Art Quotes

It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul.

Every good painter paints what he is.

That's the motivation of an artist - to seek attention of some kind.

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

In an artwork you're always looking for artistic decisions, so an ashtray is perfect. An ashtray has got life and death.

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.

I never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.

I don't understand it. Jack will spend any amount of money to buy votes but he balks at investing a thousand dollars in a beautiful painting.

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

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

An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.

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

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have.

I think of my peace paintings as one long poem, with each painting being a single stanza.