Essentials Quote by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Not everything in life can or should be explained. Part of every painting should be incomplete...to be completed in the mind of the viewer.

— Russell Chatham

In painting, detail for the sake of itself is useless. It must have relevance to the whole.

— Ken Danby

How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.

— Leonardo da Vinci

What has reasoning to do with painting?

— William Blake

A work of art doesn't have to be explained,

— Louise Bourgeois

Whatever is valuable in painting is precisely what one is incapable of talking about.

— Georges Braque

Among those who study painting, some strive for an elaborate effect and others prefer the simple. Neither complexity in itself nor simplicity is enough.

— Chai Lu

Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things.

— Gustave Courbet

No painting can exist without the tension of what it figures and what it concretely consists of. The pleasure of what it could mean…

— Marlene Dumas

If you understand a painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it.

— Salvador Dali

The best way to understand a painting is by drawing it.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people

— Edgar Degas