Quotes by artists.....Quotes about art......Quotes by students  Links

"We are in the business of making the kids feel good about themselves and reinforcing self-confidence. Sometimes that little positive reinforcement is enough to change a kid, or at least guide them in a direction towards creating more and more art." ~ Susan on Long Island

"My artwork is never bad,
There's no right or wrong way,
My effort makes me feel glad,
I would draw anything,
an ocean or a bay.
Bright colors, lines are bold;
artwork is like gold." 
From a student - Cedar Creek Elementary

"Art is literacy of the heart" ~ Elliot Eisner 

"Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us."  ~ Roy Adzak

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

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

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." ~ Henry Ward Beecher

"What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things . . . it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface."
~ Brancusi

"In whatever one does there must be a relationship between the eye and the 
heart." ~ Henri Cartier-Besson

"What a society deems important is enshrined in its art" ~ Harry (?) Broudy

"A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art." ~ Paul Cézanne

"Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations."  
~ Paul Cézanne

"What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is a harmony parallel with nature." 
~ Paul Cézanne

"When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art." ~ Paul Cezanne

"Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing." ~ Marc Chagall

"Great art picks up where nature ends." ~ Marc Chagall 

"There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books."~ Charlie Chaplin

"The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it."  
~ Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) - French artist

"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing."
~ Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - Spanish artist

"Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master." ~ Leonardo da Vinci

"Art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world." ~ Leonardo da Vinci

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death." ~ Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) - Italian artist

"To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and commonsense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams." ~ Giorgio DeChirico

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

"Painting is easy for those that do not know how, but very difficult for
those that do!"  ~ Edgar Degas

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

"What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough." ~ Eugene Delacroix

"We work not only to produce but to give value to time." ~ Eugene Delacroix 

"Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything." ~ Eugene Delacroix

"The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently."
~ Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) - French artist

"When I feel a little confused the only thing to do is to turn back to the study of nature before launching once again into the subjects closest to heart."
~ Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) - French artist

"The big artist...keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools." ~Thomas Eakins

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

"If apple is the language of the future, then art must be the core." ~ Elliot W. Eisner

"We live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in a chaos without norms,
even though this is how it sometimes appears." ~ M. C. Escher (Dutch)

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

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution." ~ Paul Gaugin

"I shut my eyes in order to see." or "I close my eyes in order to see"
~ Paul Gaugin

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

"Art is skill, that is the first meaning of the word." ~ Eric Gill

"The essence of drawing is the line exploring space." ~ Andy Goldsworthy

"Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels."
~ Francisco Goya (1746-1828) - Spanish artist

"The best reason to paint is that there is no reason to paint....I'd like to pretend that I've never seen anything, never read anything, never heard anything...and then make something....Every time I make something I think about the people who are going to see it and every time I see something, I think about the person who made it....Nothing is important...so everything is important."   
~ Keith Haring (June 15, 1986 NYC)

"Talent!  What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous work in the right way." ~ Winslow Homer

another version -- "There is no such thing as talent. What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous work in the right way." ~ Winslow Homer

"No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination." ~ Edward Hopper

"When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college- that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"  
~ Howard Ikemoto

"They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my reality." ~ Frida Kahlo

"I applied streaks and blobs of colours onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I could..."  ~ Wassily Kandinsky

"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul."  ~Wassily Kandinsky

"There is no must in art because art is free." ~ Wassily Kandinsky

(on Pre-Columbian art) "The great epoch of the spiritual which is already beginning, or, in embryonic form, began yesterday... provides or will provide the soil in which a kind of monumental work of art must come to fruition.' ~ Wassily Kandinsky 1910-11

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

"Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible." ~ Paul Klee (1879 - 1940), Creative Credo, 1920

"I paint in order not to cry." ~ Paul Klee

"The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract."  
~ Paul Klee

"Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms." ~ Roy Lichtenstein

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

"Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to create." ~ Nicole Malebranche

"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be." ~ Abraham Maslo

"It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else." ~ Henri Matisse

 "I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me." ~ Henri Matisse

"I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it."  ~ Henri Matisse

"Work cures everything."  ~ Matisse.

"What I dream of is an art of equilibrium, purity and tranquility, devoid of upsetting or troubling subject matter ..." ~ Henri Matisse

"Beauty is the purgation of superfluities." ~ Michelangelo

"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands." ~ Michelangelo

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

"Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish." ~Michelangelo

"A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it." ~Michelangelo

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

"The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection." ~Michelangelo (1475-1564) - Italian artist

"Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life." ~ Henry Miller

"I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music."
~ Joan Miro

"The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel." ~ Piet Mondrian

"Art is the child of imagination and gives life." ~ Mirka Mora, Painter

"I do not want ART for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few." ~ William Morris

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

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." 
~ Thomas Merton, 'No Man Is an Island'

"You must create your own world. I’m responsible for my world." ~ Louise Nevelson

"Art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind." ~ Louise Nevelson

"I just feel that I'm in tune with the right vibrations in the universe when I'm in the process of working." ~ Louise Nevelson

(Here is the complete quote) ". . . I knew that a day I took away from the work did not make me too happy. I just feel that I’m in tune with the right vibrations in the universe when I’m in the process of working. I always felt right when I was right here. And even if I didn’t want to compose, so I painted or stacked the pieces or something. In my studio I’m as happy as a cow in her stall. That’s the only place where everything is all right." 
~ LOUISE NEVELSON

"There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or
a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

"The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks."  ~ Emil Nolde

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

"To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

"Fill a space in a beautiful way" ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

"Still - in a way - nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

"One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself -- I can't live where I want to -- I can't go where I want to go--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."  
~ Georgia O'Keeffe, 1923

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way-things I had no words for." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

"If I didn't think what I was doing had something to do with enlarging the boundaries of art, I wouldn't go on doing it."  ~ Claes Oldenburg

"Imagination is the true magic carpet." ~  Norman Vincent Peale

"Art is a lie that helps us to realize the truth." ~ Pablo Picasso

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

"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a
child." ~ Pablo Picasso

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

"Painting is just another way of keeping a diary." ~ Pablo Picasso

"I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else." ~ Pablo Picasso

"It takes a very long time to become young." ~ Pablo Picasso

"What good are computers? They can only give you answers."
  ~ Pablo Picasso

"I believe it is impossible to make sense of life in this world except through art."  
~ Daniel Pinkwater (author)

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing." ~ Camille Pissarro

"Every good painter paints what he is." ~ Jackson Pollock

"The painting has a life of its own." ~ Jackson Pollock

"The artist is the antenna of the race."
~ Ezra Pound (from the book, "Art & Physics" by Leonard Schlain)

"You see what you know!" ~ Frank Stella 

"Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated."
~ Auguste Rodin

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. 
~ Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) - French artist

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere."  ~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos

"All art is but imitation of nature." ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. - 65 A.D.)

"Art is the signature of civilizations." ~ Beverly Sills

"Art should reveal the unknown, to those who lack the experience of seeing it." 
~ Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith

"I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating, I don't 
care if it's a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece
of music--anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience 
with us--I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you."
~ Steve Soderbergh (winner of the 2001 Academy Award for Directing "Traffic." 
He also directed "Erin Brockovich.")

"As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color."
~ James McNeil Whistler

"An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."  
~ James McNeill Whistler

"As a suffering creature, I cannot do without something greater than I --
something that is my life -- the power to create." ~ Vincent Van Gogh

"It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures."   ~ Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) - Dutch artist

"I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.' "    ~ Vincent Van Gogh

"I often think the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." ~Vincent Van Gogh

"Architecture is the triumph of Human Imagination over materials, methods, and men, to put man into possession of his own Earth. It is at least the geometric pattern of things, of life, of the human and social world. It is at best that magic framework of reality that we sometimes touch upon when we use the word order." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright, 1930

"Architecture . . . is for the young. If our teenagers don't get architecture -- if they are not inspired -- we won't have the architecture. . . that we must have if this country is going to be beautiful." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

"You can't make an architect. But you can . . . open the doors and windows
toward the light as you see it." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

"I am an artist… I am here to live out loud." ~ Emile Zola

New Zealand Quotes

Ko toi te uri o mahara pohewa.
Art is the child of imagination.

Te toi whakairo, ka ihiihi, ka wehiwehi, ka aweawe te ao katoa.
Artistic excellence makes the world sit up in wonder.

Links to more Art Quotes

What is Art? Quotes   Additional ArtQuotes

Clapp's Favorite Art Quotes

For more quotes - try Brainy Quotes

ThinkExist -Quotes about ART - not all about visual art See if you can find quotes by your artist.

Painter's Key - Resource for Art Quotations

Artists Quotes

Quotes by Students:

"Art is made of love, heart, creation and feelings; you go deep inside to find an artist of beautiful creation. A creation from an artist isn't just a drawing, or a painting but a feeling or a thing that lives inside. Art is creation from people's hearts. Art brings out personality and love. Art is the feeling of Joy." ~ A.B. sixth grade student of Mr. Cipalla

"Make art. See art. Buy art." ~ a first grader in Kathy Douglas' Choice Based Art Class.

“Art is the key to life” ~ first grader 

“It’s an art world after all!” ~ first grader 

"I love art. I not only love art, I live for art!" ~ third grader (Deborah Johnson, teacher)

"I run the tundra of my dreams, I howl to the stars of my imagination. I fly on the breeze of my mind and I pour my soul into my pencil. I dream in color, and see the world through a rainbow." ~ Angela, 8th grade, Los Cerros Middle School, from "Who I Am", a poem she wrote.

"Art is what lets your mind explore." ~ a sixth grader 

"Art is like recess for the mind." ~ a second grader

See what some other middle school students have to say about art:
Los Cerros Middle School, Danville California - Teacher, Mrs.  Kramer

Read some student quotes from L.A. Ainger Middle School

"Art is not just a mixture of color on canvas, but a feeling; a magical feeling the embracer creates and cherishes throughout life's journey." ~ Harrison F., 5th Grade

"I might not like how my painting turns out, but I always love art."  ~ primary student

"My mind flies away when I do art." ~ primary student

"Art and I are like best friends, like salt and pepper, or socks." ~ primary student

"Just do Art with your heart." ~ fourth grader

"I love art because I can impress myself." ~ fourth grader

General Quote from Art Teachers

"Self esteem comes from being faced with a challenge, whatever it might be, and meeting it."  ~ Linda Fields

This page was created with the help of the Getty Teacher Art Exchange List Serve.

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