Artist Quotes · Page 395

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal; the shock of beauty is when the irresistible force hits the immovable post.”

— G.K. Chesterton

Whatever else art is good for, its chief effectiveness lies in propagating more art.

— Leo Steinberg

For me, a painting must give off sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem.

— Joan Miro

Every brush stroke has a certain tension, a certain nervousness. Every brush stroke is, in a sense, some kind of an accident.

— Raphael Soyer

I am powerless against the great magazines - I am an artist, and I will always be that.

— Werner Bischof

“They say all art—whether books, music, or visual—is a reaction to other art.”

— Blake Crouch

Artists always try to make something that is going to be relevant and up-to-the-minute.

— Robert Lepage

“It is not I who mix the colors but your own vision,' he answered. 'I only place them next to one another…

— Milorad Pavic

So ultimately, it's idealistic to think that artists are able to step away from the power of the media and the way…

— Thom Yorke

Let us... leave art to the artists, and let us try to use the medium of photography to create photographs that can…

— Albert Renger-Patzsch

If the artist succeeds in producing the impression of a movement which takes several moments for accomplishment, his work is certainly much…

— Auguste Rodin

I equate inspiration with desire – the desire that moves us to be artists in the first place. To attempt to make…

— Nita Engle

The idea is to bring art to people who might never really interact with it. It's for all citizens, and it's about…

— Susan Davis

A really spiritual person will live life as an art, will create a deep harmony between the body and the consciousness. And…

— Rajneesh

If purpose, then, is inherent in art, so is it in Nature also. The best illustration is the case of a man…

— Aristotle

If you leave your art, the world will beat you back to it. The world has not an ambition worth sharing, or…

— George Bernard Shaw

I feel like being an artist and being an activist are separate things; I know some people who feel very differently.

— Oscar Isaac

Overall my race hasn't been a problem. I'm a black artist with white skin. At the end of the day you have…

— Teena Marie

The question of truth is forever in the air, and people look for it with particular fervor in art.

— Duane Michals

All art is holy. Not that it is all long-faced and miserable; it can be wild and wooly. But if it transforms…

— Robertson Davies

Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

— Daniel Dennett

The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.

— William Hazlitt

I like to be able to get swift curves in the plant drawings that are usually drawn in five to ten minutes.

— Ellsworth Kelly

“We didn't come to the world just to entertain, we came to play remarkable roles, and our reward is to see you…

— Michael Bassey Johnson

A critic has no right to the narrowness which is the frequent prerogative of the creative artist.

— E. M. Forster

I'm not an art director; I'm just not. I've always been somebody who has a sensibility that I hope is the same…

— Frank Oz

There are many things I do where the centre of it is... It's almost more my humanitarian work than art.

— Angelina Jolie

Never strive, O artist, to create what you are not irresistibly impelled to create!

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

I’ve been a con artist since I was 16 and trying to get my dad to buy me a car. I never…

— Matt Bomer

As always, my influences are diverse and not what you might expect from a 'heavy metal' artist.

— Paul Gilbert

What a trade! Poor painters! They always wish to be understood, and they are analysed instead.

— Pablo Picasso

The activity of painting: A thrilling tussle between the artist's materials and his inspiration.

— Mervyn Levy

Reconcile the loss of the painting - no matter how many times it may happen - with the joy of beginning again.

— Joshua L. Goldberg

I have been painting white people for much longer in my life than I have done for colored people.

— Kehinde Wiley

Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some…

— Thomas Merton

If thou shouldst paint mountains in a good style and to look natural, take some large stones full of cracks and copy…

— Cennino Cennini

To do art, one thing should always remember - subjects of people in misery have deep meanings.

— Zhang Yimou

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

— Salvador Dali

As artists we need to stop making work only for gallery or museum walls, or the coffee tables of collectors.

— Zoe Buckman