Quotes About Art

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious." - Albert Einstein

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein

"Painting - the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic." - Ambrose Bierce

"Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery." - Andy Warhol

"My instinct about painting says, 'if you don't think about it, it's right.' As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets." - Andy Warhol

"There are but two boons in life: the love of art and the art of love." – Anonymous

"Art is the imagination expressed through the senses." – Anonymous

"Art is thought expressed through the hands." – Anonymous

"I build a painting by putting little marks together-some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts." - Chuck Close

"I've always thought that problem solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting." - Chuck Close

"Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment." - Claude Monet

"There are three forms of visual art: Painting is art to look at, sculpture is art you can walk around, and architecture is art you can walk through." - Dan Rice

"Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild." – Dante

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things." - Edgar Degas

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

"No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love." - Edvard Munch

"Art is not a thing; it is a way." - Elbert Hubbard

"Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you have a pretty neck." - Eli Wallach

"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery." - Francis Bacon

"I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality." - Frida Kahlo

"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." - G.K. Chesterton

"Nobody sees a flower, really. It is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time." - Georgia O'Keefe

"If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens." - Grandma Moses

"I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things." - Henri Matisse

"Art is long, and time is fleeting." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The more minimal the art, the more maximum the explanation." - Hilton Kramer

"It’s all a big game of construction, some with a brush, some with a shovel, some choose a pen." - Jackson Pollock

"Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it." - Jasper Johns - on creating art

"I'm not sure what 'coming out right' means. It often means that what you do holds a kind of energy that you wouldn't just put there, that comes about through grace of some sort." - Jasper Johns

"The first universal characteristic of all great art is tenderness, as the second is truth." - John Ruskin

"A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts." - Sir Joshua Reynolds

"Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old." - Kafka

"Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization." - Lincoln Steffens

"It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing." – Mark Rothko

"A great sculpture can roll down a hill without breaking." – Michelangelo

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." – Michelangelo

"In art, spontaneity must always be calculated." - Ned Rorem

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." - Pablo Ruiz Picasso

"We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." - Pablo Ruiz Picasso

"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." - Pablo Ruiz Picasso

"It took me 40 years to find out that painting is not sculpture." - Paul Cezanne

"A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places." - Paul Gardner

"[An artist] is either a revolutionist or a plagiarist." - Paul Gauguin

"A line is a dot that went for a walk." - Paul Klee

"Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist." - Rene Magritte

"The artist doesn't see things as they are, he sees things as he is." - Robert Beverly Hale

"I feel the greatest drug of all is creation...your brain gives you feedback. Each time you create, you get a little endorphin buzz. Why do you think Einstein looked like that?" - Robin Williams

"Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one." - Stella Adler

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

"Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life." - Vincent Van Gogh

"I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone." - Vincent Van Gogh