Quotes about painting (2699 quotes, page 17)

“I think my painting is so autobiographical if anyone can take the trouble to read it.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Anne Middleton Wagner (1996) Three Artists (three Women):: Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keeffe. p. 154.

Thinking , Reading

“I have received your critical essay [of C. L. Ragghianti who visited Morandi's studio frequently and watched him painting] for the catalogue of the Mattioli collection. I must confess that I am not a little disturbed by what you say. I shall say no more. My own desire is to continue to live with a little peace, which is the only thing that still allows me to work. I am sure I am worth much less than what you say. Not out of modesty, believe me. I only wish it were as you say. If you could, please avoid the comparison with Picasso. Furthermore I must point out an error of fact where you say on p. 4 that 'for those who might not know, Morandi draws, tries out plans of his compositions, etc.., etc..' – and you have had the occasion to see the plans of objects on my table. This only serves to immediately recover my position when I reassemble a composition. Nothing more. Another thing…. [tracing the shape of his feet on the floor]…. it's to mark a reference for re-establishing the point of view. Think about this, then. I am grateful for your concern, but believe me when I say it leaves me ill at ease.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

from his letter of 6 April 1953; as quoted in Morandi 1894 – 1964, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco, Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2008; p. 44
1945 - 1964

Peace , Error , Thinking , Drawing

“The cinema is not an art which films life: the cinema is something between art and life. Unlike painting and literature, the cinema both gives to life and takes from it, and I try to render this concept in my films. Literature and painting both exist as art from the very start; the cinema doesn’t.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Quoted in: Richard Roud, Godard, introduction (1970).

Life , Art , Literature

“[paintings as] the plastic equivalent of the sounds, noises and smells found in theaters, music-halls, cinemas, brothels, railways station, ports.”

Carlo Carrà (1881–1966) Italian painter

1910's
Source: 'Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio', Carrà, March 1913

Music

“The final test of painting, theirs, mine, any other, is; does the painter’s emotion comes across?.... Procedure is the keyword.... The difference is that we don't begin with a definite sense of procedure. It's free association from the start to the finished state. The old idea was to make use of your talent. This, we feel, is often to take the line of least resistance.... painters like Rothko, Pollock, Still, perhaps in reaction to the tendency to analyze which has dominated painting from Seurat to Albers, associate with very little analysis. A new form of expressionism inevitably followed. With De Kooning the procedure is continual change, and the immediacy of the change. With Jackson, it's the confidence you feel from the concentration of his energy in a given picture..”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

1958
Quote from Kline, in Conversations with Artists, Seldon Rothman, New York Capricorn Books, 1961, p. 106 - 109: Talk ing about the Abstract expressionists
1960's

Feeling , Confidence , Idea , Sense

“The meaning of a word — to me — is not as exact as the meaning of a colour. Colours and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this [1974] because such odd things have been done about me with words. I have often been told what to paint … I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Quote, 1914, from: Foreword
1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Effort

“I hope to compensate this year [in 1866 Roelofs was seriously ill] the damage of so little studies [watercolors and drawings] once and for all because most of the old ones I already used [for his oil-paintings]. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) Ik hoop dit jaar [in 1866 is Roelofs ernstig ziek geweest] de schade van weinig studies [tekeningen en aquarellen] eens voor goed in te halen want de ouden raken zoowat op [gebruikt voor zijn olie-schilderijen].
In a letter to P. Verloren van Themaat, 10 May 1867; as cited in Willem Roelofs 1822-1897 De Adem der natuur, ed. Marjan van Heteren & Robert-Jan te Rijdt; Thoth, Bussum, 2006, p. 13 - ISBN13 * 978 90 6868 432 2
1860's

Hope , Study , Drawing

“.. before I die I should like to bring two paintings to completion. What matters is to touch the limit, the essence of things.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

in an interview, Sept. 1939; as quoted in Morandi 1894 – 1964, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco, Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2008; p. 44
1925 - 1945

“Don't you think your Corot [to Guilemet the painter] is a little short on temperament? I'm painting a portrait of Vallabreque; the highlight on the nose is pure vermilion”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

remark of Cezanne ca. 1860
Quote in: Cézanne, by Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, p. 28
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1860s - 1870s

Thinking

“We look at the mountain to see the painting, then we look at the painting to see the mountain.”

Mark Tobey (1890–1976) American abstract expressionist painter

Source: 1950's, In: Reminiscence and Reverie, 1951, p. 231

Mountain

“Clouds that are grey
Can no longer be washed clean.
We open the umbrella
And simply paint the sky black.”

Gu Cheng (1956–1993) Chinese poet

"A Walk In The Rain" [Yu xing]

“I can't say what they [his abstract paintings] are about. I don't think they are expressionistic. I don't know why people say that. Why not say they are like Chinese paintings or like batik? People also talk about the quality of light in the paintings. 'Ah, the light!' Or 'Ah, the space!”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

It's phony reverence. It's ridiculous.
after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

People , Thinking , Light

“.. Besides of all things I hated and detested was painting. They told me I had a talent for it, and was a clever chap and could make as much money as I liked. Money always the principal thing and so it happens that I got forced into it. Being considered a very clever talented chap, after the war or siege of Paris [1870-71], a young fellow of the name of Vincent van Gogh [not painting yet, but still art-seller at Goupil in Paris] came around asking me for advice... The law of the pocket: 'full' signifies 'rich'; empty 'poor', all the world over the same; black, brown, yellow or white skinned. Heathen, barbarians, Mahommetans; pocket full, 'power”

Matthijs Maris (1839–1917) Dutch painter

empty, 'helpless'.
in a letter to David Croal Thomson (1907), as cited in: The Brothers Maris (James – Matthew – William), ed. Charles Holme; text: D.C. Thomson https://ia800204.us.archive.org/1/items/cu31924016812756/cu31924016812756.pdf; publishers, Offices of 'The Studio', London - Paris, 1907, p. BMxxxviii

Money , Hate , War , World

“Without the aid of these, then, it is not possible to deal accurately with the forms of being nor to discover the truth in things, knowledge of which is wisdom, and evidently not even to philosophize properly, for "just as painting contributes to the menial arts toward correctness of theory, so in truth lines, numbers, harmonic intervals, and the revolutions of circles bear aid to the learning of the doctrines of wisdom," says the Pythagorean Androcydes. Likewise Archytas of Tarentum, at the beginning of… On Harmony, says… in about these words: "It seems to me that they do well to study mathematics, and it is not at all strange that they have correct knowledge about each thing, what it is. For if they knew rightly the nature of the whole, they were also likely to see well what is the nature of the parts. About geometry, indeed, and arithmetic and astronomy, they have handed down to us a clear understanding, and not least also about music. For these seem to be sister sciences; for they deal with sister subjects, the first two forms of being."”

Nicomachus (60–120) Ancient Greek mathematician

Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)

Wisdom , Truth , Art , Music

“Again I only gave numbers [of her art-works, she sent for the next Sturm-exhibition]. I stick to my idea of not giving titles... Titles are really disgusting romantic, and now in a while people will have hundreds of Spring's, Summers, Trees [paintings], to Liebknecht, Eberts, etc.. Above everything color and line have their own specific language, which doesn't want to be captured in a title.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from German, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(original version, written by Jacoba in German:) Ich habe wieder nur Nummern gegeben. Ich bleibe bei meiner Idee, keine Titel zu geben. .. ..Titel sinds o widerlich romantisch, und jetz wird man in einiger Zeit hunderte Frühlings, Sommer, Bäume, an Liebknechts, Eberts und so weiter haben. Farbe und Linien haben für alle eine verschiedene eigene Sprache, die nicht im Titel festgelegt werden woll.
in a letter to Herwarth Walden, 14 Jan. 1920; as cited in the catalogue Der Sturm, Herwarth Walden und die Europäische Avantgarde, Berlin 1912-1932 Taschenbuch – 1961
Already in 1914 Jacoba started to number her paintings and drawings
1920's

People , Art , Color , Spring

“In art progress does not consist in extension, but in the knowledge of limits.
Limitation of means determines style, engenders new form, and give impulses to creation.
Limited means often constitute the charm and force of primitive painting. Extension, on the contrary, leads the arts to decadence.
New means, new subjects.
The subject is not the object; it is a new unity, a lyricism which grows completely from the means.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

Source: 1908 - 1920, quotes from Artists on Art...(1972), p. 423 - short quotes by Georges Braque on 'Means' - Paris, 1917

Art , Knowledge

“I should be acting the part of an ungrateful servant, unworthy of the favours which unite my duty to your great kindness, if I were not to say that his Majesty [ Charles V ] forced me to go to him and pays the expenses of my journey, I start discontented because I have not fulfilled your wish and my obligation in presenting myself to my Lord [ Pope Paul III ] and yours, and working in obedience to his intentions [to paint the Pope's portrait].... But I promise as a true servant to pay interest on my return with a new picture in addition to the first.... So with your license, Padron mio unico, I shall go, whither I am called, and returning with the grace of God, I shall serve you with all the strength of the talents which I got from my cradle..”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

In a letter to Cardinal Farnese in Rome, from Venice 24th December 1547; after the original in Rochini's 'Belazione' u.s. pp. 9-10; as quoted in Titian: his life and times - With some account of his family... Vol. 2., J. A. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle, Publisher London, John Murray, 1877, pp. 164-165
Titian had to chose between Pope & Emperor when they were on the worst of terms; he decided to obey the Emperor Charles V who ordered Titian to come to his court at Augsburg, Germany
1541-1576

God , Parting

“When I draw horizontals
you see this big plane and you have certain feelings like
you're expanding over the plane
Anything can be painted without representation”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

1970's, The Untroubled Mind', 1971

Feeling , Drawing

“I painted beach scenes not because I was feeling nice, but because I wanted to get a particular effect of reflection.”

Jack Vettriano (1951) Scottish painter

Introduction by Anthony Quinn, Jack Vettriano Pavillion Books , London , 2004 ISBN 9781862057241
On Art

Feeling

“Artists have never worked with the model – just with the painting. What you [G. R. Swenson, the interviewer] are really saying is that an artist like Cézanne transforms what we think the painting ought to look like into something he thinks it ought to look like. He’s working with paint, not nature; he’s making a painting, he's forming. I think my work is different from comic strips – but I wouldn't call it transformation; I don't think that whatever is meant by it is important to art. What I do is form, whereas the comic strip is not formed in the sense I’m using the word; the comics have shapes but there has been no effort to make them intensely unified. The purpose is different, one intends to depict and I intend to unify.”

Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) American pop artist

Source: 1960's, What is Pop Art? Interviews with eight painters' (1963), pp. 25-27

Art , Nature , Thinking , Sense

“Pollock.... left us [c. 1958] at the point where we must be preoccupied with and even dazzled by the space and objects of our everyday life, either our bodies, clothes, rooms, or, if need be, the vastness of Forty-Second Street [New York].... Objects of every sorts are materials for the new art, paints, chairs, food, electric and neon-lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies, a thousand other things which will be discovered by the present generation of artists.... All will become materials for this new concrete art.”

Allan Kaprow (1927–2006) American artist

In his essay 'The legacy of Jackson Pollock', published in 'ARTnews', Fall of 1958; as quoted by Christina Bryan Rosenberger, in 'Drawing the Line: The Early Work of Agnes Martin', Univ. of California Press, July 2016, p 121
this essay of 1958 became more or less an art-manifesto for the generation American artists after Abstract Expressionism

Life , Food , Dogs , Art

“The painting will not be looked at passively, not embraced all at once by an observer's immediate gaze. But relived in its elaboration, remade by thought and if I dare say reacted... All the gestures made by the painter, he [the observer] feels them reproduced in him.”

Jean Dubuffet book Prospectus et tous écrits suivants

Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 75

Feeling

“Like the postcard collages, the colors are shapes in a landscape. In this case [his collage 'Napoleon at Würtsburg'] it is a painting of a landscape, not a photo as in the postcards [collages], and therefore a contrast of the traditional painting and a presentation of literal space on top of depicted space.”

Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

1981 - 2008
Source: 'Kelly in conversation, summers 1985 and 1986'; ed. Diane Upright, "Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper", Harry N. Inc., Publishers, New York, in association with the Fort Worth Art Museum, New York, 1987 p. 21

Color , Photo

“Oh! My dear! My tis of thee! What a tangled web we weave!

Everyone is the one until the one falls down

Then we're all just "please please please"

The painted rust will only fool the fools for just so long

Eventually, that's when they'll see everything was wrong

Oh! The shame! Humility! What a wicked gang are we!

Like a liar looking down on a thief looking down on a killer looking down on a creep

Oh! This sinking ship will only hold its course for just so long

Eventually, that's when they'll see everything is wrong”

Tomas Kalnoky (1980) American musician

"What A Wicked Gang Are We" from "Somewhere in the Between" (2007) http://risc.perix.co.uk/lyrics/sm/sitb/10/

Fools

“I have another painting finished, a view near Rotterdam, and then another in process, and very far along. I made them from nature, that is to say I made watercolors [in open air] after which I made my [oil]-paintings.”

Johan Jongkind (1819–1891) Dutch painter and printmaker regarded as a forerunner of Impressionism

In a letter to his Dutch friend Eugène Smits, 22 Nov. 1856; as quoted in Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery, by Suzanne Boorsch, John Marciari; Yale University. Art Gallery, p. 246 - note 7

Nature

“But we had no contact with the painters of the Dachau and Worpswede School [where a. o. Paula Modersohn-Becker was settled as starting woman artist]. It was only much later, for instance, that we discovered that Hoelzel had already been experimenting with non-objective compositions as early as 1908. We [the Blaue Reiter artists] were only a group of friends who shared a common passion for painting as a form of self-expression.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 117

School , Passion

“To give without sympathy is to build a temple without the idol and is as futile as painting a picture with black ink on a black-board.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

“My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory; it is based on observation, on feeling, on the very nature of each experience. I.... merely try to find a color that will fit my sensation. There is an impelling proportion of tones that can induce me to change the shape of a figure or to transform my composition. Until I have achieved this proportion in all the parts of the composition I strive towards it and keep on working. Then a moment comes when every part has found its definite relationship, and from then on it would be impossible for me to add a stroke to my picture without having to paint it all over again.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Source: 1905 - 1910, Notes d'un Peintre' (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 412

Color , Feeling , Nature , Change

“Simply because I liked it so much I saw it in Venice and thought: I'd like to have that for myself. To start with I only meant to make a copy, so that I could have a beautiful painting at home and with it a piece of that period, all that potential beauty and sublimity... Then my copy went wrong, and the pictures that finally emerged went to show that it just can't be done any more, not even by way of a copy. All I could do was to break the whole thing down and show that it's no longer possible”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Richter's quote refers to his 'Annunciation after Titian', he made in 1973
Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 104, note 52

Beauty , Way , Quotes , Home

“Gleizes was only trying to reduce the curvature of natural volumes to adapt them more naturally and rigorously to the surface of the painting, a surface which he believed to be continuous with the wall and, for all practical purposes, with no curvature at all.”

Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) French painter

Cubism was born

Nature

“The point is that any piece of Impressionism, whether it be prose, verse or painting, or sculpture, is the record of the impression.”

F. S. Flint (1885–1960) English Imagist poet

German Chronicle, Poetry & Drama, vol. II, 1914

“We speak of concrete and not 'abstract painting', because we have finished with the period of research and speculative experience. In their search for purity artists were obliged to abstract from 'natural forms' in which the plastic elements were hidden, in order to eliminate natural forms and to replace them with 'artistic forms'. To-day the idea of 'artistic form' is as obsolete as the idea of 'natural form'. We establish the period of pure painting by constructing 'spiritual form.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Creative spirit becomes concrete.
Quote on 'Concrete art', in: 'Comments on the basic of concrete painting', Paris, January 1930; 'Art Concret', April 1930, pp. 2–4
1926 – 1931

Search , Idea , Nature

“I have experienced this country of the great mountains [Switzerland] superb!…. [but] I positively believe that nature, most appropriate to be reproduced in painting, is the modest landscape which seems just ordinarily and very insignificant. (translation from original French: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original French text:) J'ai trouvé ce pays de grandes montaignes superbe!.. .[mais] Je crois positivement que la nature la plus faite pour être reproduite en peinture, est le paysage modeste et qui parait ordinarement le plus insignificant.
In a letter, 1894; as cited in Willem Roelofs 1822-1897 De Adem der natuur, ed. Marjan van Heteren & Robert-Jan te Rijdt; Thoth, Bussum, 2006, p. 19 - ISBN13 978 90 6868 432 2
late quote of Roelofs, in a letter of his travel with his (painter-)sons to Switzerland
1890's

Mountain , Nature , Country

“I think the main thing is that I very rarely recognise the actual interview in print. To me, it's like being painted by an artist. And then you see the picture, and they've painted someone else.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From Oor magazine (February 1987)
In interviews etc., About interviews

Thinking

“Because he attempted to tell [in his painting 'The Jewish Cemetery' painted by Ruisdael, ] that which is outside the reach of art…. there are ruins to indicate old age, a stream to signify the course of life, and rocks and precipices to shadow forth its dangers. But how are we to discover all this?”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 304
posthumous, undated

Life , Age , Art

“Doesn't matter now, devils who paint angels.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Lestat

The Vampire Lestat (1985)

Angels

“.. the light suggests no particular time of day or night [in the paintings of Paul Cézanne ]; it is not appropriated from morning or afternoon, sunlight or shadow.”

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) American artist

1950s
Source: Abstract Expressionism, Davind Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London, 1990; p. 145

Light , Time , Night

“I am not a 'book of the month' artist, and I do not paint pretty pictures; but when I am no longer here my name will register forever in the history of American art.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

In a letter to his sister at the end of his life; as quoted in 'The return of the Native' by Joseph Phelan, Artcyclopedia online
1931 - 1943

Books , Art , History

“My collages are only ideas for things much larger – things to cover walls. In fact all the things that I have done I would like to see much larger. I am not interested in painting as it has been accepted for so long – to hang on walls of houses as pictures. To hell with pictures – they should be the wall – even better – on the outside wall – of large buildings. Or stood up outside as billboards or a kind of modern 'icon'. We must make our art like the Egyptians, the Chinese & the African and the Island primitives – with their relation to life. It should meet the eye direct.”

Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

Quote in a letter to John Cage, 4 September 1950; as quoted in "Ellsworth Kelly, a Retrospective", ed. Diane Waldman, Guggenheim museum, New York 1997, p. 11
1950 - 1968

Life , Art , Idea , Hell

“All I ever wanted to do is to paint sunlight on the side of a wall.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

Comment on his 'Early Sunday Morning' (1930) https://www.wikiart.org/en/Search/Early%20Sunday%20Morning
1941 - 1967

“I remember I stood stunned as a boy, in front of the paintings of the old [Dutch] masters in our museums, how they let speak Nature to you. If I have learned to see nature by someone, it was by our old masters. But most by Nature itself.”

Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch (1824–1903) Dutch painter of the Hague School (1824-1903)

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van J. H. Weissenbruch, in het Nederlands: Ik herinner me, dat ik als jongen in onze museums voor de schilderijen van de oude meesters verstomd stond, zoals ze de natuur tot je lieten spreken. Als ik van iemand geleerd heb de natuur te zien dan is het van onze oude meesters. Maar het meest van de natuur-zelve.
in an interview with J.H. Rössing, at the end of his life, c. 1902; as cited in Eind goed Al goed, de carriere van J.H. Weissenbruch https://www.artsalonholland.nl/grote-meesters-kunstgeschiedenis/johan-hendrik-weissenbruch-haagse-school, by Sander Kletter

Boy , Nature , Learning

“A lot of people think that scuttling around stenciling images onto buildings in the middle of the night is the action of a sad, frustrated individual who can't get attention or recognition any other way. They might be right, but I've done gallery shows and, if you've been hitting on people with all sorts of images in all sorts of places, they're a real step backwards, painting the streets means becoming an actual part of the city. It's not a spectator sport.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Tristan Manco, Stencil Graffiti
Other sources

People , Sadness , Way , Thinking

“After I took up etchings [c. 1915], my paintings seemed to crystallize.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

1941 - 1967
Source: 'Edward Hopper: The Emptying Spaces', Suzanne Burrey; in 'Árt Digest', April 1, 1955 p. 10

“It was pretty clear to me and to them. I mean, most of my family are artists; my grandma, she’s a painter and she sleeps during the day and paints all night; she has all these health problems but she’s a devoted and committed artist. I was on the phone with her this morning and she said the best thing which was, ‘I’m in my second childhood, I should enjoy it.’ She’s in her 90s.”

Zoey Deutch (1994) American actress

Interview with Wonderland Magazine https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2017/07/14/zoey-deutch/

Health , Family , Problem , Sleep

“If you're a painter, you are not alone. There's no way to be alone. You think and you care and you're with all the people who care. You think you care and you’re with all the people who care, including the young people who don’t know they do yet. Tomlin in his late paintings knew this, Jackson always knew it: that if you meant it enough..”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

1950's, Evergreen Review, 1958

People , Way , Thinking

“The aim of art is to create space - space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Quoted in: Alan D. Bryce (2007) Art Smart: Art Smart: The Intelligent Guide to Investing in the Canadian Art Market. p. 55
Quotes, 1971 - 2000

Art

“Talk not so much, then, young artist, of the great old masters, who but painted and chisell’d. Study not only their productions. There is a still higher school for him who would kindle his fire with coal from the altar of the loftiest and purest art. It is the school of all grand actions and grand virtues, of heroism, of the death of patriots and martyrs — of all the mighty deeds written in the pages of history — deeds of daring, and enthusiasm, devotion, and fortitude.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

"Talk to an Art-Union (A Brooklyn fragment)" (1839)

Death , School , Art , History

“Two pictures painted in the year 1907 can conveniently be taken as the starting point of twentieth-century art. They are Matisse's Blue Nude and Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon; and both these cardinal, revolutionary pictures represent the nude. The reason is that the revolt of twentieth-century painters was not against academicism: that had been achieved by the impressionists. It was a revolt against the doctrine, with which the impressionists implicitly agreed, that the painter should be no more than a sensitive and well-informed camera. And the very elements of symbolism and abstraction that made the nude an unsuitable subject for the impressionists commended it to their successors. When art was once more concerned with concepts rather than sensations, the nude was the first concept that came to mind.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. IX: The Nude As an End in Itself

Art

“Light in nature creates movement in color. The movement is provided by the relationships of uneven measures, of colors contrasts among themselves and constitutes Reality [In this quote Delaunay is referring to his series 'Window'-paintings', which he had started in 1912].”

Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) French painter

Quote in: 'Nous irons jusqu'au soleil', Delaunay; as cited in 'Futurism', ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 217
1915 - 1941

Color , Quotes , Nature , Reality

“Oh I wish that I could paint again. Paint is an instrument without which I cannot survive for any length of time. Whenever I even think of gray, green and white, I am overcome with quivers of lust. Then I wish that this war would end and that I might paint again.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Quote from Beckmann's letter to his first wife Minna, from the front, first World war, 1915; as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 14
Quote of Max Beckmann, one from a series of letters he wrote to his wife Minna Beckmann-Tube, being medic soldier at the front of World War 1.
1900s - 1920s

War , Thinking , Time

“[An artist must apply] his personal faculties to the ideas and the events of the times in which he lives... [A]rt in painting should consist only of the representation of things which that are visible and tangible to the artist. Every age should be represented only by its own artists, that is to say, by the artist who have lived in it. I also maintain that painting is an essentially concrete art form and can exist only of the representation of both real and existing things... An abstract object, not visible, nonexistent, is not within the domain of painting.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote in an open letter ('Credo'), (Paris, end of December 1861), published in the 'Courier du Dimanche', (addressed to prospective students); as quoted in Letters of Gustave Courbet, transl. & ed. Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, University of Chicago Press 1992, pp. 203-204
1860s

Age , Art , Idea , Time

“It certainly will please you to read that after my small painting ['First Love', c. 1856] what you have seen in Rotterdam, a large lithography is being made now by Lord Mouilleron, France's first lithographer… It becomes very beautiful. (translation from original Dutch text: Fons Heijnsbroek).”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat uit de brief van Jozef Israëls in het Nederlands): Het zal u zeker plaisier doen te vernemen dat naar mijn schilderijtje ['Eerste Liefde', c. 1856] welke gij in Rotterdam gezien hebt eene groote lithografie vervaardigd wordt en wel door Heer Mouilleron, Frankrijks eerste lithograaf.. .Hij wordt zeer mooi.
Quote in his letter from Amsterdam, 1857, to publisher in The Hague; from LTK 1795, XIII nr. 140, University Library of Leiden
Mouilleron was making the lithography at the studio of Israëls on the Rozengracht in Amsterdam, under the eyes of the painter himself
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1840 - 1870

Love , Beauty , Reading

“I never saw the sea.
I don't know if it's pretty,
I don't know if it's rough.
The sea doesn't matter to me.I saw the lake.
Yes, the lake.
The lake is large and also calm.The rain of colors
from the exploding afternoon
makes the lake shimmer
makes it a lake painted
by every color.
I never saw the sea.
I saw the lake ...”

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902–1987) Brazilian poet

Eu não vi o mar.
Não sei se o mar é bonito.
Não sei se ele é bravo.
O mar não me importa.Eu vi a lagoa.
A lagoa, sim.
A lagoa é grande
e calma também.Na chuva de cores
da tarde que explode,
a lagoa brilha.
A lagoa se pinta
de todas as cores.
Eu não vi o mar.
Eu vi a lagoa...

"Lagoa" ["Lake"]
Alguma Poesia [Some Poetry] (1930)

Color , Sea

“It is for the artist.... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.”

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) American-born, British-based artist

Propositions, 2
1870 - 1903, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies' (1890)

“As for myself, I confess to a preference for clear-cut situations, for radical and even extreme positions. But I also feel a secret and very strong attraction to ambiguous situations… for example, that hovering moment when it is no longer day and not yet night, the shades of emotion between indifference and friendship… (they) are so fascinating because they are so indefinable. That which is pure transition, is all the more appealing to the mind because of its elusiveness. It is the same in the cases of Mondrian, Kandinsky and the Cubists: abstraction and figuration have a common frontier in their work that is so tenuous that we often do not know which side we are on. It is this ambiguity that imports a rare poetic charm to their paintings. Artists like Klee, Miro and Dubuffet have also pitched their tents on this borderline and constantly travel from one side tot the other.”

Michel Seuphor (1901–1999) designer, draughtsman, painter

Source: Abstract Painting (1964), pp. 43/44: (1962)

Friendship , Secret , Travel , Feeling

“The pleasure that painting as a dumb art give us, is like what we have from misic, its beautiful forms, vlour and harmony are to the eye what sounds and the harmony are to the ear.”

Jonathan Richardson (1667–1745) English painter

Essay on the Theory of Painting (1725)

Pleasure , Beauty , Art

“I was invited to come here to speak about my idea of art, which is to enlarge the effectivity of art beyond the idea of art as coming out of art history — an art idea which contains the well-known disciplines like sculpture, architecture, painting, music, dancing, poetry and so on. I would like to declare why I feel that it's now necessary to establish a new kind of art, able to show the problems of the whole society, of every living being — and how this new discipline — which I call social sculpture — can realize the future of humankind. It could be a guarantee for the evolution of the earth as a planet, establish conditions for other planetarians too, and you can control it with your own thinking.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Source: 1970's, Joseph Beuys... Public Dialogue' 1974, p. 5; Lead paragraph of article

Feeling , Thinking , Idea , Problem

“Dualism is particularly important in both my paintings and my graphics.”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

from: Years of Struggle 1902-14' Autobiography Berlin 1934
1921 - 1956

“My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated. This was pointed out to me by somebody who referred to the paintings of Rembrandt and his use of light: some elements are highlighted while others are obscured or even pushed back into the dark. And it's something that we do - we bring out elements that we want to emphasise. I'm not claiming or denying that I have done such a thing but I do believe in [Robert] Bresson's method of creation through omission, not through addition.”

Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016) Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/apr/28/hayfilmfestival2005.guardianhayfestival

Light

“Creative children do not paint. They mess around. If they have to draw, creative children always end up being the ridiculous kind of child, who produces childern′s drawings Creative children wipe spinach round their gobs, that′s all. Any thing more that these crappy daubnings is the result of education-and before long we′re on a level with Paul Klee.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 51 (Ibid., p. 45.)

Children , Education , Drawing

“I was very offended personally when the Leader of the Opposition, as Minister of Health, said, and I quote, “Abortion is the easy way out.” I was very personally offended by those comments. You said that in March 2004, I suggest you check the records. I was also very offended on behalf of the women of Australia when in the course of the carbon pricing campaign the Leader of the Opposition said, 'What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing.'”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

Thank you for that painting of women's roles in modern Australia!
Misogyny speech

Women , Health , Way , Quotes

“As far as my exhibition concerned [opening was 8 May 1954, in Ghent].... there is however a recent and important painting hanging there 'Man met Boompje' [Man with tree, later titled 'The Gardener] - permettez-moi - with beautiful refracting matters and color: lemon-yellow spots and lacquerish black on white, (face) transparent pure light-blue with a very thin layer glacis over it (in the small wall) and strong-blue painted vertical line. Yellow brown and mauve brush-sweeps with small red dashes over it (for the small tree), and further a lot of beautiful white.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Wat nu mijn tentoonstelling betreft (opening was 8 mei 1954, in Gent].. .er is echter een recent en belangrijk werk bij n.l. 'Man met boompje' [later 'De Tuinman' getiteld] - permettez-moi- met mooie brekende materies en kleur: citroengele vlekken en lakachtig zwarte op wit, (gezicht) transparante zuivere lichte blauwe met een heel dunne glacis erover (in muurtje) en sterk blauwe geschilderde vertikale lijn. Geelbruine en mauve vegen met daarop kleine rode streepjes (voor boompje) verder veel mooi wit.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, May 1954; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 164 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960

Beauty , Color , Tree , Light

“In Abstract Expressionism the paintings symbolize the idea of ground-directedness as opposed to object-directedness. You put something down, react to it, put something else down, and the painting itself becomes a symbol of this. The difference is that rather than symbolize this ground-directedness I do an object-directed appearing thing. There is humor here. The work is still ground-directed; the fact that it's an eyebrow or an almost direct copy of something is unimportant. The ground-directedness is in the painter's mind and not immediately in apparent in the painting. Pop Art makes the statement that ground-directedness is not a quality that the painting has because of what it looks like…”

Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) American pop artist

Source: 1960's, What is Pop Art? Interviews with eight painters' (1963), pp. 25-27

Art , Idea , Appearance

“They [the younger woman artists in American Abstract Expressionism: Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell, ] are the next generation and it is another scene, another story. You forget that in my generation Paris was still the leading school of painting and this situation was being changed by a tiny handful of artists to a scene called New York, America, which never before had a leading role in the art world. That didn’t happen just by reading a newspaper. Now the next generation comes in and they may think it is rough for them but it is a pie... We broke the ground.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 80.

World , School , Art , Thinking

“.. even happens that each character has to sing a different text, resulting in a chorus. The varied nature of the paintings should be attributed less to the author than to the varies nature of the characters to be portrayed. The author [= Charlotte Salomon] has tried.... to go completely out of herself to allow the characters to sing or speak in their own voices. In order to achieve this, many artistic values had to be renounced, but I hope that.... this will be forgiven.”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

The author, St. Jean, August 1940/42
Charlotte's 6th introduction page, related to image no. 4155-6 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004155-fJHM: '..even happens that each character..', p. 46
this quote is written in brush over the whole page of the painting, without any figure
Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Hope , Nature , Singing

“Creativity is not limited to people practising one of the traditional forms of art, and even in the case of artists, creativity is not confined to the exercise of their art. Each one of us has a creative potential, which is hidden by competitiveness and success-aggression. To recognize, explore and develop this potential is the task of the School. Creation – whether it be a painting, sculpture, symphony or novel – involves not merely talent, intuition, powers of imagination and application, but also the ability to shape material that could be expanded to other socially relevant spheres.”

Heinrich Böll (1917–1985) German author, novelist, and short story writer

Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll (1972), cited in: Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys, exh.cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979. p. 278.

People , School , Art , Exercises

“Creativity is not limited to people practising one of the traditional forms of art, and even in the case of artists, creativity is not confined to the exercise of their art. Each one of us has a creative potential, which is hidden by competitiveness and success-aggression. To recognize, explore and develop this potential is the task of the School. Creation – whether it be a painting, sculpture, symphony or novel – involves not merely talent, intuition, powers of imagination and application, but also the ability to shape material that could be expanded to other socially relevant spheres.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Quote of Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll (1972), as cited in Joseph Beuys, exh. cat., Caroline Tisdall, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979. p. 278
1970's

People , School , Art , Exercises

“In 1907 I was most strongly influenced by Giotto during my first Italian trip, as well as by Etruscan sculpture and the early Etruscan landscape painting in the Vatican library in Rome.”

Max Pechstein (1881–1955) German artist

In his letter in 1920, to de:Georg Biermann; as quoted in Georg Biermann - Max Pechstein, Leipzig 1920, p. 14
Pechstein answers Biermann's question: 'which 'primitives' had influenced him in his early painting style'

“Could only have been painted by a madman.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

his inscription, written in pencil, between the red clouds on at least one of his paintings of The Scream (c. 1893 - 1910), as quoted in Edvard Munch: The Man and His Art (1977) by Ragna Thiis Stang, p. 106
after 1930

“A painting is not made to be sniffed. [but viewed from a distance - see also Rembrandt's quote in his letter to Constantijn Huygens, Amsterdam, 27 Jan. 1639]”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Statement attributed to Rembrandt in early biographies, as quoted in The Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt: Reinventing an Old Master in Nineteenth-Century France (2003) by Alison MacQueen
One of the popular aphorisms about Rembrandt's paintings, drawn from his early biographies in early 19th century and repeatedly attributed to the artist by the French writers and artists [ https://books.google.nl/books?id=N0dVqAsR5k0C&pg=PA292&lpg=PA292&dq=The+Rise+of+the+Cult+of+Rembrandt:+Reinventing+an+Old+Master+in+Nineteenth-century+France&source=bl&ots=SgL2TN2Xct&sig=ZJuOkH35vmifBkzcu5ASLdLyhTI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjx17OkrpfVAhWKnBoKHQlxA0oQ6AEIVzAJ#v=onepage&q=The%20Rise%20of%20the%20Cult%20of%20Rembrandt%3A%20Reinventing%20an%20Old%20Master%20in%20Nineteenth-century%20France&f=false/The Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt: Reinventing an Old Master in Nineteenth-Century France, 2003,p. 287 ]
undated quotes

Quotes

“We're going all the way, till the wheels fall off and burn, till the sun peels the paint and the seat covers fade and the water moccasins die.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Knocked Out Loaded (1986), Brownsville Girl (with Sam Shepard)

Way , Water , Sun

“Art is something given, not reproduced… the painter paints what he sees with his innermost senses, the expression of his being.. every other impression becomes, for him, an inner expression.”

Herwarth Walden (1878–1941) German artist

Erster Deutscher Herbstsalaon (1913)

Art , Sense

“To me, Pollock is the height of American painting. It's very lyrical. Gorky, who is very passionate, can copy a drawing or take a drawing and copy it exactly as a painting, and Miro can too, it's amazing. Miro can do a drawing to paint and that's another training in a sense. So there's a certain mannerism that comes in both of them [three], and probably everything becomes obvious in time. But I don't have that. The line is illustrated or the colour. I'm sure it has great feeling when they're doing it, but it's more towards defining something. It has a certain clarity because it's a complex thing. I'm a painter and my whole balance is not having to think about things. So all I think about is painting. It's the instinct for the placement where all that happens. I don't have to think about it. So I don't think of composition; I don’t think of colour here and there. Sometimes I alter something after. So all I could think is the rush... I cannot make a picture unless everything is working. It's like a state.”

Cy Twombly (1928–2011) American painter

Source: 2000 - 2011, Cy Twombly, 2000', by David Sylvester (June 2000), p. 179

Feeling , Thinking , Sense , Passion

“The fall of the patriciate by no means divested the Roman commonwealth of its aristocratic character. We have already indicated that the plebeian party carried within it that character from the first as well as, and in some sense still more decidedly than, the patriciate; for, while in the old body of burgesses an absolute equality of rights prevailed, the new constitution set out from a distinction between the senatorial houses who were privileged in point of burgess rights and of burgess usufructs, and the mass of the other citizens. Immediately, therefore, on the abolition of the patriciate and the formal establishment of civic equality, a new aristocracy and a corresponding opposition were formed; and we have already shown how the former engrafted itself as it were on the fallen patriciate, and how, accordingly, the first movements of the new party of progress were mixed up with the last movements of the old opposition between the orders. The formation of these new parties began in the fifth century, but they assumed their definite shape only in the century which followed. The development of this internal change is, as it were, drowned amidst the noise of the great wars and victories, and not merely so, but the process of formation is in this case more withdrawn from view than any other in Roman history. Like a crust of ice gathering imperceptibly over the surface of a stream and imperceptibly confining it more and more, this new Roman aristocracy silently arose; and not less imperceptibly, like the current concealing itself beneath and slowly extending, there arose in opposition to it the new party of progress. It is very difficult to sum up in a general historical view the several, individually insignificant, traces of these two antagonistic movements, which do not for the present yield their historical product in any distinct actual catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions was laid, during this epoch; and the delineation of these as well as of the development of Rome in general would remain imperfect, if we should fail to give some idea of the strength of that encrusting ice, of the growth of the current beneath, and of the fearful moaning and cracking that foretold the mighty breaking up which was at hand. The Roman nobility attached itself, in form, to earlier institutions belonging to the times of the patriciate. Persons who once had filled the highest ordinary magistracies of the state not only, as a matter of course, practically enjoyed all along a higher honour, but also had at an early period certain honorary privileges associated with their position. The most ancient of these was doubtless the permission given to the descendants of such magistrates to place the wax images of these illustrious ancestors after their death in the family hall, along the wall where the pedigree was painted, and to have these images carried, on occasion of the death of members of the family, in the funeral procession.. the honouring of images was regarded in the Italo-Hellenic view as unrepublican, and on that account the Roman state-police did not at all tolerate the exhibition of effigies of the living, and strictly superintended that of effigies of the dead. With this privilege were associated various external insignia, reserved by law or custom for such magistrates and their descendants:--the golden finger-ring of the men, the silver-mounted trappings of the youths, the purple border on the toga and the golden amulet-case of the boys--trifling matters, but still important in a community where civic equality even in external appearance was so strictly adhered to, and where, even during the second Punic war, a burgess was arrested and kept for years in prison because he had appeared in public, in a manner not sanctioned by law, with a garland of roses upon his head.(6) These distinctions may perhaps have already existed partially in the time of the patrician government, and, so long as families of higher and humbler rank were distinguished within the patriciate, may have served as external insignia for the former; but they certainly only acquired political importance in consequence of the change of constitution in 387, by which the plebeian families that attained the consulate were placed on a footing of equal privilege with the patrician families, all of whom were now probably entitled to carry images of their ancestors. Moreover, it was now settled that the offices of state to which these hereditary privileges were attached should include neither the lower nor the extraordinary magistracies nor the tribunate of the plebs, but merely the consulship, the praetorship which stood on the same level with it,(7) and the curule aedileship, which bore a part in the administration of public justice and consequently in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state.(8) Although this plebeian nobility, in the strict sense of the term, could only be formed after the curule offices were opened to plebeians, yet it exhibited in a short time, if not at the very first, a certain compactness of organization--doubtless because such a nobility had long been prefigured in the old senatorial plebeian families. The result of the Licinian laws in reality therefore amounted nearly to what we should now call the creation of a batch of peers. Now that the plebeian families ennobled by their curule ancestors were united into one body with the patrician families and acquired a distinctive position and distinguished power in the commonwealth, the Romans had again arrived at the point whence they had started; there was once more not merely a governing aristocracy and a hereditary nobility--both of which in fact had never disappeared--but there was a governing hereditary nobility, and the feud between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that stage. The nobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after separate and sole political power, and sought to convert the most important institutions of the state--the senate and the equestrian order--from organs of the commonwealth into organs of the plebeio-patrician aristocracy.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome - Volume 2

Death , Men , War , Youth

“That, by the accident of an illegality in the codicil to his will, it should have been possible for Hugh Lane's pet collection to be snaffled by the British Government, is a fitting conclusion to the shabby story of England's appreciation of French impressionist painting.”

Frank Rutter (1876–1937) British art critic

Rutter, Frank. Art in My Time, p. 120. Rich & Cowan, London, 1933.

“When I got back to Ornans, I spent a few days hunting. I quite like the subject of violent exercise... It makes the most surprising painting you can imagine. There are thirty life-size figures in it. It is the moral and physical history of my studio”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from a letter of Courbet to Bruyas, (December 1854); as cited in 'Courbet Speaks', 'Courbet-dossier', Musée-dOrsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/courbet-dossier/courbet-speaks.html
1840s - 1850s

Life , Exercises , Imagination , History

“Creating a painting is a matter of ensuring that all its parts achieve unity. Though it's a precarious, fragile unity.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

Parting

“I paint by all the daylight we have and that is little enough, less perhaps than you have by much… imagine to yourself how a purl must look through a burnt glass.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to John Dunthorne, 1801; as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 510
1800s - 1810s

Imagination

“.. a member of anarchist and revolutionary circles, attracted in turn by violent action and by dream, before resolving to dedicate him to painting.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

describing Boccioni
In the 'Preface' of Boccioni's show at Ca' Pesaro, July 1910; as quoted in Inventing Futurism: The Art and Politics of Artificial Optimism, by Christine Poggi, Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 107
1900's

Dreams

“I would rather paint the victims than the killers... When Warhol painted the killers, I painted the victims. The subjects were of poor people, banal poor dogs.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

comment on his painting 'Eight student nurses', compared with Warhol's art-work 'Thirteen most wanted man', in 1964
Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 56, note 79

People , Dogs

“Masculinity is about posting black and white photos of yourself, shirtless, and wearing face paint on instagram.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Pg 62
The Way of Men (2012)

Photo

“Don't be afraid of putting on color, refine the work little by little. Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel... One must have only one master – nature; she is the one always be consulted.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

1890's

Color , Feeling , Nature

“That's how it is
One day two paintings were hanging,
Right opposite each other
Really colorful and beautiful the one
And the other simple and honest
* That simplicity and truth are the characteristics
of science and of art.
Well, people can not understand that.
It was to the tinsel that they gave their favor.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (kort gedicht van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands):
Zoo is het
Er hingen eens twee schilderijen,
Juist vlak tegenover elkaar
Regt kleurig en schitterend de eene
En d'ander eenvoudig en waar
** Dat eenvoud en waarheid het kenmerk
Van wetenschap is en van kunst
Och, dat kan het volk niet begrijpen
En [aan] 't klatergoud schonk het zijn gunst.
A short poem of Israëls, written in his letter from The Hague, 13 Dec. 1876 to art-seller Pilgeram & Lefèvre in London; from collection of Fondation Custodia, Institut Neérlandais Paris, input no. 1971-A 506
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1871 - 1900

People , Truth , Beauty , Art

“The woodcut is the most graphic of the printmaking techniques. Its practice demands much technical ability and interest. Kirchner's technical skill made woodcutting easy for him. Thus he came in a spontaneous way through the simplification necessary here to a clear style of representation. We see in his woodcuts, which constantly accompanied his creative work, the formal language of the paintings prefigured.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

de:Louis de Marsalle (pseudonym of Kirchner) Uber Kirchners Graphik, Genius 3, no. 2 (1921), p. 252-53; as quoted in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 52
1920's

Way

“I find that I have painted my life, things happening in my life — without knowing. After painting the Shell and shingle [c, 1926] many times, I did a misty landscape of the mountain across the lake, and the mountain became the shape of the shingle — the mountain I saw out my window, the shingle on the table in my room. I did not notice that they were alike for a long time after they were painted.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Life , Mountain , Time

“Self-expression is impossible in relation with other men; their self-expression interferes with it. The greatest heights of self-expression in poetry, music, painting – are achieved by men who are supremely alone.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Eight, The Outsider as a Visionary

Men , Music

“All I can tell is that they [some small landscapes Bilders painted in Savoy, which were exhibited there] are more blatant than in my studio, and secondly that I have been honored with a pretty good review... the jury found evidence of a thoroughly study and of happy sunlight in my works. They thought that I had to cherish a lot of love for nature, to be able to show it so sensitive.... [I] can not deny that I am very pleased to find that my small paintings have been noticed favorably. And besides that, one will never forget his first review..”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

Bilder's travel to Switzerland with some other artists was the longest travel he ever made in his short life
Source: 1850's, Vrolijk Versterven' (from Bilders' diary & letters), p. 23 - quote in Bilder's letter to his maecenas Johannes Kneppelhout, from Savoy, near Geneva, Switserland, September 1858;

Love , Nature , Study , Forgetting

“.. it [his watercolor 'New Flower' ['Het Bloempje', 1880] is one of those pictures, I did my best to finish it highly, as the story is nice and pleasant [where] other pictures may be more necessarily rough or strong being paint in an other mood. But this new flower needed a tender hand and conspicuous attention for details.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

Quote from his letter, 23 Nov 1906, to E.D. Libbey in Toledo (TMA); as cited in Jozef Israëls, 1824 – 1911, ed. Dieuwertje Dekkers; Waanders, Zwolle 1999, p. 306
E.D. Libbey was one of the initiators of the Toledo-museum; the watercolor was in his private collection till 1925
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

Flowers , Mood , Strong

“The creation of the following paintings is to be imagined as follows: A person is sitting beside the sea. She is painting. A tune suddenly enters her mind. As she starts to hum it, she notices that the tune exactly matches what she is trying to commit to paper. A texts forms in her head, and she starts to sing the tune, with her own words, over and over again in a loud voice until the painting seems complete. Frequently, several texts take shape, and the result is a duet, or it..”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

Charlotte's 5th introduction page, related to image JHM no. 4155-5 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004155-e: 'The creation of the following..', p. 45
this quote is written in brush over the whole page of the painting, without any figure
Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Imagination , Singing , Personality , Sea

“My work has nothing to do with people, nothing to do with psychology. I am much more cerebral than Willink. I do not wish to be deep at all. I know that I don't hide anything at all in this work. When Carel Willink paints a naked lady in a street, I think: what is that lady doing there?... the house facades give me a lugubrious impression. So it is a lugubrious street. My work is not lugubrious. If you ask Willink: 'Why are those naked mistresses there', you do not receive an answer. With me you always get an answer when you ask: why..”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van M.C. Escher, in het Nederlands): Mijn werk heeft niets met de mens, niets met psychologie te maken. Ik ben veel cerebraler dan Willink. Ik wens helemaal niet diep te zijn. Ik weet dat ik in dit werk niets verberg. Als Carel Willink een naakte juffrouw in een straat schildert, denk ik: wat heeft die juffrouw daar te maken?.. ..de gevels maken op mij de indruk van iets lugubers. Het is dus een lugubere straat. Mijn werk is niet luguber. Als je Willink vraagt: waarom zijn die naakte juffrouwen daar, krijg je geen antwoord. Bij mij krijg je altijd antwoord als je vraagt: waarom..
1960's, M.C. Escher, interviewed by Bibeb', 1968

People , Thinking , Housing

“I painted like that because I wanted to get through to something new - a kind of painting that was my own.”

Georges Seurat (1859–1891) French painter

quote from Seurat, John Russell; Thames & Hudson, London 1965 ISBN 0-500-20032-7
undated quotes

“Painting in the chamber of a Prince who was indisposed, the Physician said, that he hoped bymeans of his Highness, to obtain also the favor of a picture by Salvator. The Prince made he request, and Salvator readily consented. The Physician then desired the Painter not to egin his picture till he had given him the idea, nd the design. Salvator made no reply; ut when the Physician called for pen and ink o write his prescription, he desired him to stop ill he should tell him what to write. The Docor, not comprehending his meaning, said * Signor Salvator, this is a business which conerns me, not you." "I would have you to know Mr. Doctor" replied Salvator, " that I can more easily instruct you in the cure of your tickt than you can me in the art I profess, being a much better Painter than you are a Physician.'*”

Peter Beckford (1643–1710) Governor of Jamaica

Hope , Art , Idea , Business

“I know I must live in France, but I don't want to cut myself off from America. France is a picture already painted. America still has to be painted. Maybe that's why I feel freer there. But when I work in America, it's like shouting in a forest. There's no echo.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

as quoted by Joseph A. Harriss, in 'The Elusive Marc Chagall', - the 'Smithsonian Magazine', December 2003 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-elusive-marc-chagall-95114921/
after 1930

Feeling