Georges Rouault Quotes (11 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Georges Rouault: 11 quotes 0 likes

Famous Georges Rouault Quotes

“The old masters are perfect and admirable examples, on condition that we remember that the spirit gives life and the letter kills, and that even the best pastiche is inferior to the harmonious stammering or incoherence of a child trying to speak.”

Georges Rouault

Quotes, 1940-1950, Stella Vespertina. (1947)

“The conscience of an artist worthy of the name is like an incurable disease which causes him endless torment but occasionally fills him with silent joy…”

Georges Rouault

Quotes, 1940-1950, Stella Vespertina. (1947)

“The painter who loves his art is ruler in his own kingdom, even if he be in Lilliput and a Lilliputian himself. He transforms a kitchen maid in to a fairy, and a great lady into a brothel matron, if he wants to and sees them so, for he is a seer. His vision includes everything that is alive in the past.”

Georges Rouault

Quotes, 1940-1950, Stella Vespertina. (1947)

“A painter who loves his art must be careful not to see too much of critics and men of letters. These gentlemen, however unconsciously, distort everything, thinking that they are explaining it—the artist's thought, sensibility, and intensions. They take away his strength, just as Delilah took away Samson's. They have no gift for nuances, and they have an instinctive aversion for everything that is beyond their reach and baffles them.”

Georges Rouault

Soliloques. (1944)
Quotes, 1940-1950

“The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.”

Georges Rouault

Quotes, 1940-1950, Stella Vespertina. (1947)

“I am a believer and a conformist. Anyone can revolt; it is more difficult silently to obey our own interior promptings, and to spend our lives finding sincere and fitting means of expression for our temperaments and our gifts — if we have any. I do not say "neither God, nor Master," only in the end to substitute myself for the God I have excommunicated…"”

Georges Rouault

Rouault, Georges. "Climat pictural." La Renaissance. XX, no. 10-12. (1937)
Variant translation: Anybody can rebel. But to obey in silence, an inner calling to search lifelong without impatience for the means of expression adequate to us... that is much more difficult.
Quotes, 1930-1940