Art lovers have highly treasured art quotes from famous artists. These quotes give insights into what the great artist of the past thought about art, its value, and how you should approach it.
Most great artists believed that art is not just a way to escape from reality but a way to create your reality. They saw beyond the ordinary and believed art could transform the mundane into something beautiful and inspiring.
To them, life is full of chaos, and although art shows human life, it should be simple and elegant. We must recognize the disorder and not let it take over our lives.
Life is full of colors, and we should believe in their ability to intoxicate us and make us feel alive. We should be aware that human life is full of potential and strive to reach our fullest potential. Art reminds us of what is possible if we only believe.
We can never live in their period or experience and express what they have undergone. These Quotes about Art are the golden nuggets artists wrote which are collated with will be exciting and inspiring.
If you are an artist or aspiring to be one, these Art Quotes will kindle your thoughts on aspects of art.
Table of Contents
Famous Artist Quotes
Quotes by Famous Artists are some of the most powerful words out there. They can help us through tough times and inspire us to do better. They also give excellent motivational advice and can give you a new perspective on life. Famous Artist Quotes are sure to make you view the world differently!
There are so many Famous Artists Quotes out there full of wisdom. It’s hard to know where to start! Let’s look at some of the most popular Famous Artists’ Quotes.
001
A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
002
A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
003
Above all, an artist must never be too easily satisfied with what he has done.
Henri Matisse, French Artist
004
All Children are Artists. The problem is How to remain an Artist once you grow up.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
005
All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
006
An artist must have his measuring tool not in his hand, but in the eye.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
007
Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
008
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
009
Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.
Salvador Dali, Spanish Artist
010
Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.
Claude Monet, French Painter
011
Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.
Salvador Dali, Spanish Artist
012
I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
013
I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
014
I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
Claude Monet, French Painter
015
I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.
Henri Matisse, French Artist
016
I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.
Salvador Dali, Spanish Artist
017
I don’t paint dreams or nightmares; I paint my own reality.
Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter
018
I don’t know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I’m some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.
Henri Matisse, French Artist
019
I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.
Henri Matisse, French Artist
020
I had wrung impressionism dry, and I finally came to the conclusion that I know neither how to paint nor how to draw.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
021
I have never had a studio, and I do not understand shutting oneself up in a room. To draw, yes; to paint, no.
Claude Monet, French Painter
022
I have not fear of making changes, destroying the images etc., because the painting has a life of its own.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
023
I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.
Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter
024
I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.
Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter
025
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
026
I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say, “he feels deeply, he feels tenderly”.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Painter
027
If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery. It wouldn’t seems so wonderful at all.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
028
If you hear a voice within you say, you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter
029
If you understand a painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it.
Salvador Dali, Spanish Artist
Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.
030
Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
031
It is necessary to keep one’s compass in one’s eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
032
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, French Artist
033
It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
034
It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
035
I’ve never let one day go by without painting, or at least without drawing.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
036
-last words about painting, age 78… I think I’m beginning to learn something about it.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
037
Learn the Rules a pro, so you can break them like an Artist.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
038
Many believe – and I believe – that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
039
Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.
Salvador Dali, Spanish Artist
040
My paintings do not have a center, but depend on the same amount of interest throughout.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
041
Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
042
One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of impressionism.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
043
Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
044
The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
045
The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Painter
046
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
047
The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
048
The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
049
The modern artist… is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
050
The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
051
The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
052
The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
053
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
054
The world doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint picture that do?
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
055
There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
056
There is no blue without yellow and without Orange.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Painter
057
There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
058
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Salvador Dali, Spanish Artist
059
What seems most significant to me about our movement is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
060
When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
061
Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
062
Whoever wants to know something about me as an artist which alone is significant they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognize what I am and what I want.
Gustav Klimt, Austrian Painter
063
Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? No. Just as one can never learn how to paint.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
064
Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of a bird?
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
065
Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
Short Quotes about Art
A short quote is a short form of literary expression that has been popular for centuries and is also one of the simplest forms.
They force the reader to take in the message without distraction, perfect for Instagram captions, short speeches, short stories, and more!
Here are some short art quotes that you might not be familiar with.
066
A blank canvas… has unlimited possibilities.
Stephanie Perkins, American Author
067
A Picture is a Poem without words.
Horace, Roman Lyric Poet
068
A work of Art is a Scream of Freedom.
Christo, Environmental Artist
069
All the visible world is only light on form.
Andrew Loomis, American Illustrator
070
An Artist’s career always begins tomorrow.
James McNeil Whistler, American Artist
071
Art completes what nature cannot bring to finish.
Aristotle, Greek Philosopher
072
Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
073
Art is a line around your thoughts.
Gustav Klimt, Austrian Painter
074
Art is harmony parallel with nature.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
075
Art is never finished, only abandoned.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
076
Art is not a thing, it is a way.
Elbert Hubbard, American Writer
077
Art is the triumph over chaos.
John Cheever, American Novelist
078
Art is what you can get away with.
Andy Warhol, American Artist
079
Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul.
Marc Chagall, Russian French Artist
080
Art should be something that liberates your soul.
Keith Haring, American Artist
081
Art speaks where words are unable to explain.
Threadless Artist Mathiole
082
Art without heart is craft.
Eric Gibbons, American Artist
083
Believe it or not, I can actually draw.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, American Artist
084
Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.
Claude Monet, French Painter
085
Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.
Donatella Versace, Italian Fashion Designer
086
Creativity takes courage.
Henri Matisse, French Artist
087
Drawing is feeling. Color is an act of reason.
Pierre Bonnard, French Painter
088
Drawing takes time. A line has time in it.
David Hockney, English Painter
089
Every Artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Essayist
090
Everything starts from a dot.
Wassily Kandinsky, Russian Painter
091
Everything you can imagine is real.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
092
Exactitude is not truth.
Henri Matisse, French Artist
093
Great Art picks up where nature ends.
Marc Chagall, Russian French Artist
094
I am still learning.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
095
I dream my painting, and then I Paint my dream.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Painter
096
I Start a picture and I finish it.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, American Artist
097
I want to put a ding in the Universe.
Steve Jobs, American Business Magnet
098
It’s with my brush that I make love.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
099
Negativity is the enemy of creativity.
David Lynch, American film maker, Visual Artist
100
No great work of art is every finished.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
101
Pastel is the dust on a butterfly’s wings.
Wolf Kahn, German-American Painter
102
Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
103
The chief enemy of creativity of good sense.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
104
The great artist is the simplified.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Painter
105
The principal person in a picture is light.
Edouard Manet, French Painter
106
There are no rules to creativity.
Laura Jaworski, American Author
107
To learn to draw is to draw and draw and draw.
Andrew Loomis, American Illustrator
108
We all look at the same object in different ways.
Kehinde Wiley, American Artist
109
You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
Ansel Adams, American Landscape Photographer
Inspiring Art Quotes About Abstract Art
It is an art that does not represent objects. Artists usually use abstract art to express emotions and feelings rather than physical objects. However, abstract art is often found in visual arts such as painting or sculpture.
Abstract art has existed for centuries, with examples dating back to Ancient Egypt and China, typically combined with other arts such as calligraphy, architecture, or landscape design. In art, abstract art is non-objective art. In art, abstraction means conceiving what art is conceptually and then translating it into a form that the viewer may perceive art emotionally.
Listed below are specific Art quotes about Abstract Art
110
Abstract art is not the creation of another reality but the true vision of reality.
Piet Mondrian, Dutch Painter
111
Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
112
Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot see physically with his eyes.
Arshile Gorky, American Painter
113
I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I’d draw a big ram’s head, really messy. I’d never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, American Artist
114
The freer the sould, the more abstract painting becomes.
Marc Chagall, Russian French Artist
115
There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
Inspirational Art Quotes By Artists
116
A work is finished when an artist realizes his intentions.
Rembrandt, Dutch Painter
117
An Artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it.
Fernando Botero, Colambian figurative artist
118
An Artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.
James McNeil Whistler, American Artist
119
An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.
Andy Warhol, American Artist
120
Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.
Oscar Wilde, Irish Poet
121
NO ARTIST IS AHEAD OF HIS TIME. He is his time, its just that others are behind the times.
Martha Graham, American Choreographer
122
The Artist is not a special kind of person; rather each person is a special kind of Artist.
Ananda Coomaraswamy, Srilankan Philosopher
123
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.
Emile Zola, French Novelist
124
The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
Francis Bacon, Former Lord Chancellor of England
125
The modern artist is working with space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
126
The position of an Artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.
Piet Mondrian, Dutch Painter
127
The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.
Anton Chekhov, Russian Playwriter
128
What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.
David Hockney, English Painter
Inspiring Creativity Quotes
129
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Any Rand, American Writer
130
Louise Nevelson, American Sculptor
Art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind.
131
Being creative is not a hobby, it is a way of life.
Anonymous
132
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
Scott Adams, American Artist
133
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.
Steve Jobs, American Business Magnet
134
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. American Jazz Pianist
135
I believe everybody is creative, and everybody is talented. I just don’t think that everybody is disciplined. I think that’s a rare commodity.
Al Hirschfeld, American Caricaturist
136
In the ‘Nude Descending a Staircase,’ I wanted to create a static image of movement: movement is an abstraction, a deduction articulated within the painting, without our knowing if a real person is or isn’t descending an equally real staircase.
Marcel Duchamp, French American Painter
137
Old age is a hindrance to creativity but cannot crush my youthful spirit.
Rembrandt, Dutch Painter
138
Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks.
Yo-Yo Ma, American Cellist
139
The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.
Julia Cameron, American Teacher
140
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, French Artist
141
To my mind a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful and pretty. There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Artist
142
What is Art? It is the response of Man’s creative soul to the call of the real.
Rabindranath Tagore, Indian Author
143
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
Maya Angelou, American Poet
Best Art Quotes About Drawing
144
Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a thorough knowledge of the function of the eye.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
145
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
Henri Matisse, French Artist
146
Drawing is rather like playing chess; your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.
David Hockney, English Painter
147
Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.
Keith Haring, American Artist
148
Drawing is the artist’s most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.
Edgar Degas, French Impressionist
149
Drawing is the basis of art. A bad painter cannot draw. But one who draws well can always paint.
Arshile Gorky, American Painter
150
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
Salvador Dali, Spanish Artist
151
Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache.
David Hockney, English Painter
152
I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.
Le Corbusier, French designer & painter
153
In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
154
Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, French humanist photographer
155
Pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and color are not distinct, everything in nature is colored.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
156
That’s the terrible thing: the more one works on a picture, the more impossible it becomes to finish.
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor
Inspirational Quotes About Painting
157
All art is exorcism. I paint dreams and visions too; the dreams and visions of my time. Painting is the effort to produce order; order in yourself. There is much chaos in me, much chaos in our time.”
Otto Dix, German Painter
158
Claude Monet, French Painter
I do have a dream, a painting, the baths of La Grenouillere for which I’ve done a few bad rough sketches, but it is a dream. Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting.”
159
Claude Monet, French Painter
No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.”
160
The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined. It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so that what you see is not what you see.”
Philip Guston, American Painter
161
A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.
Hedy Lamarr, American Actress
162
A painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.
Edgar Degas, French Impressionist
163
A painting is finished when the artist says it is finished.
Rembrandt, Dutch Painter
164
A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy, when you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.
Edgar Degas, French Impressionist
165
As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.
James McNeil Whistler, American Artist
166
Every Artist Dips His brush in his soul and paints his own nature into his paintings.
Henry Ward Beecher, American Congregationalist
167
Every new painting is like throwing myself into the water without knowing how to swim.
Edouard Manet, French Painter
168
Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That’s the thing about painting, photography, cinema.
David Lynch, American film maker, Visual Artist
169
Good painting is like cooking; it can be tasted, but not explained.
Maurice de Vlaminck, French Painter
170
I don’t very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.
Georgia O’Keeffe, American Artist
171
I love art so much because of curiosity. At the start of a painting, I know 10 percent of what the painting will be, and then I have to improvise the whole thing.
Fernando Botero, Colambian figurative artist
172
I started painting as a hobby when I was little. I didn’t know I had any talent. I believe talent is just a pursued interest. Anybody can do what I do.
Bob Ross, American Painter
173
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, French Painter
174
It is not about painting life, it is about making painting alive.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
175
It was in the 1920s, when nobody had time to reflect, that I saw a still-life painting with a flower that was perfectly exquisite, but so small you really could not appreciate it.
Georgia O’Keeffe, American Artist
176
Look at any inspired painting. It’s like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation.
Philip Guston, American Painter
177
My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature.
Edward Hopper, American Painter
178
Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
179
Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter
180
Painting is a language of its own. You cannot interpret one form of expression with another form of expression.
Marcel Duchamp, French American Painter
181
Painting is a self discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.
Jackson Pollock, American Painter
182
Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.
Balthus, French Artist
183
Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things.
Gustave Courbet, French Painter
184
Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.
Philip Guston, American Painter
185
Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.
Salvador Dali, Spanish Artist
186
Painting is concerned with all the 10 attributes of sight; which are: Darkness, Light, Solidity and Color, Form and Position, Distance and Propinquity, Motion and Rest.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
187
Painting is damned difficult – you always think you’ve got it, but you haven’t.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
188
Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.
Edgar Degas, French Impressionist
189
Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Polymath
190
Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.
Gustave Courbet, French Painter
191
Remember that a painting – before it is a battle horse, a nude model, or some anecdote – is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order.
Maurice Denis, French Painter
192
Start a painting with fresh ideas, and then let the painting replace your ideas with its ideas.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
193
The aim of the painting is that the eye should find out what it likes.
Marion Milner, British Author
194
The painter must enclose himself within his work; he must respond not with words, but with paintings.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
195
The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later.
Joan Miro, Dutch Painter
196
There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.
Mark Rothko, American Abstract Painter
197
To me, art begets art. Painting feeds the eye just as poetry feeds the ear, which is to say that both feed the soul.
Susan Vreeland, American Author
198
What do you think an artist is…he is a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
199
When I get my hands on painting materials I don’t give a damn about other people’s painting… every generation must start again afresh.
Maurice de Vlaminck, French Painter
200
When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
201
When making a painting, only one thing counts: what you do next.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
202
When you are painting a landscape, assume the painting is real and the landscape is an illusion.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
Famous Art Quotes About Sculpture
203
All the sculptures of today, like those of the past, will end one day in pieces. So it is important to fashion ones work carefully in its smallest recess and charge every particle of matter with life.
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor
204
Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
205
Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
206
It used to be that painters were crazy and sculptors clever. Today it’s the other way around.
Giorgio DeChirico, Italian Artist
207
Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It’s the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe.
Philip Guston, American Painter
208
The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor’s hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone.
Michelangelo, Italian Painter
Art Quotes About Sketching
209
Drawing is the only thing I’ve found in which I can lose myself completely. I love it. It started as something that relaxed me, but now it’s a struggle because I’m pushing myself. The day-to-day sketching is fraught.
Peter Capaldi, Scottish Actor
210
I hate leisure, except reading. I’m really a person made to work, if sketching is considered work.
Karl Lagerfeld, French Artist
211
Sketching is almost everything. It is the painter’s identity, his style, his conviction, and then color is just a gift to the drawing.
Fernando Botero, Colambian figurative artist
212
Sketching is like dancing. It’s process as much as product. You can turn your head off and just sort of dissolve into the now. Doing a giant, super thought-out painting is the opposite of that.
Molly Crabapple, American Artist
213
You cant do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.
John Singer Sargent, American expatriate artist
Art Quotes From Famous Artists
214
People say, ‘What a discipline, painting so much.’ I say, ‘No, I love it.’ Nothing amuses me as much as my work. To have discipline would be not to paint.”
Fernando Botero, Colambian figurative artist
215
Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn’t look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.”
Roy Lichtenstein, American Pop artist
216
A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
217
An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all… feeling is the principle, the beginning and the end; craft, objective, technique – all these are in the middle.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
218
Art evokes mystery without which the world would not exist…
Rene Magritte, Belgian Artist
219
Art is much more confined by materials than writing is.
Molly Crabapple, American Artist
220
Art is nothing if you don’t reach every segment of the people.
Keith Haring, American Artist
221
Art is often born from inner struggle. Artists are often plagued by impulses they must express. Contentment does not seek action but struggle always seeks release.
Eric Gibbons, American Artist
222
Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
Bansky, England Street Artist
223
Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.
Al Hirschfeld, American Caricaturist
224
Artists are those people who sit at the intersection between the known and unknown, the rational and irrational, coming to terms with some of the confusing histories we, as artists, deal with.
Kehinde Wiley, American Artist
225
Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.
Marc Chagall, Russian French Artist
226
Don’t be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.
Paul Cézanne, French artist
227
Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.
Andy Warhol, American Artist
228
Don’t worry about how you ‘should’ draw it. Just draw it the way you see it.
Tim Burton, American Film Diector
229
For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
230
I always like to see if the art across the street is better than mine.
Andy Warhol, American Artist
231
I could paint for a hundred years, a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
232
I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.
Georgia O’Keeffe, American Artist
233
I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, American Artist
234
I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, American Artist
235
I don’t think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.
Keith Haring, American Artist
236
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, American Artist
237
I hate flowers – I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.
Georgia O’Keeffe, American Artist
238
I have been enlightened. I have fallen into poetry and it has swallowed me up.
Keith Haring, American Artist
239
I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me – shapes and ideas so near to me – so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down.
Georgia O’Keeffe, American Artist
240
I just happen to like ordinary things. When I paint them, I don’t try to make them extraordinary. I just try to paint them ordinary-ordinary.
Andy Warhol, American Artist
241
I like kids’ work more than work by real artists any day.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, American Artist
242
I love paint. I like watercolors. I like acrylic paint… a little bit. I like house paint. I like oil-based paint, and I love oil paint. I love the smell of turpentine and I like that world of oil paint very, very, very much.
David Lynch, American film maker, Visual Artist
243
I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.
James McNeil Whistler, American Artist
244
I think it’s more important to make a lot of different things and keep coming up with new images and things that were never made before, than to do one thing and do it well.
Keith Haring, American Artist
245
If a work of art is to be truly immortal, it must pass quite beyond the limits of the human world, without any sign of common sense and logic. In this way the work will draw nearer to dream and to the mind of a child.
Giorgio DeChirico, Italian Artist
246
If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it.
Cindy Sherman, American Artist
247
If youre not trying to be real, you don’t have to get it right. That’s art.
Andy Warhol, American Artist
248
I’m an artist, and I love the visual. Fashion is high art sometimes and hack work other times, but it’s something worthy of study and love.
Molly Crabapple, American Artist
249
My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can.
Keith Haring, American Artist
250
My work is a self-portrait of my mind, a prism of my convictions.
Fernando Botero, Colambian figurative artist
251
Nowadays, with digital printing, it’s so easy to make everything perfect, which is not always a good idea. Sometimes the mistakes are really what make a piece.
Cindy Sherman, American Artist
252
One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a Pencil.
Balthus, French Artist
253
People who look for symbolic meaning fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the images.
Rene Magritte, Belgian Artist
254
Persist in your practice, and believe that nothing – not time, materials or longing – is wasted in realizing your dreams… Work from your heart with things that you love.
Marie Danti, Mixed Media Artist
255
Portraits are about revealing aspects of an individual.
Kehinde Wiley, American Artist
256
Right now a moment of time is passing by.. We must become that moment.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
257
Shadow is a color as light is, but less brilliant; light and shadow are only the relation of two tones.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
258
Some of the most unhappy artists in the most difficult situations can create awe-inspiring works of art.
Eric Gibbons, American Artist
259
The ability to draw depends on one’s ability to see the way an artist sees.
Betty Edwards, American Art Teacher
260
The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself.
Paul Cezanne, French Artist
261
The problem with doing physically ambitious art is that to view it, you still have to be in your physical body.
Molly Crabapple, American Artist
262
The public wants to understand and learn in a single day, a single minute, what the artist has spent years learning.
Paul Gauguin, French Artist
263
The way I see it, as soon as I make a piece I’ve lost control of it.
Cindy Sherman, American Artist
264
To be an artist at twenty is to be twenty: to still be an artist at fifty is to be an artist.
Eric Gibbons, American Artist
265
Giorgio DeChirico, Italian Artist
To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.
266
To learn to paint requires a no-excuses-time-at-the-easel commitment. There are not shortcuts.
Annie O’Brien Gonzales, American Artist
267
To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on piano.
James McNeil Whistler, American Artist
268
Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.
Georgia O’Keeffee, American Artist
269
You always feel that drawing you are working on is the best you’ve ever done… I am only interested in the present.
Al Hirschfeld, American Caricaturist
270
You don’t have to know anything about art to appreciate it or to look at it. There aren’t any hidden secrets or things that you’re supposed to understand.
Keith Haring, American Artist
271
You learn your limitations and then you try to work within them.
Al Hirschfeld, American Caricaturist
272
You paint what you know best; what you went through as a teenager and child. My world is the one I got to know in Medellin; I never paint anything else other than that.
Fernando Botero, Colambian figurative artist
273
You’re demonstrating your own skills in a vulnerable way when you draw.
Molly Crabapple, American Artist
Art-Related Quotes From Famous Painters
274
A picture is a work of art, not because it is ‘modern,’ nor because it is ‘ancient,’ but because it is a sincere expression of human feeling.
John F. Carlson, American Impressionist Painter
275
All you need to paint is a few tools. A little instruction, and a vision in your mind.
Bob Ross, American Painter
276
Amateurs look for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Chuck Close, American Painter
277
Art is a habit-forming drug. Art has absolutely no existence as veracity, as truth. People always speak of it with this great, religious reverence, but why should it be so revered?
Marcel Duchamp, French American Painter
278
Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.
Anselm Kiefer, German Painter
279
Art is making something better without knowing what better is until you make it.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
280
Art is not made for anybody and is, at the same time, for everybody.
Piet Mondrian, Dutch Painter
281
Art must always remain earnest… Art must be serious, no sarcasm, comedy. One does not laugh at a loved one.
Arshile Gorky, American Painter
282
Art that wants to be felt does not have the need to be admired.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
283
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.
Camille Pissarro, Danish Neo-impressionist Painter
284
Chaos in nature is immediately challenging and forces a good artist to impose some type of order on his or her perception of a site.
Wolf Kahn, German-American Painter
285
Color is a power which directly influences the soul.
Wassily Kandinsky, Russian Painter
286
Cubism was an attack on the perspective that had been known and used for 500 years. It was the first big, big change. It confused people: they said, ‘Things don’t look like that!
David Hockney, English Painter
287
Don’t burden art with words and ideas. Art comes from a deeper place.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
288
Drawing includes three and a half quarters of the content of painting. Drawing contains everything, except the hue.
Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French Painter
289
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an Artist once we grow up.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter
290
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, Norwegian painter
291
Good art looks new because the artist has recombined something old to make something better.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
292
Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.
Edward Hopper, American Painter
293
I communicate my innermost perceptions through art.
Arshile Gorky, American Painter
294
I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.
Marcel Duchamp, French American Painter
295
I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota.
Gustave Courbet, French Painter
296
I paint what I see and not what others like to see.
Edouard Manet, French Painter
297
I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.
Joan Miro, Dutch Painter
298
If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.
Edward Hopper, American Painter
299
If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.
Edward Hopper, American Painter
300
I’m not that obsessed with making representations of ugliness. Everything I’ve seen is beautiful.
Otto Dix, German Painter
301
In art, theories are as useful as a doctor’s prescription; one must be sick to believe them.
Maurice de Vlaminck, French Painter
302
In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new; they see their value and their justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves; novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing only; making a subject better from its intrinsic nature.
Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, French Painter
303
It is a task of art to express clear vision of reality.
Piet Mondrian, Dutch Painter
304
It is not enough to know your craft – you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.
Edouard Manet, French Painter
305
Making art is like swimming underwater in a blindfold.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
306
Movement is the translation of life, and if art depicts life, movement should come into art, since we are only aware of living because it moves.
Arshile Gorky, American Painter
307
The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.
Wassily Kandinsky, Russian Painter
308
The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.
Gustave Courbet, French Painter
309
The only problem in art is to achieve a balance between subjectivef and the objective.
Piet Mondrian, Dutch Painter
310
The urge to draw must be quite deep within us, because children love to do it.
David Hockney, English Painter
311
There are many prejudices about art, and first among them is that it is a skill and that there are definite rules.
Wolf Kahn, German-American Painter
312
There is only one true thing; instantly paint what you see.
Edouard Manet, French Painter
313
There is only one valuable thing in art; the thing you cannot explain.
Georges Braque, French Painter
314
Very few people ever understand art. If you are lucky, they will buy it for the wrong reasons.
Walter Darby Bannard, American Abstract Painter
315
What art is, in reality, is this missing link, not the links which exist. It’s not what you see that is art; art is the gap.
Marcel Duchamp, French American Painter
316
What I am looking for… is an immobile movement, something which would be the equivalent of what is called the eloquence of silence, or what St. John of the Cross, I think it was, described with the term ‘mute music’.
Joan Miro, Dutch Painter
317
When I paint, I never think of selling. People fail to understand that we paint in order to experiment and to develop ourselves as we strive for greater heights.
Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter
318
Who knows if these very pictures, now painted for maharajas, will not find their way to the museums one day.
Raja Ravi Verma, Indian Painter
Quotes about Art From Famous Poets
319
An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
Charles Bukowski, German Poet
320
Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.
Amy Lowell, American Poet
321
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
Oscar Wilde, Irish Poet
322
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde, Irish Poet
323
It gives me such a sense of peace to draw; more than prayer, walks, anything.
Sylvia Plath, American Poet
324
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to be an artist.
Oscar Wilde, Irish Poet
325
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
Oscar Wilde, Irish Poet
Art-Related Quotes From Famous Sculpturists
326
Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated.
Auguste Rodin, French Sculptor
327
If we master a bit of drawing, everything else is possible.
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor
328
It is impossible to do a thing the way I see it because the closer I get the more differently I see.
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor
329
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, French Sculptor
330
The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor
331
The one thing that fills me with enthusiasm is to try, despite everything, to get nearer to those visions that seem so hard to express.
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor
332
When I make my drawings… the path traced by my pencil on the sheet of paper is, to some extent, analogous to the gesture of a man groping his way in the darkness.
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor
333
When you look at art made by other people, you see what you need to see in it.
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss Sculptor
Quotes From Famous Writers about Art
334
An artist discovers his genius the day he dares not to please.
Andre Malraux, French Novelist
335
Art begins with resistance – at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.
Andre Gide, French Author
336
Art is limitation. The essence of every picture is the frame.
G.K. Chesterton, English Writer
337
How you draw is a reflection of how you feel about the world, you’re not capturing it, you are interpreting it.
Juliette Aristides, American Author
338
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, American Author & Nobel Prize winner
339
I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of an artistic process.
Henry James, American Author
340
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, French Novelist
341
Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art.
Susan Santag, American Writer
342
The principle of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.
Jerzy Kosinski, Polish-American Novelist
343
The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.
Neil Gailman, English Author
344
To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.
Kurt Vonnegut, American Writer
345
Without Art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.
George Bernard Shaw, Irish Playwriter
Quotes From Famous Non-Artists about Art
Quotes from Actors about Art
346
Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move.
Ossie Davis, American Actor
347
Art deteriorates when it is done for the audience.
James Pierce, American Actor
348
My Idea of heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing.
Peter Falk, American Actor
Art-Related Quotes From Others
349
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
Thomas Merton, American Monk
350
Art is not what you see, but what you make other see.
Edgar Degas, French Impressionist
351
Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
Twyla Tharp, American Dancer
352
Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.
Anonymous
353
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation; to know that he cannot waste this talent but must develop it.
Pope John Paul II
354
Experience is the best teacher of all. And for that, there are no guarantees that one will become an artist. Only the journey matters.
Harry Callahan, American Photographer
355
He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.
St. Francis of Assisi, Italian Catholic Friar
356
I’ve been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good.
Barbra Streisand, American Singer
357
In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Essayist
358
In the mind of every artist there is a masterpiece.
Kai Greene, American BodyBuilder
359
Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.
Albert Einstein, German Physicist
360
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, 20th century diarist
361
The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
Aristotle, Greek Philosopher
362
The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.
John Tukey, American Mathematician
363
The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.
Jean-Jacques, Genevan philosopher,
364
Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.
Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish Satirist
365
We all have at least 100,000 bad drawings inside of us. The sooner we get them out and onto paper, the sooner we’ll get to the good ones buried deep within.
Anonymous
In conclusion, the 365 Quotes from Famous Artists provides daily inspiration for the art lover. It is a resource for anyone who wants to be inspired by the words of famous artists.
The quotes provide a context for the artist’s work and can help to inspire and motivate the reader. Ultimately, these Art Quotes from Famous Artists are a valuable resource for anyone who loves art and wants to be inspired by the masters.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Why are Art Quotes Important?
Art quotes can be a source of inspiration for artists seeking to improve their work or find new creative outlets. For aspiring artists, these quotes can provide motivation and direction. Art quotes can give insight into the creative process for established artists and offer new perspectives on familiar subjects.
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What Makes a Good Art Quote?
A good art quote speaks to the artist’s heart and provides inspiration or motivation. It should be something that resonates with the artist’s creative journey.
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How Can I Use Art Quotes?
Art Quotes can be hung on walls or placed in notebooks as a daily reminder to stay creative. Art quotes can be used as the basis for discussion and reflection in art classes or studio sessions. You can also share them with friends and family to start a conversation about art.
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Can I use Quotes in my Artwork?
Art quotes can be used in Artwork as a source of inspiration or a statement about the creative process. You can incorporate quotes into paintings, drawings, mixed media collages, and sculptures. Just be sure to give credit to the quote’s author if you display your Artwork publicly.
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How to Appreciate Art Quotes?
You should appreciate art quotes for their ability to inspire and encourage creativity. They can also offer new perspectives on familiar subjects. When reading art quotes, take the time to reflect on their meaning and how they relate to your creative journey.
