Fine Art Quotes By Famous Artists - Inspiring & Iconic Words

Inspiring Female Artist Quotes - Motivational Words To Live By 

“Every artist was first an amateur” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“Art is not a thing; it is a way.” -Elbert Hubbard

 

“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” -Pablo Picasso

“Creativity takes courage” -Henri Matisse

 

The Snail by Henri Matisse

 

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” -Leonardo da Vinci

 

“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.” -Schumman

 

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Pablo Picasso

 

“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” -Charles Horton Cooley

 

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” -Thomas Merton

 

“Artists must be men of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers; read, study and think a great deal of life…” -Robert Henri

 

“My paintbrushes are having a bad-hair-day!” -Lori McNee

 

"Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.” -Rainbow Rowell

 

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” -Pablo Picasso

 

 

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso

 

“Some artists are criticized, some artists are admired, but some artists are loved and they are the ones who are remembered.” -Amit Kalantri

 

“All art requires courage.” -Anne Tucker

 

“When inspiration doesn’t come, I go halfway to meet it.” -Freud

 

“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” -Oscar Wilde

 

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” -Edgar Degas

 

The Tub by Edgar Degas

 

"Design and color are not distinct and separate. As one paints, one draws. The more the colors harmonize, the more the design takes form. When color is at its richest, form is at its fullest." -Paul Cezanne

 

“The day is an empty canvas, the shapes and colors are yours to choose.” -Alex Noble

 

“I would like to paint the way a bird sings.” -Claude Monet

 

“Pictures must not be too picturesque.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

  

"When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, house, a field...Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naive impression of the scene before you." -Claude Monet

 

Poppies by Claude Monet

 

“An artist is like a prophet.  He must lead people and help them get acquainted with what he sees.” -George Butendorp

 

“Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.” -Balthus

 

"In painting, the most brilliant colors, spread at random and without design, will give far less pleasure than the simplest outline of a figure." -Aristotle

 

“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents” -Bob Ross

 

"The more minimal the art, the more maximum the explanation." -Hilton Kramer

 

“For over twenty years I have squeezed my professional art career between kids and loads of laundry, and magically I get painting done…but, art has to start in the head before it makes it to the canvas anyway. I do a lot of thinking first.” -Lori McNee

 

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” -Michelangelo

 

The Creation Of Adam Painting By Michelangelo

 

“Anyone who says you can’t see a thought simply doesn’t know art.” -Wynetka Ann Reynolds

 

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” -Émile Zola

 

“Great art picks up where nature ends.” -Marc Chagall

 

“What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.” -John Updike

 

"The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist." -Max Jacob

 

“Everything depends on the attitude of the artist toward his subject. It is essential.” -Robert Henri

 

"Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree." -Pablo Picasso

 

“Let your passion and talent drive your paintbrushes.” -Lori McNee

 

“An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he – for some reason – thinks it would be a good idea to give them.” -Andy Warhol

 

“Artists are fiery, they do not weep!” -Ludwig van Beethoven

“God and other artists are always a little obscure.” -Oscar Wilde

 

“The only time I am truly in-the-Now is when I paint.” -Lori McNee

 

"No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination." -Edward Hopper

 

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.” -Georgia O’Keeffe

 

“Man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money.” -Ernst Levy

 

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” -Pablo Picasso

 

“Creativity takes courage.” - Henri Matisse

 

Woman with a Hat by Henri Matisse

 

"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands." -Michelangelo

 

“I paint myself because I am alone. I paint myself because I am the subject I know best.” -Frida Kahlo

 

“I dream a lot. I do more painting when I’m not painting. It’s in the subconscious..” -Andrew Wyeth

“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who can’t attain it in anything.” -Eugene Delacroix

 

Liberty guides people through Eugène Delacroix

 

“The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?” -Pablo Picasso

“That stroke you are about to make on a painting is as much you as the next word you utter or the next breath you take.” -Harley Brown

 

"Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea." -John Anthony Ciardi

 

"The inner need is built up of three mystical elements: (1) Every artist, as a creator, has something in him which calls for expression (this is the element of personality). (2) Every artist, as child of his age, is impelled to express the spirit of his age (this is the element of style) -- dictated by the period and particular country to which the artist belongs (it is doubtful how long the latter distinction will continue to exist). (3) Every artist, as a servant of art, has to help the cause of art (this is the element of pure artistry, which is constant in all ages and among all nationalities). Only the third element -- that of pure artistry -- will remain for ever..." -Wassily Kandinsky

 

“An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it.” -Paul Valéry

 

“If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere.” -Vincent van Gogh

 

The starry night by Vincent Van Gogh

 

"Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic." -Ambrose Bierce

 

“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.” -Eckhart Tolle

 

“The artist does not see things as they are, but as he is.” -Alfred Tonnelle

 

"The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails." -James Joyce

 

“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” -George Bernard Shaw

 

“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.” -John Ruskin

 

"The artist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather the adapting of form to its inner meaning." -Wassily Kandinsky

 

“I dream my paintings, and then they paint my dream.” -Vincent Van Gogh

 

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." -Scott Adams

 

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do” -Edgar Degas

 

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.” -Leonard da Vinci

 

Bacchus by Leonardo da Vinci

 

Please feel free to add and share your own quotes in the comment section.  Thanks!

 

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