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Art Quote by Alan Lee

““A lot of excellent illustrators are working at the moment--especially in fantasy and children's books. It is exciting also to see graphic artists such as Dave McKean, in his film Mirrormask, moving between different media. I also greatly admire the more traditional work of Gennady Spirin and Roberto Innocenti. Kinuko Craft, John Jude Palencar, John Howe, Charles Vess, Brian Froud ... I'll stop there, as the list would get too long. But--in a fit of pride and justified nepotism--I'll add my daughter, Virginia Lee, to the list. Her first illustrated children's book, The Frog Bride [coming out in the U.K. in September, 2007], will be lovely.””

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More by Alan Lee

“I’ve had so many influences and sources of inspiration as an illustrator that it is impossible to name just one. I loved Aubrey Beardsley when I was a student, and then Edmund Dulac and other Golden Age illustrators made a big impact, as well as Victorian painters like Richard Dadd and Edward Burne-Jones. My long-term heroes though are Albretch Durer,…

I spend as much time as I can sketching from nature, Dartmoor contains such a rich variety of landscape, as many boulders, foaming rivers…

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“I have a very clear memory of my first encounter with myth, sitting in a mobile library and travelling, at the same time, with…

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“When I started to draw, most of my influences were from other painters and illustrators, so I was drawing landscape at second hand, really. The trees were Rackham trees, or trees that I had seen in paintings rather than from my own observation...and I started to feel this was a real lack in my work. Everything was too generalised, and…

“I've been strongly influenced, in technique as well as subject matter, by some of the early 20th-century book illustrators — Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac in particular, Burne-Jones and other Pre-Raphaelites, and the Arts-&-Crafts movement they engendered. I'm continually inspired by Rembrandt, Breughel (I've wondered whether his brilliant "Tower of Babel" had inspired Tolkien's description of Minas Tyrith), Hieronymous Bosch,…

“There is a storytelling element in there. The tango form is a little like the blues in that you have a kind of structure. It’s not as rigid as twelve bar, but it's very much a storytelling medium -- and there’s an element of call-and-response, and a particular arc in the musical form, that suggest a story. It's about being…

To draw a tree, to pay such close attention to every aspect of a tree, is an act of reverence not only toward the…

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“Many of the most popular children's stories have their roots in tales invented for particular children, and this casual, often serendipitous, approach produces a…

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“Never let yourself get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired, otherwise you’ll do something you’ll regret.”

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The power of both myth and art is this magical ability to open doors, to make connections — not only between us and the…

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“I like to work in watercolor, with as little under-drawing as I can get away with. I like the unpredictability of a medium which…

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I keep drawing the trees, the rocks, the river, I'm still learning how to see them; I'm still discovering how to render their forms.…

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Explore all 18 Alan Lee quotes

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True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Before Noah, men having only water to drink, could not find the truth. Accordingly...they became abominably wicked, and they were justly exterminated by the water they loved to drink. This good man, Noah, having seen that all his contemporaries had perished by this unpleasant drink, took a dislike to it; and God, to relieve his dryness, created the vine and…

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“Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word — every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus.”

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I think most artists feel like they're outside society - no matter how many accolades they receive, or how much money is in your…

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The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.

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That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

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“So, really," continued Jacob as if this were perfectly normal to expound on art in these circumstances, "when you think about it, the artists who make people stop and think, who push the form, who make you uncomfortable, who are laughable, well, they're the ones who get remembered." Idly, Jacob dug a hole in the snow with his shovel and…

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“There are two options in art; either to adopt philosophical life by dissecting art, or to write your own philosophical life and claim it…

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The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative.

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During human progress, every science is evolved out of its corresponding art.

Herbert Spencer

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In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention. It is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are…

Robert Aris Willmott

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I think a business guy is different from an artist. They walk different paths. Artists create the best outputs when they're having fun. And…

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