art quotes

10 Quotes About Creativity

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Playground swans made from old tires; Bayan-Ulgii, western Mongolia 2015
Playground swans made from old tires; Bayan-Ulgii, western Mongolia 2015

“Creativity takes courage. ”
― Henri Matisse

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
― Pablo Picasso

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”
― Erich Fromm

“For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parliament of Birds

Playground tricycle made from old tires; Bayan-Ulgii, western Mongolia, 2015
Playground tricycle made from old tires; Bayan-Ulgii, western Mongolia, 2015

“But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.”
― Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

“That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

“In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.”
― Rollo May

“Creative activity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.”
― Arthur Koestler, Drinkers of Infinity: Essays 1955-1967

Playground metal pipe snakes; Bayan-Ulgii, western Mongolia 2015
Playground metal pipe snakes; Bayan-Ulgii, western Mongolia 2015

 

 

 

 

10 Favorite Quotes About What Art Is

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Cupid's Span by Claes Oldenburg (collaboration with van Bruggen)
Cupid’s Span by Claes Oldenburg (collaboration with van Bruggen); located near the bay in San Francisco, California

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.  Aristotle

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. Oscar Wilde

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton

Portrait of the Artist's Mother
Portrait of the Artist’s Mother by Pablo Picasso

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Pablo Picasso

Girl Before a Mirror by Pablo Picasso
Girl Before a Mirror by Pablo Picasso

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

At the Races by Edgar Degas
At the Races by Edgar Degas

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. Twyla Tharp

Dog by Alberto Giacometti
Dog by Alberto Giacometti

The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity. Alberto Giacometti

What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is in harmony parallel with nature. Paul Cezanne

La Montagne Saint Victorie by Paul Cezanne
La Montagne Saint Victorie by Paul Cezanne

Painting is a means of self-enlightenment. John Olsen

Eraser by Claes Oldenburg
Eraser by Claes Oldenburg

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. Claes Oldenburg

 

 

 

Inspirations: 12 Great Quotes About Painting

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Claude Monet Painting in his Garden at Argenteuil by Renoir
Claude Monet Painting in his Garden at Argenteuil by Renoir

If a painting of a tree was only the exact representation of the original, so that it looked just like the tree, there would be no reason for making it; we might as well look at the tree itself. But the painting, if it is of the right sort, gives something that neither a photograph nor a view of the tree conveys. It emphasizes something of character, quality, individuality. We are not lost in looking at thorns and defects; we catch a vision of the grandeur and beauty of a king of the forest.
-Calvin Coolidge, speech, Jan. 17, 1925

Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations.
-Paul Cezanne

Jackson Pollock painting
Jackson Pollock painting

I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own.
-Jackson Pollock

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.
-Jackson Pollock

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.
-Edgar Degas

Portrait as an Artist by van Gogh
Portrait as an Artist by van Gogh

“If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint“, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
-Vincent van Gogh

“You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject.”
-Henri Matisse

After the first brush-stroke, the canvas assumes a life of its own; at this point, you become both governor and spectator to your own event.
-Anonymous

Turner on Varnishing Day by William Parrott
Turner on Varnishing Day by William Parrott

When making a painting, only one thing counts: what you do next.
-Darby Bannard

“Painting should never look as if it were done with difficulty, however difficult it may actually have been.”
– Robert Henri, in his book The Art Spirit, p135.

Churchill Painting at the Easel by
Churchill Painting at the Easel by

In Cezanne’s paintings, “edges aren’t boundaries but places where paint, surging across the surface, changes color.”
– Art critic Peter Schjeldahl, “Cezanne versus Pissarro”, New Yorker magazine, 11 July 2005

The painter’s work will be of little merit if he takes the painting of others as his standard, but if he studies from nature he will produce good fruits.
-Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life

Amusing Art Quotes & Links To Bad Art

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"Ronan the Pug"- One of the treasures in the collection of the Museum of Bad Art, which has, heaven help us, THREE locations in Sommerville, Massachusetts.

Artists can color the sky red because they know it’s blue. Those of us who aren’t artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we’re stupid.
Jules Pfeiffer

Look, it’s my misery that I have to paint this kind of painting, it’s your misery that you have to love it, and the price of the misery is thirteen hundred and fifty dollars.
Mark Rothdo

Seattle’s Official Bad Art Museum

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
Twyla Tharp

I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be good.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Museum of Bad Art

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.
Peter De Vries

Bert Christensen’s Weird, Strange and Just Plain Bad Art Collection

Finally,
Artist Leslie White had the guts to do a blog post called Bad Art and used one of her own pieces as an example. I personally don’t think it’s all THAT bad. Especially compared to Ronan the Pug.

Because I Want To Get To The Easel…..

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Tree peony in bloom, Feb. 28

Too many non-painting tasks this morning. I’m usually at the easel by lunchtime, but not today. It’s something we all have to figure out- how to get everything done and still have time to do what we want and need to do, which is to make art.

So, I’m going to offer some quotes I like for a rainy afternoon in Humboldt County. And then GET PAINTING!

I think people who are not artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you have to work at your art you don’t have time to be inspired. Out of work comes the work. John Cage

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day. E.B. White

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams

The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do? Pablo Picasso

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. G.K. Chesterton


Friday Features

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IN OUR OWN BACKYARD

Last night my husband and I were sitting in our spa at dusk and what should we see ambling along the edge of one of the flower borders but a mom skunk with one baby. Niki the collie, who got thoroughly skunked a month or so ago, immediately went to the other side of the spa and gazed with great interest toward the pond. Good dog.

The skunks went right onto the patio and then under the engawa (Japanese style veranda), at which point we called it a night.

BACKYARD BIRD LIST

Same as last week, except one of the first hummingbirds, an Allen’s I think, found the verbascum and lavender, which are starting to bloom. There was an article in the news today here about the songbird die-off. Pretty depressing. The only local bird named that we have seen here is the Rufous Hummingbird. Time to plant more hummingbird friendly plants.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

You think you know your pets, but sometimes………..

Niki and Eowyn, en flagrante something or other. Got another one that I’m going to upload to www.icanhascheezburger.com. If you haven’t been there and you have a sense of the ridiculous, highly recommended.

ART THOUGHT(S) FOR THE DAY

Two Views on Art:

Artists can color the sky red because they know it’s blue. Those of us who aren’t artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we’re stupid.

Jules Pfeiffer, famous artist

Anyone who sees and paints the sky green and pastures blue ought to be sterilized.

Adolf Hitler, failed artist