Paintings Quotes
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I cannot help it that my paintings do not sell. The time will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint.
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More Paintings Quotes
During my youth, I was fascinated by the colors of Van Goth's paintings
joseph pisani— As quoted in "Ein Nomade mit satändigem Sitz in Zürich" by Natalie Isenring Tages Anzeiger (January 24, 2008), p. 58
A few weeks ago I read, in Sacheverell Sitwell, two impressives sentences: “It is my belief that I have informed myself of nearly all works of art in the known world.... I have heard most of the music of the world, and seen nearly all the paintings.” It was hard for me to believe these sentences, but I wanted Sitwell to be able to say them, liked him for having said them I believed.
Randall Jarrell— “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p. 71
When I think of the thousands and thousands of pounds which have been spent by the National Art Collections Fund on the purchase of paintings some of questionable merit and dubious condition by Old Masters already represented in the National Gallery it makes me boil with rage to think that in 1905 it would not contribute one halfpenny towards the purchase for the nation of a picture by one of the Great French Masters of the late nineteenth century. It was a short-sighted policy, but the Fund's inertia and snobbish ineptitude are entirely characteristic of the habits of art-officialdom in England.
frank rutter— Rutter, Frank. Art in My Time, pp. 118–119. Rich & Cowan, London, 1933.The National Art Collections Fund is now called The Art Fund.
A Modern Rothko: Color field paintings by Joseph Pisani
joseph pisani— Paulina Szczesniak, As Quoted in "Glanzlichter der Woche (Highlights of the Week)", Zueritipp, No. 43, October 26, 2006
If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, there I am. There's nothing behind it!
Andy Warhol— 1967 Quoted in Gretchen Berg 'Andy: MyTrue Story', in the LA Free Press,17 Mar.
Poor lawyers, like poor paintings, are dear at any price. 902
Whistler— On the cost and quality of some of the lawyers he had hired. Quoted in ArthurJerome Eddy Recollections and Impressions of J.A.M.Whistler (1903).
Not 'Seeing is Believing', you ninny, but 'Believing is Seeing'.For modernart has become completely literary: the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text.
— 1975 The PaintedWord, ch.1.
I ask the obvious question to this man who often spends years on each of his paintings: "How do you know when a painting is finished?" His response: "The picture tells you."
howard hodgkin— Karen Wright, in "Howard Hodgkin: the later, greater Hodgkin" in The Telegraph (5 April 2008)
It was van Gogh's madness that prevented him from working; the paintings themselves are ineffably sane, if sanity is to be defined in terms of exact judgment of ends and means and the power of visual analysis.
robert hughes— "Vincent van Gogh, Part I" (1984)
They (his Street scene paintings and drawings) originated in the years 1911-14, in one of the loneliest times of my life, during which an agonizing restlessness drove me out onto the streets day and night, which were filled with people and cars.
ernst ludwig kirchner— Notebook entry ‘Meine Strasenbilder’, 24 Augustus 1919; as quoted in “Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Meisterwerke der Druckgraphik”, M. M. Moeller, Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 1990 p. 184
The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least become, an individual. The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.
Paul Klee— Diary entry (3 June 1902), # 411
I am against the line and all its consequences: contours, forms, composition. All paintings of whatever sort, figuratives or abstract, seem to me like prison windows in which the lines, precisely are the bars.
yves klein— Gilbert Perlein and Bruno Cora, Yves Klein: Long live the Immaterial, Delano Greenidge Edition, New York, 2001. p. 74
It fascinates me to create beautiful paintings with the simplest means.
james rosenquist— On refusing to mesh his work with technology or the Internet; quoted in Brian Sherwin, "Art Space Talk: James Rosenquist," myartspace.com (2008-04-04)
[These are] not paintings in the usual sense, they are life and death merging in fearful union.
clyfford still— Clyfford Still (ca. 1950) as quoted in Abstract Expressionism, Davind Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London, 1990, p. 138: About his own work
I felt it necessary to evolve entirely new concepts (of form and space and paintings) and postulate them in an instrument that could continue to shake itself free from dialectical perversions. The dominant ones, cubism and expressionism, only reflected the attitudes of power or spiritual debasement of the individual.
clyfford still— Clyfford Still, interview with Ti Grace Sharpless, 1963; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 200
I kept.. ..returning to the (ancient Roman) wall paintings with their veiled melancholy and elegant plasticity.
william baziotes— quote from his letter to Alfred H. Barr Jr. 6 November, 1955; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism, Barbara Hess, Taschen, Köln, 2006, p. 34
You know to make his rigid, tedious, boring paintings seem at least a little human, the Mondrian enthusiasts keep insisting that Mondrian was a great tango dancer.
Peter Greenaway— Philip (8 1/2 Women)
It’s (the lack of communication between the people in his paintings, ed.) probably a reflection of my own, if I may say, loneliness. I don’t know. It could be the whole human condition.
Edward Hopper— interview by Aline Saarinen, Sunday Show, NBC-tv, 1964, transcript, p. 3
My art in the last period has all been in small format, but my paintings have become even deeper and more spiritual, speaking truly through colour. Feeling that because of my illness I would not be able to paint very much longer, I worked like a man obsessed on these little ‘Meditations’ (a long series of small paintings he made during the last years of his life, with as main motif the schema of a face, ed.). And now I leave these small but, to me, important works to the future and to people who love art.
alexej von jawlensky— 'Lebenserinnerungen' 1938, Alexej von Jawlensky; as quoted in Alexej von Jawlensky, Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen, Rotterdam; exhibition catalogue 25/9 – 27/11-1994, p. 23
In Sparta , paintings have been taken out of certain walls by cutting through the bricks, then have been placed in wooden frames, and so brought to the Comitium to adorn the aedileship of [C. Visellius] Varro and [C. Licinius] Murena.
vitruvius— Chapter VIII, Sec. 9
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
I felt it necessary to evolve entirely new concepts (of form and space and paintings) and postulate them in an instrument that could continue to shake itself free from dialectical perversions. The dominant ones, cubism and expressionism , only reflected the attitudes of power or spiritual debasement of the individual.
— Clyfford Still, interview with Ti Grace Sharpless, 1963; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 200
After 1909, Monet drastically enlarged his brushstrokes , disintegrated his images , and broke through the taming constraints and delicacy of Impressionism for good. Nineteen gnarly paintings , starting in 1909 and carrying through his final seventeen years, finish off the notion that Monet went happily ever after into lily-land.
— Jerry Saltz, in New York Volume 43, Issues 14-21, New York Magazine Company, 2010, p.1
Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature, That fashions all her works in high relief, And that is Sculpture. This vast ball, the Earth, Was moulded out of clay, and baked in fire; Men, women, and all animals that breathe Are statues, and not paintings.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Michael Angelo, Part III. 5.
In Sparta , paintings have been taken out of certain walls by cutting through the bricks, then have been placed in wooden frames, and so brought to the Comitium to adorn the aedileship of [C. Visellius] Varro and [C. Licinius] Murena.
— Chapter VIII, Sec. 9 (Book II)
Anthropological, biological, and genetic evidence all put the origin of modern humans at between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, probably in Africa. There is also much data that show an outburst of cultural behavior occurring around 50,000-40,000 years ago in Europe. That's when archaeologists date the oldest evidence of burial ceremonies, body ornaments, and cave paintings.
— William J. Cromie, "Facing up to modern man", Harvard University Gazette (7 March 2002)
I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.
— Vincent van Gogh, in The Quotable Intellectual: 1,417 Bon Mots, Ripostes, and Witticisms for ..., p.12
I desire to sever all connection with the Society of American Artists. In deference to some of its older members, who perhaps from sentimental motives requested me to reconsider my resignation last year, I shall explain... For the last three years my paintings have been rejected by you, one of them the Agnew portrait, a composition more important than any I have ever seen on your walls.
— Thomas Eakins, in Thomas Eakins: His Life and Work, p.130
