Quotes about Painting

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.

If I could say this I wouldn't have to paint.

I dream my painting and paint my dream.

Each painting has its own way of evolving. . . . When the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself.

Why go to a museum and look at paintings if you can paint your own painting. I mean, do things for yourself. I mean, do you have somebody come in a sleep with your wife for you? Do you pay somebody to eat your food for you? I mean, do things for yourself. That's what life's about. There's so many people doing things they hate, I mean you have people running the country who all they care about is keeping their jobs - not doing their jobs. There's so little real love in any of the work that I see.

Two amateur artists were asked to paint something depicting "peace." On the appointed day, both artists brought their paintings to be shown. One picture was of a quiet, rippleless lake. Here indeed was peace as seen by an artist. The other painting showed a gnarled tree standing on the precipice in a rugged canyon. Nearby was a thundering waterfall, and the river dashed on, angrily below. In the tree, near her nest, a bird was perched, singing above the clamor of the torrent of the water below. A sudden change in the wind could bring disaster to the frail limb upon which the bird and her nest were located. But instinctively she knew that if that happened, she and her young ones could use their wings and mount to the sky. Yes, the two artists had fulfilled what they had been asked to do. One painted a scene depicting the quiet beauty of peace. The other had seen the majestic splendor that accompanies inner peace.

Painting is the representation of visible forms. . . . The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul.

The act of painting is not a duplication of experience but the extension of experience on the plane of formal invention.