Paintings Quotes
More Paintings Quotes
Only when the habit of one's consciousness to see in paintings bits of nature, madonnas and shameless nudes has disappeared, shall we see a pure-painting composition.
— 1915 Manifesto, quoted in C Gray The Russian Experiment in Art (rev edn1986).
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.
vincent van gogh— 1888 Letter to his brotherTheo, 24 Oct.
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
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
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.
Actually, it was in Paris in 1914 that I did my first collages, for an occultist friend . They were mysterious porticos which were supposed to replace mural paintings and which evoked the structure of palm branches or fishbones (remark on his first collages in different materials.
hans arp— p. 430 (Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs, 1966)
The paintings of Francis Bacon to my eye are very beautiful. The paintings of Bosch or Goya are to my eye very beautiful. I've also stood in front of those same paintings with people who've said, "let's get on to the Botticellis as soon as possible." I have lingered, of course.
clive barker— American Heroes #174
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
There emanates from her paintings a light-hearted optimism; the world she shows us is beautiful and it is good. You feel at home in all these pictures, and you know their meaning. The unrest and the neurotic insecurity of the present day make us inclined to enjoy the simple and affirmative outlook of Grandma Moses.
grandma moses— Unnamed German critic, as quoted in her obituary in The New York Times (14 December 1961)
Seurat and Signac mixed paintings with the dry and abstract laws of science. This approach, in my opinion, usually strays from the purpose of art in general. Because it means that one cannot expect from an artifact, that is created with mathematical laws, to establish an improbable and irrational relationship between the work and the viewer.
guity novin— p. 57 (Negin (1971))
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
I had given up ( around 1950, fh) any ambition of making a career as an artist… ..I had lost all interest in the art shown in galleries and museums, and I no longer aspired to fit in that world. I loved the paintings done by children, and my only desire was to do the same for my own pleasure.
jean dubuffet— Batons rompus, Jean Dubuffet, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris 1986, pp. 7-8
I have tried to draw the human effigy (and all the other subjects dealt with in my paintings) in an immediate and effective way without any reference to the aesthetic.
jean dubuffet— Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, Vol. II, Jean Dubuffet, Gallimard, Paris 1967, p. 430
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 your works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions is exactly what I am trying to find in my paintings.
wassily kandinsky— Letter to Schönberg, 1911; Quoted in: Gerald Izenberg (2000) Modernism and Masculinity: Mann, Wedekind, Kandinsky Through World War I. p. 207 : Written after the performance of Schönberg's second string quartet and the "Three piano pieces"
Some paintings become famous because, being durable, they are viewed by successive generations, in each of which are likely to be found a few appreciative eyes. I know a painting so evanescent that it is seldom viewed at all, except by some wandering deer. It is a river who wields the brush, and it is the same river who, before I can bring my friends to view his work, erases it forever.
aldo leopold— “August: The Green Pasture”, p. 51
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.
I started doing paintings of landscapes in private and wanted to show people what I could do, and to really do that, I needed to do portraits, so I started practising.
— Lee Rondganger (28 September 2007). "Artist with unusual technique a Sexpo hit". The Star (South Africa: Independent Online): p. 2.
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
paintings are Rorschach ink blots. They are what you want them to be.
Roy Lichtenstein— In The Times, 27 March 1993.
