Personally, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure in having contact with works of art. They furnish me with happy feelings of an intensity that I cannot derive from other sources. Albert Einstein

Great art is indefinable but that’s all right; it exists anyway. Edward Abbey

Great art transcends its culture and touches on that which is eternal. Madeleine L’Engle

Photography my passion, the search for truth, my obsession. Alfred Stieglitz

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. Camille Pissarro

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty. Georgia O’Keeffe

Filling a space in a beautiful way – that is what art means to me. Georgia O’Keeffe



ART QUOTES ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF ART, PURPOSE, HEALING POWER

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change. William S. Burroughs

The purpose of art is mystery. Rene Magritte

Art is an escape from reality. Henri Matisse

Man needs music, literature, and painting – all those oases of perfection that make up art – to compensate for the rudeness and materialism of life. Fernando Botero

Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented – which is what fear and anxiety do to a person – into something whole. Louise Bourgeois

Healing yourself is connected with healing others. Yoko Ono

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Kurt Vonnegut

The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind. Marina Abramovic

The activity of art is… as important as the activity of language itself, and as universal. Leo Tolstoy

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle

My art is capable of liberating man from the tyranny of the ‘practical, rational world.’ Salvador Dalí

In art, and in the higher ranges of science, there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavor. There is no true greatness in art or science without that sense of harmony. Albert Einstein

One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. Albert Einstein

For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art. Edvard Munch

One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience. Ursula K. Le Guin

Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. Keith Haring

Whatever you do, the only secret is to believe in it and satisfy yourself. Don’t do it for anyone else. Keith Haring

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Banksy

Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. Stella Adler

For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh. Georges Rouault

What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit. John Updike

The artist has one function–to affirm and glorify life. W. Edward Brown

I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say “he feels deeply, he feels tenderly”. Vincent Van Gogh

The goal of art was the vital expression of self. Alfred Stieglitz

A good painter has two main objects to paint, man and the intention of his soul. The former is easy, the latter hard as he has to represent it by the attitude and movement of the limbs. Leonardo da Vinci

All the sorrow, all the bitterness, all the sadness, I forget them and ignore them in the joy of working. Camille Pissarro

The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves. Willem de Kooning

I am an artist because the knot is so powerful I just can not, nor want to be, anything else or do anything else. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. Pablo Picasso

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Pablo Picasso

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. Pablo Picasso

An artist discovers his genius the day he dares not to please. Andre Malraux

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. Twyla Tharp



QUOTES ABOUT ART, CREATIVITY, FEAR, IMAGINATION, EXPRESSION

Creativity is the residue of time wasted. Albert Einstein

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Albert Einstein

The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself. Paul Cezanne

You are born alone. You die alone. The value of the space in between is trust and love. Louise Bourgeois

Painting must be fertile. It must give birth to a world… it must fertilize the imagination. Joan Miro

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking. George S. Patton

They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality. Frida Kahlo

Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas. Austin Kleon

They say everything looks better with odd numbers of things. But sometimes I put even numbers – just to upset the critics. Bob Ross

Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. Erich Fromm

The most creative people are willing to work in the shadow of uncertainty. Ed Catmull (Pixar)

I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. Jackson Pollock

Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Steven Pressfield

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. Albert Einstein

I’d like to pretend that I’ve never seen anything, never read anything, never heard anything, and then make something. Keith Haring

I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Jackson Pollock

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. Oscar Wilde

Do not imitate one another’s style. If you do, so far as your art is concerned you will be called a grandson, rather than the son of Nature. Leonardo da Vinci

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing–and keeping the unknown always beyond you. Georgia O’Keeffe

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. Charles Mingus

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things. Ray Bradbury

You cannot be all things to all people. Be unique. Be different. Give to others what you want yourself. And do what you were made to do. Robert Kiyosaki

The modern artist… is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces. Jackson Pollock

Sometimes people say I should see a therapist, but I don’t want any therapist wrecking my weirdness. Peter Wolf

My great mistake, the fault for which I can’t forgive myself, is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality. Oscar Wilde

The one who walks alone, is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. Albert Einstein

To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren’t any. Les Paul

My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions. Claude Monet

I want to be important. By being different. And these girls are all the same. Sylvia Plath



QUOTES AND SAYINGS ABOUT ART, EDUCATION, TEACHERS, STUDENTS

I am still learning. Michelangelo

You can’t learn techniques and then try to become a painter. Techniques are a result. Jackson Pollock

I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy – I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it. Art Williams

The worst thing you can think about when you’re working is yourself. Agnes Martin

You can’t be content with mastery; you have to push yourself to become a student again. Austin Kleon

If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room. Austin Kleon

Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find your self. Austin Kleon

If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research. Wilson Mizner

I was never capable of being an average pupil. I would either seem refractory to any teaching and give the impression of being completely dumb or I would fling myself on my work with a frenzy, a patience, and a willingness to learn that astonished everybody. But to awaken my zeal, it was necessary to offer me something I liked. Once my appetite had been whetted, I became ravenously hungry. Salvador Dalí

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. John Steinbeck

More important than a work of art itself is what it will sow. Art can die, a painting can disappear. What counts is the seed. Joan Miro

If only I’d known my differentness would be an asset, then my earlier life would have been much easier. Bette Midler

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. T. S. Eliot

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein

One must, of course, have one’s entire experience behind one and not have lost the freshness of instinct. Henri Matisse

All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw? Banksy

I decided to start anew – to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. Georgia O’Keeffe

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. Friedrich Nietzsche

It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. Mark Rothko

The most valuable thing a teacher can impart to children is not knowledge and understanding per se but a longing for knowledge and understanding, and an appreciation for intellectual values, whether they be artistic, scientific, or moral. Albert Einstein

A society’s competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity. Albert Einstein

The great moral teachers of humanity were in a way artistic geniuses in the art of living. Albert Einstein

The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks. Albert Einstein

The seed of your next artwork lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece. David Bayles

Don’t worry about how you ‘should’ draw it. Just draw it the way you see it. Tim Burton

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. Pablo Picasso

Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master. Leonardo da Vinci



QUOTES AND SAYINGS ABOUT ART, KIDS, CHILDREN, YOUTH

Everybody draws when they are little. Keith Haring

Old age is a hindrance to creativity but cannot crush my youthful spirit. Rembrandt

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. Pablo Picasso

The great geniuses are those who have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience. Alfred Stieglitz

Anybody with artistic ambitions is always trying to reconnect with the way they saw things as a child. Tim Burton

There is nothing that makes me happier than making a child smile. Keith Haring

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist! Auguste Rodin

Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s okay. You’re here to live your life, not to make everyone understand. Banksy

In order to produce something new, you have to return to the original source, to the childhood of mankind. Paul Gauguin

A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man. Paul Gauguin



QUOTES ABOUT ART AND COLOR, LIGHT

You need the dark in order to show the light. Bob Ross

Some colors reconcile themselves to one another, others just clash. Edvard Munch

Color is a power which directly influences the soul. Wassily Kandinsky

Color is a means to exert a direct influence on the soul. Wassily Kandinsky

Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings. Wassily Kandinsky

There is no blue without yellow and without orange. Vincent van Gogh (Did he mean that there’s no sadness without happiness?)

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. Vincent van Gogh

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. Claude Monet

It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color – not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression. Henri Matisse

I’ve been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black. Henri Matisse

It is with color that you render light, though you must also feel this light, have it within yourself. Henri Matisse

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for. Georgia O’Keeffe

The point is to know how to use the colors, the choice of which is, when all’s said and done, a matter of habit. Claude Monet

Critic asks: ‘And what, sir, is the subject matter of that painting?’ – ‘The subject matter, my dear good fellow, is the light. Claude Monet

What I need most of all is color, always, always. Claude Monet

Without atmosphere a painting is nothing. Rembrandt



QUOTES ABOUT UNFINISHED ART

Finish the work, otherwise an unfinished work will finish you. Amit Kalantri

Another year is ending, but something is pending. Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I’m never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel. Claude Monet

Above all, an artist must never be too easily satisfied with what he has done. Henri Matisse

No great work of art is ever finished. Michelangelo

There are dozens of unfinished or aborted projects in my files, but I can only assume they don’t get done because they’re not robust enough to struggle through the birth process. Grant Morrison

I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished. Mary Oliver

You are an unfinished work in progress. One of the good things about life’s challenges: you get to find out that you’re capable of being far more than you ever thought possible. Karen Salmonsohn

I never want projects to be finished; I have always believed in unfinished work. I got that from Schubert, you know, the ‘Unfinished Symphony’. Yoko Ono

I always believed that my work should be unfinished in the sense that I encourage people to add their creativity to it, either conceptually or physically. Yoko Ono

When I’m playing, I’m never through. It’s unfinished. I like to find a place to leave for someone else to finish it. That’s where the high comes in. Miles Davis

I know I will leave my work unfinished. I just hope I planted enough seeds in my children and grandchildren that they will continue. David Robinson

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. Christina Rossetti



QUOTES ABOUT ART AND SPIRITUALITY, GOD, BIBLE, RELIGION

The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us. Alain de Botton

The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer. Henri Matisse

A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist. Leo Tolstoy

God will not pour fresh, creative ideas and blessing into old attitudes. Joel Osteen

The most important function of art and science is to awaken the cosmic religious feeling and keep it alive. Albert Einstein

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. Albert Einstein

Art class was like a religious ceremony to me. I would wash my hands carefully before touching paper or pencils. The instruments of work were sacred objects to me. Joan Miro

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 ESV

Let all that you do be done in love. 1 Corinthians 16:14 ESV

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. 1 Peter 4:10 ESV

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. Andre Gide
Only God creates. The rest of us just copy. Michelangelo

Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God. Rembrandt

CONCLUSION

Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. Kurt Vonnegut