Some of My Favorite Art Quotes

Florence Fuller, "Inseparables"

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved collecting things: books, shells, rocks, you name it. Another category I collect is quotes.  Here's a small sampling of some that refer to the making of art:

"The artist should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him." – Caspar David Friedrich

"Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know." -- Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

"A sketch has charm because of its truth – not because it is unfinished." -- Charles Hawthorne

"If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."

– Michelangelo Buonarroti

 

"A poem is an invisible painting, a painting is a visible poem." -- Guo Xi

"To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it." -- Leo Tolstoy

"The painter who has no doubts will achieve little." -- Leonardo da Vinci

"What is a painting? It's a small piece of nature, filtered through the artist's temperament.  If not, it's just an empty void. " -- Isaac Levitan

 

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working" -- Pablo Picasso

"A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world."

-- Edmond de Goncourt 

 "I paint flowers so they will not die." -- Frida Kahlo 

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

"An artist cannot talk about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture." -- Jean Cocteau

"I don't see why we ever think of what others think of what we do – no matter who they are. Isn't it enough just to express yourself?" --Georgia O'Keeffe 

"It takes two to paint. One to paint, the other to stand by with an axe to kill him before he spoils it. -- William Merritt Chase 

"I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it." -- Vincent van Gogh

 "One's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes." -- Andrew Wyeth

 

What about you?  Do you have any favorite art quotes?  Feel free to share...