Artist Quotes by Michael Leunig

10 Artist quotes by Michael Leunig

Michael Leunig’s take on the artist’s role arrives in a modest dozen lines, each revealing his gentle humor and keen eye. These snippets serve as a quiet invitation to see how a cartoonist and poet frames the act of creating.

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I think melancholy is part of the natural condition, you know. Anyway, I think it's the artist's function to have their melancholy…

Michael Leunig

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The work of the artist is to express what is repressed or even to speak the unspoken grief of society.

Michael Leunig

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Art, it seems to me, doesn't need freedom so much as it needs courage and love - some would call it 'soul'…

Michael Leunig

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The most joyous painting is not done for the art world, it is done for the inner world.

Michael Leunig

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Art is about the messy and marvelous business of coming to your senses - and also, to the senses of the world.

Michael Leunig

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All good art is seditious, but the people in authority can never recognise it. I think when you mention sedition, artists are…

Michael Leunig

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All the world loves a young emerging artist, and sometimes it seems that all the world wants to be one - on…

Michael Leunig

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There's a particular sensitivity required to be an artist, and a certain vulnerability, perhaps, and also, somewhere between, you're in your body…

Michael Leunig

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In contemporary art culture, where good looks and clever strategic planning of art careers have become a feature, professional practice may be…

Michael Leunig

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There are times when the art world seems like a religious empire. There are great cathedral galleries and pilgrimage sites where treasured…

Michael Leunig

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More by Michael Leunig

In my journey as a cartoonist, I seem to have accidentally stumbled into all sorts of traps, damnations and blacklists.

Michael Leunig

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Have I got the right to experiment with my child's life?

Michael Leunig

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There are only two feelings, Love and fear: There are only two languages, Love and fear: There are only two activities, Love and fear:…

Michael Leunig

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If European symbols and traditions have grown tired, perfunctory and oppressively banal in Australia, or been drained of spirit and meaning by the dreary…

Michael Leunig

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Socialised humanity represses nature and degrades human nature; it takes life and waters it down - probably to control it - diluting existence with…

Michael Leunig

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I became a cartoonist because I'd sort of failed at everything else, really. I mean, it was by default.

Michael Leunig

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I never really understood who the Magi were as a child. What is a Magi? Not a word I would use, but a magpie…

Michael Leunig

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God bless this tiny little boat, And me who travels in it. It stays afloat for years and years, And sinks within a minute.…

Michael Leunig

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There can be many reasons to travel, but wandering into the world for no particular reason is a sublime madness, which in all its…

Michael Leunig

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I'm totally deaf in my right ear, yeah.

Michael Leunig

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Emotional stability has not been America's gift to the world.

Michael Leunig

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Life seems sadly mishandled by humans, as if it's all too much for them - they spend so much time and energy hurting each…

Michael Leunig

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If you know anything about ducks, you know a baby duck will imprint itself on you. It misses its mother.

Michael Leunig

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I think melancholy is part of the natural condition, you know. Anyway, I think it's the artist's function to have their melancholy and not…

Michael Leunig

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At last, after completing year 12, I failed the great final examination, repeated the following year and failed again even more dismally than before.…

Michael Leunig

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