Painting Quotes - Page 2

I had spent many years living with a plain piece of canvas just right on my face as a headboard for my bed. As the years passed by, I watched it slowly transforming into a work of art which still lives above my head. And that my friend, is truly living art.

(...) photography opened up quite a little Pandora's box, kiddies. (...) Once we no longer had to depend on drawing and painting to record our existence — once they became an option — they mutated . . . into a form of expression. And Art for its own sake, God help us, was born.

I had only to open my bedroom window, and blue air, love, and flowers entered with her”.

A painting is worth a thousand confused art-gallery visitors.

I dream my painting and I paint my dream.

Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting—that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art—and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort.

For all the pain you suffered, my mama. For all the torment of your past and future years, my mama. For all the anguish this picture of pain will cause you. For the unspeakable mystery that brings good fathers and sons into the world and lets a mother watch them tear at each other’s throats. For the Master of the Universe, whose suffering world I do not comprehend. For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting—an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment.

Painting a picture is writing a poem with paint.

Chemistry has the same quickening and suggestive influence upon the algebraist as a visit to the Royal Academy, or the old masters may be supposed to have on a Browning or a Tennyson. Indeed it seems to me that an exact homology exists between painting and poetry on the one hand and modem chemistry and modem algebra on the other. In poetry and algebra we have the pure idea elaborated and expressed through the vehicle of language, in painting and chemistry the idea enveloped in matter, depending in part on manual processes and the resources of art for its due manifestation.

in the corner of the painting of successthe signature is blurred

Whether I'm painting or not, I have this overweening interest in humanity. Even if I'm not working, I'm still analyzing people.

A painting shouldn't be just a picture, it should be a philosophy.

You can’t colour your world with someone’s paint.

In my heaven sweet melodies of the skies ripple pool of the sea playing sweet song to me, sharing tales of the past, blending with mine as mirage, painting new...I breathe in, am in love and alive...

To become a leader, renovate your mind with painting of peace and roof your heart with ceiling of love. No love, no leader!

The paint is drying, and time is dying. The pain is crying, lying on my back, trying to get back the time, to brushstrokes too fast, wet went dry and love went dull; now I live in a portrait I never painted.

Talent is nothing more than a pursued interest.

I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime.

I'm often painted as the bad guy, and the artistic part of me wants to hand out the brush.

Negative people will always be there to stain your pure image with their dirty tongues and brushes, but you'll always remain as white as snow, no matter how high the quality of paint they use.

As an artist I have always tried to be faithful to my vision of life, and I have frequently been in conflict with those who wanted me to paint not what I saw but what they wished me to see.

The biggest spur to my interest in art came when I played van Gogh in the biographical film Lust For Life. The role affected me deeply. I was haunted by this talented genius who took his own life, thinking he was a failure. How terrible to paint pictures and feel that no one wants them. How awful it would be to write music that no one wants to hear. Books that no one wants to read. And how would you like to be an actor with no part to play, and no audience to watch you. Poor Vincent—he wrestled with his soul in the wheat field of Auvers-sur-Oise, stacks of his unsold paintings collecting dust in his brother's house. It was all too much for him, and he pulled the trigger and ended it all. My heart ached for van Gogh the afternoon that I played that scene. As I write this, I look up at a poster of his "Irises"—a poster from the Getty Museum. It's a beautiful piece of art with one white iris sticking up among a field of blue ones. They paid a fortune for it, reportedly $53 million. And poor Vincent, in his lifetime, sold only one painting for 400 francs or $80 dollars today. This is what stimulated my interest in buying works of art from living artists. I want them to know while they are alive that I enjoy their paintings hanging on my walls, or their sculptures decorating my garden

She had picked the spot the day before and carried out a stool low enough to sit on and still have her paintbox and her water cup within reach. Anna didn't use an easel. Easels seemed to her an altogether too assertive aid, too obvious. She liked to work as unobtrusively as possible, the paper spread on a board in her lap, close to her hand.

Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity.

Without atmosphere a painting is nothing.

Painting n: the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.

I came there again another time. And I looked many times again. I was filled with consolation, with my consolation.The thirty-three abominations were truthful. They were the truth. They were life. The sharp fragments of life, sharp, complete moments. Such are women. They have lovers.Each of these thirty-three (or how many of them were there?) had painted his mistress. Excellent! I grew used to myself being in their presence.Thirty-three mistresses! Thirty-three mistresses!And I was all of them and yet all were not me.I studied the abomination for a long while: before I modeled for them, as well as afterwards.I modelled in order to study. This I felt so keenly. It seemed to me that I was learning about life by pieces, by separate pieces, fragments, but every fragment possessed all its own complexity and power.The abominations began to divide in half. With every day this became clearer. One half became mistresses and the other half queens.Each of the thirty-three created his mistress or his queen.("Thirty Three Abominations")

Before, I could only guess of who I was. Now, thanks to my art, I know who I am

This is almost always the case: A piece of art receives its f(r)ame when found offensive.

The idea is in my head to put it down is nothing.

Entertain only those thoughts which bring health, vitality and happiness in your life. Start now and think right for you are the painter of the canvas of your life.

Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.

Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.

It's like a nesting doll of imagination! It's like a painting of a painting! It's like the wind catching a chill from the wind, or a wave taking a dip in the ocean. It's like reading a novel that merely describes another novel. It's like music tapping its foot to a tune and saying 'Oh! I love this song!

You are the Poem I dreamed of writing, the Masterpiece I longed to paint. You are the shining Star I reached for in my ever hopeful quest for life fulfilled. Yes, I am Blessed.

Even though artists of all kinds claim to put their hearts and souls into their works, it will only confuse you, for example, if you try to discern a painter by his paintings. His masterpiece may be the master because of its iridescence; it may display a hundred different perspectives through his single face.

All colours are the friends of their neighbours and the lovers of their opposites.

To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing-- what language can communicate. Painting has nothing to do with that.

They were both young men under thirty. Art is not so precocious as literature, and does not send quite so many early potatoes into the market, so that the age of thirty is considered young enough for a painter to have learnt his business sufficiently to be marketable from the picture-dealing point of view. ("The Phantom Model")

She felt about a love set as a painter does about his masterpiece; each ace serve was a form of brushwork to her, and her fantastically accurate shot-placing was certainly a study in composition.

Painting reflects. It kills you in a colourful shower of emptiness. Flatness. Randomness. And beauty. Yes, it is the most pure beauty I have ever felt in my life.

If you’re to choose to paint your life today... What will it be? Remember, you’re the artist, not the canvas.

Literature, although it stands apart by reason of the great destiny and general use of its medium in the affairs of men, is yet an art like other arts. Of these we may distinguish two great classes: those arts, like sculpture, painting, acting, which are representative, or as used to be said very clumsily, imitative; and those, like architecture, music, and the dance, which are self-sufficient, and merely presentative.

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.

How do you even know I'm someone you'll want to remember? We've only seen each other once before.'(Amber)'Have you ever looked at a painting and known you had something in common with it? Have you ever seen something so beautiful you feel like crying? When I see you, I feel that way. I feel like the deepest part of me understands something vital about you.'(Virgil Daly)

The artistic methods of poetry, painting, photography, and writing share certain commonalities of deep composition: spirit, rhythm, thought, and scenery.

Musicians do not get on stage without hearing the song singing inside of them. Poets do not write as if they are jotting down a sermon, they see everything in their subconscious before presenting it to the conscious, which they later turn to  readable materials. Artist do not draw and paint without painting in dream states, trance, or see an art form that others do not see. Being creative does not calls for being any supernatural entity, but in creating with the entities inside of you.

The artist has the master picture in his mind, before he begins to paint.

Lovers tend to be philosophical, achievers are practical.

I look up at the painting. It's not even that interesting. Definitely doesn't grab me and shake my brain around like the meadow scene did.

Boomer had asked her once, in a telephone call from Virginia, “Why does this stuff, these hand-painted hallucinations that don’t do nothin’ but confuse the puddin’ out of a perfectly reasonable wall, why does it mean so much to you?” It was a poor connection, but he could have sworn he heard her say, “In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak.

[I]t was [Barnett] Newman who made the famously wry remark, “Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds,

You can be a good painter if you study Cézanne's vision. Whoever dares to copy Van Gogh falls inevitably into the hell of imitators. For this painter didn't care about masterpieces, or even good paintings... but about what is beyond all painting, all art.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a better idea.

Paint me perfect poetry.

I want to create, not kill.

Asleep she was a painting of a fire. Awake she was the fire itself

If we could but paint with the hand as we see with the eye!

We are all artists painting our desires on the canvas of life and time.