Barren Quote by Charles Caleb Colton

The desert is an ideal illusion of a blank slate - so much mystery in endless layers is hidden underneath its bright, pseudo-sterile surface.

— Vera Nazarian

The artist must scorn all judgment that is not based on an intelligent observation of character. He must beware of the literary spirit which…

— Paul Cezanne

When a spectator approaches a painting with his own particular set of filters or theories, be they historical, political, intellectual or whatever - he…

— Douglas Portway

Doubtless there are things in nature which have not yet been seen. If an artist discovers them, he opens the way for his successors.

— Paul Cezanne

The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.

— Paul Klee

“While he himself was marking out lines and courses on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing lines and courses upon the…

— Herman Melville

At present, [in the desert] an exasperating clarity reigns. The sky has become less visible than water in a jar. Black peaks, spines of…

— Mohammed Dib

To be sure an artist wishes to raise his standard intellectually as much as possible, but the man must remain in obscurity. Pleasure must…

— Paul Cezanne

He loved the scratching of pencil against paper when he was focused: it meant something was happening.

— John Green

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front…

— Leonardo da Vinci

“Painters have often taught writers how to see.”

— James Baldwin

“He hoped these students would learn how to be at home in the desert, not how to conquer it; and he hoped that, in…

— David Quammen