100 Quotes About Painting

Although it’s been a while since you painted, you can still enjoy the wonderful memories by adding these painting quotes to your collection. Being creative is a great way to express yourself and gain inspiration from others. There’s no better way to learn about painting or any other creative endeavor than to explore the work of others. We have the best quotes that will inspire you to continue your own artistic endeavors.

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I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. W. Somerset Maugham
I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own...
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I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality. Frida Kahlo
A photograph shouldn't be just a picture, it should be...
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A photograph shouldn't be just a picture, it should be a philosophy. Amit Kalantri
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ARTThe world is full of confusion and contradiction. We cannot expect to do anything that is absolutely right. We can only measure rightness by the truth within ourselves. And our own truth will never be quite the same as somebody else's. I wish that I could touch you and be sure that it was the right thing to do. I only want to touch you briefly. Just once so that you will know. We are flesh and blood and full of faults. But we are also full of warmth. The world is full of confusion but there is compassion in its midst. communication via simple touch can transmit so much of us in just one minute. Like a painting or a piece of music. I want to touch your soul. I only wish I could be sure it was the right thing to do. Jay Woodman
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Such is my relationship with God: on my gigantic canvass of life, I am the one throwing all of the brightly-colored paints, creating genuine splatters, authentic whirlpools of color, beautiful patterns, wonderful streaks and stains and wild accents; God is the one with the paintbrush who stands beside my canvass filling all the intricate and amazing details in between the whirlpools and the streaks! We're happy together! . C. Joybell C.
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Dr Sass…maintained that in paradise, until the time of the fall, the whole world was flat, the back-curtain of the Lord, and that it was the devil who invented a third dimension. Thus are the words ‘straight’, ‘square’, and ‘flat’ the words of noblemen, but the apple was an orb, and the sin of our first parents, the attempt at getting around God. I myself much prefer the art of painting to sculpture . Karen Blixen
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Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives. Ally Condie
Our body is a sacred temple A place to connect...
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Our body is a sacred temple A place to connect with people. As we aren't staying any younger We might as well keep it stronger. Ana Claudia Antunes
We may not stay quick, If we are weak or...
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We may not stay quick, If we are weak or sage, but a lot can squeak As we start to age. Ana Claudia Antunes
I became an artist because I wanted to be an...
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I became an artist because I wanted to be an active participant in the conversation about art. Kamand Kojouri
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A painting is a universal language which everyone can read, understand, and interpret in his own way through the power of imagination. Debasish Mridha
You might as well ask an artist to explain his...
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You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search. Rick Riordan
Little deer, I've stuffed all the world's diseases inside you....
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Little deer, I've stuffed all the world's diseases inside you. / Your veins are thorns // and the good cells are lost in the deep dark woods / of your organs. Pascale Petit
When I write, I disturb. When I show a film,...
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When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don't. I have a knack for disturbing. Jean Cocteau
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Writing, music, sculpting, painting, and prayer! These are the three things that are most closely related! Writers, musicians, sculptors, painters, and the faithful are the ones who make things out of nothing. Everybody else, they make things out of something, they have materials! But a written work can be done with nothing, it can begin in the soul! A musical piece begins with a harmony in the soul, a sculpture begins with a formless, useless piece of rock chiseled and formed and molded into the thing that was first conceived in the sculptor's heart! A painting can be carried inside the mind for a lifetime, before ever being put onto paper or canvass! And a prayer! A prayer is a thought, a remembrance, a whisper, a communion, that is from the soul going to what cannot be seen, yet it can move mountains! And so I believe that these five things are interrelated, these five kinds of people are kin. C. Joybell C.
The key to understanding any people is in its art:...
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The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture. Louis LAmour
The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write,...
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The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness. Madeleine LEngle
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How do you even know I'm someone you'll want to remember? We've only seen each other once before.'( Amber)' Have you ever looked at a painting and known you had something in common with it? Have you ever seen something so beautiful you feel like crying? When I see you, I feel that way. I feel like the deepest part of me understands something vital about you.'( Virgil Daly) Christina Westover
Literature is painting, architecture, and music.
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Literature is painting, architecture, and music. Yevgeny Zamyatin
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It's often about the simple things, isn't it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult. Linda Olsson
I dream my painting and I paint my dream.
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I dream my painting and I paint my dream. Vincent Van Gogh
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She preferred the quiet solitary atmosphere, to create in her own world of paint and colour, the thrill of anticipating how her works would turn out as she eyed the blank sheets of paper or canvas before starting her next masterpiece. How satisfying it was to mess around in paint gear, without having to worry about spills, starch or frills, that was the life! E.a. Bucchianeri
It has been my personal experience that as I allow...
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It has been my personal experience that as I allow the painting to speak I become lost, it is delicious and at the same time frightening. The best ones, to me, have a life of their own. Luther E. Vann
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My great longing is to learn to make those very incorrectnesses, those deviations, remodellings, changes of reality, so that they may become, yes, untruth if you like - but more true than the literal truth. Vincent Van Gogh
I lacked the knowledge of linear perspective needed to get...
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I lacked the knowledge of linear perspective needed to get into the art school, so now I whitewash walls and imagine I’m heaven’s landscape painter. Bauvard
The ones who constantly make us laugh are the hardest...
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The ones who constantly make us laugh are the hardest of friends to know - for comedians are the caricatures among us. Criss Jami
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In my experiences, the common critic of Christianity, when he thinks of Christianity, imagines a sort of elementary, Sunday School blunder of elements: fiery Hell, an angry God, 'try not to sin', 'be good so that you can go to Heaven', absurd miracles, hyper-fundamentalist tales, religious hypocrites, and Jesus telling people not to judge. There is no horse more dead than such. I maintain that understanding Christianity and the Bible is quite like painting a piece of art. Let a toddler paint a puppy; then let an adult who is a long-time painter paint the very same puppy. They are both paintings of the puppy, but one is far more detailed, rational, realistic, and believable than the other. One is distorted and comical; the other is proportional and lively. One can write off Theology if he so pleases, but he might not be very wise in using the toddler's painting when it comes time to identify the real puppy or when trying to confront actual men of the Faith. . Criss Jami
I want to create, not kill.
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I want to create, not kill. Susanne Dunlap
Stop looking at the walls, look out the window.
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Stop looking at the walls, look out the window. Karl Pilkington
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The men worked hard and faithfully. As a rule, in spite of the number of rough characters among them, they behaved very well. One night a few of them went on a spree, and proceeded "to paint San Antonio red." One was captured by the city authorities, and we had to leave him behind us in jail. The others we dealt with ourselves, in a way that prevented a repetition of the occurrence. Theodore Roosevelt
You can’t colour your world with someone’s paint.
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You can’t colour your world with someone’s paint. Israelmore Ayivor
I find him in the curves of certain lines, in...
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I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. Oscar Wilde
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There is something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that is so simple and breathtakingly pure. It’s the paint that changes its meaning and the hand that creates the story. Every piece begins the same, but in the end they are all uniquely different. Piper Payne
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Both you and paintings are layered… first, ephemera and notations on the back of the canvas. Labels indicate gallery shows, museum shows, footprints in the snow, so to speak. Then pencil scribbles on the stretcher, usually by the artist, usually a title or date. Next the stretcher itself. Pine or something. Wooden triangles in the corners so the picture can be tapped tighter when the canvas becomes loose. Nails in the wood securing the picture to the stretcher. Next, a canvas: linen, muslin, sometimes a panel; then the gesso - a primary coat, always white. A layer of underpaint, usually a pastel color, then, the miracle, where the secrets are: the paint itself, swished around, roughly, gently, layer on layer, thick or thin, not more than a quarter of an inch ever -- God can happen in that quarter of an inch -- the occasional brush hair left embedded, colors mixed over each other, tones showing through, sometimes the weave of the linen revealing itself. The signature on top of the entire goulash. Then varnish is swabbed over the whole. Finally, the frame, translucent gilt or carved wood. The whole thing is done. . Steve Martin
Painting reflects. It kills you in a colourful shower of...
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Painting reflects. It kills you in a colourful shower of emptiness. Flatness. Randomness. And beauty. Yes, it is the most pure beauty I have ever felt in my life. Nigel Tomm
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places...
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Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. Camille Pissarro
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Love, reverence, and adoration, are multifaceted emotions. Similar to a painting by an artist, how we respond to a beautiful woman, nature, and the world that we encounter reveals the spectator and not life. Kilroy J. Oldster
They ran to the museums for paintings. I ran to...
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They ran to the museums for paintings. I ran to the roof for sunsets Darnell Lamont Walker
Listen to the sunset...see its pretty hue... When you see...
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Listen to the sunset...see its pretty hue... When you see it, think of me...and I'll think of you... Oksana Rus
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In my heaven sweet melodies of the skies ripple pool of the sea playing sweet song to me, sharing tales of the past, blending with mine as mirage, painting new... I breathe in, am in love and alive... Oksana Rus
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To become a leader, renovate your mind with painting of peace and roof your heart with ceiling of love. No love, no leader! Israelmore Ayivor
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Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. Oscar Wilde
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A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place. Robert McKee
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If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint. Edward Hopper
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All real works of art look as though they were done in joy. Robert Henri
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Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things. Pablo Picasso
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For all the pain you suffered, my mama. For all the torment of your past and future years, my mama. For all the anguish this picture of pain will cause you. For the unspeakable mystery that brings good fathers and sons into the world and lets a mother watch them tear at each other’s throats. For the Master of the Universe, whose suffering world I do not comprehend. For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting–an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment. Chaim Potok
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To draw something is to try to capture it FOREVER, if you really love something, you never try to keep it the way it is forever. You have to let it be free to change Cassandra Clare
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Without atmosphere a painting is nothing. Rembrandt
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I'm often painted as the bad guy, and the artistic part of me wants to hand out the brush. Criss Jami
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The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard. Leonardo Da Vinci
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I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet. O. Henry
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I love to draw–pencil, ink pen– I love art. When I go on tour and visit museums in Holland, Germany or England–you know those huge paintings?– I’m just amazed. You don’t think a painter could do something like that. I can look at a piece of sculpture or a painting and totally lose myself in it. Michael James Jackson
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When you want to make the main color pure and bright, don't just keep adding bright colors on it. Just make the colors around the spot darker and dull. It will give the scene dramatical effects. I think the life is the same. Hiroko Sakai
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You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject. Henri Matisse
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If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens. Grandma Moses
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The figure in the icon is not meant to represent literally what Peter or John or any of the apostles looked like, or what Mary looked like, nor the child, Jesus. But, the orthodox painter feels, Jesus of Nazareth did not walk around Galilee faceless. The icon of Jesus may not look like the man Jesus two thousand years ago, but it represents some *quality* of Jesus, or his mother, or his followers, and so becomes an open window through which we can be given a new glimpse of the love of God. Madeleine LEngle
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There is something particularly fascinating about seeing places you know in a piece of art - be that in a film, or a photograph, or a painting. Sara Sheridan
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I intend to destroy, destroy everything that exists in painting. I have utter contempt for painting. Juan Miro
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Like the sundial, my paint box counts no hours but sunny ones. Arthur Rackham
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Boomer had asked her once, in a telephone call from Virginia, “Why does this stuff, these hand-painted hallucinations that don’t do nothin’ but confuse the puddin’ out of a perfectly reasonable wall, why does it mean so much to you?” It was a poor connection, but he could have sworn he heard her say, “In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak. Tom Robbins
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You were born an original work of art. Stay original. Suzy Kassem
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SELF PORTRAIT: Throwing Armfuls of Air into the Air Jandy Nelson
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Great paintings–people flock to see them, they draw crowds, they’re reproduced endlessly on coffee mugs and mouse pads and anything-you-like. And, I count myself in the following, you can have a lifetime of perfectly sincere museum-going where you traipse around enjoying everything and then go out and have some lunch. But if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don’t think, ‘oh, I love this picture because it’s universal.’ ‘I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.’ That’s not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you. An individual heart-shock. Your dream, Welty’s dream, Vermeer’s dream. You see one painting, I see another, the art book puts it at another remove still, the lady buying the greeting card at the museum gift shop sees something else entire, and that’s not even to mention the people separated from us by time–four hundred years before us, four hundred years after we’re gone–it’ll never strike anybody the same way and the great majority of people it’ll never strike in any deep way at all but–a really great painting is fluid enough to work its way into the mind and heart through all kinds of different angles, in ways that are unique and very particular. Yours, yours. I was painted for you. And–oh, I don’t know, stop me if I’m rambling… but Welty himself used to talk about fateful objects. Every dealer and antiquaire recognizes them. The pieces that occur and recur. Maybe for someone else, not a dealer, it wouldn’t be an object. It’d be a city, a color, a time of day. The nail where your fate is liable to catch and snag. Donna Tartt
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I haven't the slightest idea what art is, but to be a painter is something of which you have to prove. Wayne Thiebaud
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The painting has a life of its own Jackson Pollock
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Drawing is the art of being able to leave an accurate record of the experience of what one isn't, of what one doesn't know. A great drawer is either confirming beautifully what is commonplaceor probing authoritatively the unknown.::: Brett Whiteley ::: Brett Whiteley
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[I]t was [Barnett] Newman who made the famously wry remark, “Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds, Ross Wetzsteon
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Artist communities love to bullshit each other and glad-hand one another, and there's no room for the crippling honesty of comedy." I'm a painter" -- well.. you don't..probably need to do that.. if you're painting something that doesn't exist, I understand that, I can appreciate- . . but if your pain- 'oh, it's a barnyard scene in autumn'--well then just take a picture of a barn in autumn! It's way better than a painting! - Before Turning the Gun on Himself [2012] . Doug Stanhope
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And I see that his brown eye has a splash of green in it and the green one a splash of brown. Like Cezanne painted them. Impressionist eyes. Jandy Nelson
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Nor that he's regarding my face with the same intensity I am his. We're two paintings staring at each other across a room. Jandy Nelson
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As a student I thought there was a formula of some kind that I would get hold of somewhere, and thereby become and artist. There is a formula, but it has not been in books. It is really plain old courage, standing on one's own feet, and forever seeking enlightenment; courage to develop your way, but learning from the other fellow; experimentation with your own ideas, observing for yourself, a rigid discipline of doing over that which you can improve. Andrew Loomis
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My eyes roved over the walls covered with my collages and prints of famous paintings. Magritte, Kandinsky, Kahlo. My origami shapes hung from fishing wire, dangling over my bed. They shivered in the slight breeze blowing through my open window. It was my own little escape pod, but none of it was enough tonight. Heather Demetrios
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Pablo Picasso was notorious for sucking the energy out of the people he met. His granddaughter Marina claimed that he squeezed people like one of his tubes of oil paints. You's have a great time hanging out all day with Picasso, and then you's go home nervous and exhausted, and Picasso would go back to his studio and paint all night, using the energy he'd sucked out of you. Austin Kleon
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I look up at the painting. It's not even that interesting. Definitely doesn't grab me and shake my brain around like the meadow scene did. Stefan Bachmann
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Painting is mute poetry, and poetry is blind painting Leonardo Da Vinci
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To paint is to love again, live again, see again. To get up at the crack of dawn in order to take a peek at the water colors one did the day before, or even a few hours before, is like stealing a look at the beloved while she sleeps. The thrill is even greater if one has first to draw back the curtains. How they glow in the cold light of early dawn! … Is there any writer who rouses himself at daybreak in order to read the pages of his manuscript? Perish the thought!. Henry Miller
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One of the most beautiful things to do is to paint darkness, which nevertheless has light in it. Vincent Van Gogh
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Art is a distinct form of human communication. Art interprets experience, sensation, and feelings. An artistic work translates our mental images and allows other people to understand what we feel; art conveys our happiness, sadness, hopes, doubts, anxieties, fears, desires, and ineffable longings. Kilroy J. Oldster
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Age in itself gives substance – what has lasted becomes a thing worth keeping. An older poem's increasing strangeness of language is part of its beauty, in the same way that the cracks and darkening of an old painting become part of its luminosity in the viewer’s mind. Jane Hirshfield
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If you construct a room in paint, you haunt it. Your life rests in every stroke. So paint only the rooms that you can bear to occupy forever. Or paint the stars instead. Benjamin Wood
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A painting is worth a thousand confused art-gallery visitors. Ljupka Cvetanova
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As I said before, I took to miniature painting without a completely whole heart, on the advice of my elders and betters. Generally speaking, I do not think that one should ever take another person's advice in the things of life that really matter, but follow the dictates of the still small something in one's innermost self. But 'they' advised, and I bowed to the advice; and in this particular instance it was a good thing I did, because the advice turned out to be so resoundingly wrong that it turned me into another direction altogether. If I had gone on working in oils I might very well have been a dedicated but unsuccessful painter to this day. . Rosemary Sutcliff
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I barely registered moving into the long gallery, one hand absentmindedly wrapping around my throat as I looked up at the paintings. So many, so different, yet all arranged to flow together seamlessly.. Such different views and snippets and angles of the world. Pastorals, portraits, still lifes . . each a story and an experience, each a voice shouting or whispering or singing about what that moment, that feeling, had been like, each a cry into the void of time that they had been here, had existed. Some had been painted through eyes like mine, artists who saw in colors and shapes I understood. Some showcased colors I had not considered; these had a bend to the world that told me a different set of eyes had painted them. A portal into the mind of a creature so unlike me, and yet . and yet I looked at its work and understood, and felt, and cared. Sarah J. Maas
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She was a poem and a painting too. Everything she said sounded like a song, every silence was the music too. Akshay Vasu
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When she started with the first empty canvas, she didn’t know what she was going to paint, she just let her paint brushes glide and they religiously followed the trajectory of her angst; the choice of colours and the strokes, they were all a reflection of what was going through her mind. The reds were the embers within her that refused to die. The blues were the rare instances when she was spent by her grief. The blacks were her moments of absolute weakness, the colour of the bottomless pit within her that she had plunged into, falling through and through. The brush strokes moved around blank canvases like snakes with fangs of elixir that filled her scars with a deluge of hope and a gale of faith in herself. The colours spoke to her in whispers, narrating their own tale while she poured out hers to them. They allowed her to channel her life through them. They listened. They cared. They laughed. They cried. They reassured her that there was life waiting ahead, staring at her past, urging her forward with eager arms. And Preeti rushed into them with her brush in hand that rose along with her and fell along with her. . Faraaz Kazi
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... she wore a masterpiece smile with smudges of paint and graphite across her cheek, and her eyes were a Jackson Pollock painting. Ellie Lieberman
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… I studied the painting that hangs over the small fireplace. Immerse myself in art, I told myself. Immerse myself in the conversation of those strollers, people who seem to move about more comfortably in their early-evening twilight than I do, people of maybe sixty years ago. Diane B. Saxton
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Everything is art and it's part of the painting. (To talk with somebody it's art, to understand a language is art, to understand a book is art, to understand somebody is art...) Deyth Banger
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I could either succumb to the nightmares I’ve raised or paint them. Thomm Quackenbush
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But Hannah's friend didn’t understand the volatile balancing act between art and sanity, that the act of creation was like walking a tightrope during an earthquake. She didn’t understand Hannah’s stupid need for validation, or that the size of the audience increased the stakes and multiplied the fear. She didn’t understand that creativity was dangerous, that, yes, there were some people who could stand before a canvas, paint a sunset that would bring the world to its knees, and return to their loved ones as a complete person who didn’t hurt, didn’t cry, didn’t spill blood to appease the host of fickle muses. But Hannah did. Hannah’s best ideas–sometimes her only ideas–were buried beneath the skin. Jake VanderArk
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In time, all great masterpieces turn into shameless creatures who laugh at their creators. Erol Ozan
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We need to insist on making culture out of our desire: making paintings, novels, plays and films potent and seductive and authentic enough to undermine and overwhelm the Iron Maiden. Naomi Wolf
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You are the Poem I dreamed of writing, the Masterpiece I longed to paint. You are the shining Star I reached for in my ever hopeful quest for life fulfilled. Yes, I am Blessed. Oksana Rus
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It's like a nesting doll of imagination! It's like a painting of a painting! It's like the wind catching a chill from the wind, or a wave taking a dip in the ocean. It's like reading a novel that merely describes another novel. It's like music tapping its foot to a tune and saying 'Oh! I love this song! Michelle Cuevas
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The paint is drying, and time is dying. The pain is crying, lying on my back, trying to get back the time, to brushstrokes too fast, wet went dry and love went dull; now I live in a portrait I never painted. Anthony Liccione
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The SleepingI have imagined all this: In 1940 my parents were in love And living in the loft on West 10thAbove Mark Rothko who painted cabbage roses On their bedroom walls the night they got married. I can guess why he did it. My mother’s hair was the color of yellow apples And she wore a velvet hat with her pajamas. I was not born yet. I was remote as starlight. It is hard for me to imagine that My parents made love in a roomful of roses And I wasn’t there. But now I am. My mother is blushing. This is the wonderful thing about art. It can bring back the dead. It can wake the sleeping As it might have late that night When my father and mother made love above RothkoWho lay in the dark thinking Roses, Roses, Roses. Lynn Emanuel
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Who are you, Martin Eden? he demanded of himself in the looking- glass, that night when he got back to his room. He gazed at himself long and curiously. Who are you? What are you? Where do you belong? You belong by rights to girls like Lizzie Connolly. You belong with the legions of toil, with all that is low, and vulgar, and unbeautiful. You belong with the oxen and the drudges, in dirty surroundings among smells and stenches. There are the stale vegetables now. Those potatoes are rotting. Smell them, damn you, smell them. And yet you dare to open the books, to listen to beautiful music, to learn to love beautiful paintings, to speak good English, to think thoughts that none of your own kind thinks, to tear yourself away from the oxen and the Lizzie Connollys and to love a pale spirit of a woman who is a million miles beyond you and who lives in the stars! Who are you? and what are you? damn you! And are you going to make good? . Jack London
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Inspiration surrounds us, the creation is our responsibility as artists.- Lyn Crain Lyn Crain