Compilation of quotations, famous quotes and proverbs about painting
“Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.” – Rembrandt
“Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.”― Orhan Pamuk
“Painting is… a richer language than words… Painting operates through signs which are not abstract and incorporeal like words. The signs of painting are much closer to the objects themselves.” – Jean Dubuffet
“Painting itself is a sort of high-wire act that involves every cell in your body and takes no prisoners. For this you need to carry your inspiration with you, but work it all out with your heart and groin.” – Brett Busang
“Painting requires the bravery of solitude. Painting requires disciplined labor. To be a painter is to search the world with a benevolent eye for every subtle beauty that the infinite world offers. ” – Charles Philip Brooks
“Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal.”― Banksy
“Painting, I think it's like jazz. ” – Brian Eno
“Painting, like water, takes any form. Paint is a film of pigment on a plane. It is not real in the way that gravity-bound sculpture is real. It is, however, real.” – Squeak Carnwath
“Painting, to me, is a unique experience. Each work is a surprise and has its own personal and intuitive meaning. After brainstorming feelings and memories, each painting evolves freely and independently.” – Fernando Araujo
“Painting… we do not talk about it, we do not analyse it, we feel it.” – Bernard Buffet
“People keep asking me if painting is hard work. Painting isn't work. Painting is making decisions. I make decisions, nothing more. ” – Barker Fairley
“Pushing paint around until it looks right should not be an option. I attempt to make each brush stroke as direct and meaningful as possible.” – Kenn Backhaus
“Read in order to write, but paint in order to paint.” – Sara Genn
“That stroke you are about to make on a painting is as much you as the next word you utter or the next breath you take.” – Harley Brown
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle
“The aim of the painting is that the eye should find out what it likes.” – Joanna Field
“The art of painting will survive and thrive because it is easy to do and difficult to do well.” – Robert Genn
“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” – Pablo Picasso
“The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.” – Paul Strand
“The best paintings, it seems to me, are the ones in which the painter suspends any drive to control or order the world and commits to simply struggling to grab hold of a small part of the chaos.” – Dean Taylor Drewyer
“The best picture makes us say, I am a painter also. ” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The first virtue of a painting is that it be a feast for the eyes.” – Eugene Delacroix
“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.” – Robert Hughes
“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” – Francis Bacon
“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” – Robert Henri
“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.” – Alberto Giacometti
“The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.”― Vincent van Gogh
“The painter needs all the talent of the poet, plus hand-eye coordination.” – Robert Brault
“The painter should not paint only what he sees in himself. Should he, however, see nothing within himself, he should refrain from painting what he sees around him.” – Caspar David Friedrich
“The painter thinks in terms of form and color. The goal is not to be concerned with the reconstitution of an anecdotal fact, but with constitution of a pictorial fact.” – Georges Braque
“The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” – Piet Mondrian
“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
“There is no must in art because art is free.” – Wassily Kandinsky
“There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.” – Henry Moore
“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” – Salvador Dali
“To be an artist is to believe in life.” – Henry Moore
“To create one’s own world takes courage.” – Georgia O’Keeffe
“To draw something is to try to capture it FOREVER, if you really love something, you never try to keep it the way it is forever. You have to let it be free to change”― Cassandra Clare
“To me, painting is life, a part of God, something sacred and uplifting. If I as a painter were denied my tools, my expression, I think I would become ill. ” – Betty DeMaree
“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” – Kurt Vonnegut
“To send light into the darkness of men's hearts – such is the duty of the artist.” – Schumann
“We only have our nervous system to paint. ” – Francis Bacon
“What a miserable sad thing it is to be fit for painting only and nothing else.” – Ford Madox Brown
“What any true painting touches is an absence – an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss.” – John Berger
“What is painting today? It's a discontinued thing, discontinued from anything serious that happened in the past… ” – Matthew Collings
“When I begin painting I am in a state of unconsciousness; I suddenly forget that I am holding a brush in my hand.” – Wu Chen
“When making a painting, only one thing counts: what you do next.” – Darby Bannard
“When you are painting a landscape, assume the painting is real and the landscape is an illusion. ” – Darby Bannard
“When you start painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting.” – Fernando Botero
“When you're painting you're doing colour fields and spreading them around. It's different when you're drawing and making lines and sharp edges.” – Brittani Faulkes
“You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search.”― Rick Riordan
“You need both a bit of mind and a bit of mindlessness to make a painting. It's a play between control and surrender. ” – Paul deMarrais