29 Art Quotations

Mont Sainte-Victoire by Cezanne

1. I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me. (Matisse)

2. So I said to myself, I'll paint what I see-what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it-I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers. (Georgia O'Keeffe)


3. Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations. (Paul Cezanne)


4. Man needs colour to live; it's just as necessary an element as fire and water. (Fernand Leger)


5. Choose only one master.. Nature. (Rembrandt)

6. I'm just interested in meditating on certain ideas, and I like to draw: that's my way of thinking. (Ben Nicholson)


7. 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) 


8. Happiness is an angel with a serious face. (Amedeo Modigliani)

9. I paint very large pictures. I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however – I think it applies to other painters I know – is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. (Mark Rothko) 

10. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know. (Rembrandt)

11. Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, and express your pleasure strongly. (Pierre Bonnard)

12. Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things I love. (Marc Chagall)

13. I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best. (Frida Khalo)

14. I wished to suggest by means of a simple nude, a certain long-lost barbaric luxury. (Paul Gauguin)

15. Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen. (Pablo Picasso)

16. I think a single sentence by Van Gogh is better than the whole work of all the art critics and art historians put together. (John Olsen)

17. I tend to like things that already exist. (Jasper Johns)

18. I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. (Vincent Van Gogh)

19. The portrait is one of the most curious art forms. It demands special qualities in the artist, and an almost total kinship with the model. (Matisse)

20. There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.(Cezanne)


21. A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art. (Cezanne)

22. It is still color, it is not yet light. (Pierre Bonnard)

23.  It is not enough to give signals. Things can only ever last if they have functioned as signs. (Enzo Cucchi)


24. A painting that is well composed is half finished. (Pierre Bonnard)


25. Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea. (John Ciardi)


26. Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. (Pablo Picasso)


27. Painting completed my life. (Frida Kahlo)

28. I have a horror of people who speak about the beautiful. What is the beautiful? One must speak of problems in painting! (Pablo Picasso)

29. Painting is damned difficult - you always think you've got it, but you haven't. (Paul Cezanne)