Quotes about painting

„I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint…“

—  Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926

„Traditionally, art has been for the select few. We have been brainwashed to believe that Michaelangelo had to pat you on the head at birth. Well, we show people that anybody can paint a picture that they're proud of. It may never hang in the Smithsonian, but it will certainly be something that they'll hang in their home and be proud of. And that's what it's all about.“

—  Bob Ross American painter, art instructor, and television host 1942 - 1995

Linda Shrieves (July 7, 1990) "Bob Ross Uses His Brush to Spread Paint and Joy", The Orlando Sentinel, p. E1.

„I started painting as a hobby when I was little. I didn't know I had any talent. I believe talent is just a pursued interest. Anybody can do what I do.“

—  Bob Ross American painter, art instructor, and television host 1942 - 1995

Cathy Hainer (October 28, 1993) "PBS' stroke of serenity / Bob Ross brings brush of zen to 'Joy of Painting'", USA Today, p. 3D.

„If they took away all my paints, I'd use pastels, if they took away my pastels, I'd use crayons, if they took away my crayons, I'd use a pencil. If they put me in a cell, and stripped me of everything, I'd spit on my finger and draw on the wall.“

—  Pablo Picasso Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer 1881 - 1973

The original quote attributed to Picasso in 1951 quotes him as saying that 'even if he were imprisoned, he would draw on the dust-covered prison walls and on the floor, with his fingers dripped in his own spit' (see above). This expansion appears to derive from an interview given by actor Dustin Hoffman to the L.A. Times in 2001.
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/mar/04/entertainment/ca-32985
Disputed

„Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.“

—  Rembrandt van rijn Dutch 17th century painter and etcher 1606 - 1669

As quoted in Rembrandt Drawings (1975) by Paul Némo, as translated by David Macrae
undated quotes

„Time is the brush of God, as he paints his masterpiece on the heart of humanity.“

—  Ravi Zacharias Indian philosopher 1946

„Modern paintings are like women, you'll never enjoy them if you try to understand them. “

—  Freddie Mercury British singer, songwriter and record producer 1946 - 1991

„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

„When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.“

—  Ava Gardner American actress 1922 - 1990

„Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.“

—  George Carlin American stand-up comedian 1937 - 2008

„People love mystery, and that is why they love my paintings.“

—  Salvador Dalí Spanish artist 1904 - 1989

„I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.“

—  Georgia O'Keeffe American artist 1887 - 1986

„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

„I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race…If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible…“

—  Cecil Rhodes British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa 1853 - 1902

[The Story of Africa, http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1624_story_of_africa/page26.shtml, BBC World Service, 2009-06-13]

„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 first encounter with Otto Mueller's paintings was in Berlin, at the showing of the 'Rejects of the Berlin Secession'. which took place at the Galerie Macht in the spring of 1910. And we met him personally the very same day in his studio on Mommsenstrasse. This meeting was significant for all of us and occurred at a fruitful moment; and, as a matter of course, he belonged to Die Brücke community from then on.“

—  Erich Heckel German artist 1883 - 1970

a later recall of Heckel; as quoted in Expressionism, a German intuition, 1905-1920, Neugroschel, Joachim; Vogt, Paul; Keller, Horst; Urban, Martin; Dube, Wolf Dieter; (transl. Joachim Neugroschel); publisher: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1980, p. 93

„Everything we look at disperses and vanishes. doesn't it? Nature is always the same, and yet its appearance is always changing... Painting must give us the flavour of nature’s eternity. Everything, you understand. So I join together nature's straying hands.... From all sides, here there and everywhere, I select colours, tones and shades; I set them down, I bring them together.... They make lines, they become objects – rocks, trees – without my thinking about them.... But if there is the slightest distraction, the slightest hitch, above all if I interpret too much one day, if I'm carried away today by a theory which contradicts yesterday's, if I think while I'm painting, if I meddle, then woosh!, everything goes to pieces.“

—  Paul Cézanne French painter 1839 - 1906

Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 148, in: 'What he told me – I. The motif'

„Paintings are memories. Memories of the painter who painted them. Memories that can be shared as well. Paintings are things to remember things by.“

—  James Rosenquist American artist 1933 - 2017

Quoted in Brian Sherwin, "Art Space Talk: James Rosenquist," http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2008/04/art-space-talk-james-rosenquist.html myartspace.com (2008-04-04)

„I dare not think of the sun-drenched beaches and the stormy skies, and of the joy of painting them in the sea breezes.“

—  Eugène Boudin French painter 1824 - 1898

Quote in a letter, from Paris 14 June 1869, to family-friend Ferdinand Martin; as cited by Colin B. Bailey in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publisher, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 7
Boudin felt himself detained in the big city Paris and longed fort the beach
1850s - 1870s