Quotes about Painting

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rater than seen.

There’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall .... Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting. Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into  it .... as you would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean.

You can’t make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can’t make a perfect painting.

Pollock was terrific. I think he freed himself of all kinds of worry about this world. Ran around and dripped, and then he managed to express ecstasy.

My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They’re just horizontal lines. There’s not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think.

I hope I have made it clear that the work is about perfection as we are aware of it in our minds but that the paintings are very far from being perfect — completely removed in fact — even as we ourselves are.

I love you more than my own skin.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

When we are writing, or painting, or composing, we are, during the time of creativity, freed from normal restrictions, and are opened to a wider world, where colors are brighter, sounds clearer, and people more wondrously complex than we normally realize.

One day I found myself saying to myself...  I can't live where I want to…  I can't go where I want to...  I can't do what I want to.  I can't even say what I want to.  I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted, and that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself.

Paint right into the darkness. While painting in these conditions the mind shifts gears, engaging the unconscious. Unique 'insights' happen in the dark.

It's not a matter of painting life, it's a matter of giving life to painting.

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.

Think of a fine painter attempting to capture an inner vision, beginning with one corner of the canvas, painting what she thinks should be there, not quite pulling it off, covering it over with white paint, and trying again, each time finding out what her painting isn't, until she finally finds out what it is. And when you finally do find out what one corner of your vision is;  you're off and running.

I am painting the most important thing in this world love.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way... things I had no words for.

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up...

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

"Black and white are absolute. They express the most delicate vibration, the most profound tranquility, and unlimited profundity."

- Shiko Munakata

I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around.

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

When I'm painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only after a get acquainted period that I see what I've been about.

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

I am not a juicy painter.