Quotes about painting

A collection of quotes on the topic of painting.

„My business is to paint what I see, not what I know is there.“

— J.M.W. Turner British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker 1775 - 1851

Turner, quoted in: Donald B. MacCulloch (1927) The Wondrous Isle of Staffa, p. 160
Alternative quote:
My job is to paint what I see, not what I know
As quoted in: George Seferis (1999) A Poet's Journal: Days of 1945-1951. p. 105
undated quotes

Business

„If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.“

— Edward Hopper prominent American realist painter and printmaker 1882 - 1967

„The only influences in [the painting 'The sick Child', Munch painted in his elderly home, remembering very accurate the last days of his dying little sister Sophie] 'The sick Child'.... were the ones that come from my home.... my childhood and my home. Only someone who knew the conditions at home could possibly understand why there can be no conceivable chance of any other place having played a part – my home is to my art as a midwife is to her children.... few painters have ever experienced the full grief of their subject as I did in 'The sick child.“

— Edvard Munch Norwegian painter and printmaker 1863 - 1944

It was not just I who was suffering; it was all my nearest and dearest as well.
Edvard Munch talks to Jens Tiis, c. 1933, Munch Museum; as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 85-86
after 1930

Childhood, Parting, Chance, Suffering

„If you hear a voice within you saying, "You are not a painter," then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced, but only by working. He who goes to trends and tells his troubles when he feels like that loses part of his manliness, part of the best that's in him; your friends can only be those who themselves struggle against it, who raise your activity by their own example of action.“

— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890

Quote in his letter from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Oct. 1883, 'Van Gogh's Letters', http://webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/13/336.htm
1880s, 1883

Parting, Silence, Boy, Feeling

„At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.“

— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890

Forgetting, Night, Star

„I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.“

— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890

Time, Change, People

„Music comes first; lyrics are secondary. Most of my lyrics are contradictions. I'll write a few sincere lines, and then I'll have to make fun of [them]. I don't like to make it too obvious, because if it is too obvious, it gets really stale. You shouldn't be in people's faces 100% all the time. We don't mean to be really cryptic or mysterious, but I just think that lyrics that are different and weird and spacey paint a nice picture. It's just the way I like art.“

— Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994

Date unknown, but appears on Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!.
Interviews (1989-1994), Video

Sincerity, Time, Thinking, Way

„Staring at him the
way she might stare at a beloved place she
was not sure she would ever see again, trying
to commit the details to memory, to paint
them on the backs of her eyelids that she
might see it when she shut her eyes to sleep.“

— Cassandra Clare, book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Memory, Sleep, Way

„I don't think it was pain that made [Vincent Van Gogh] great - I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had.“

— David Lynch American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor 1946

Happiness, Thinking, Pain

„The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least become, an individual.“

— Paul Klee German Swiss painter 1879 - 1940

Diary entry (3 June 1902), # 411, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968
1895 - 1902
Context: 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.