"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

"If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"On and on they flew, over the countryside parceled out in patches of green and brown, over roads and rivers winding through the landscapes like strips of matte and glossy ribbon."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

"If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint."
— Edward Hopper

"The only time i feel alive is when I'm painting."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"The way to know life is to love many things."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"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 (The Painted Veil)

"I believe that art has a kind of rightness, as in music, when we hear whether or not a note is false"
— Gerhard Richter

"If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing."
— Marc Chagall (Marc Chagall et les fables de La Fontaine: Musee du pays de Sarrebourg, 15 mai-15 juillet 1992)

""The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.""
— William Dobell

"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 L'Engle (Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art)

"Finally, when someone asked [Pollack] how he knew when a painting was finished, he replied, “How do you know when you’ve finished making love?”"
— Ross Wetzsteon (Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910-1960)

"I'm painting color squares. One
square - one color. That's what I paint."
— Nigel Tomm

"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 commonplace
or probing authoritatively the unknown.
::: Brett Whiteley :::"
— Brett Whiteley

"The reason for doing it is the desire to create. I've got to do it!


"
— Otto Dix (Otto Dix. Aquarelle.)

"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"
— Isak Dinesen

"The painting has a life of its own"
— Jackson Pollock

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. "
— William Shakespeare

"Inspiration is a byproduct of discipline... simply getting up everyday and planning, plotting, sketching, setting up or actually applying paint to a painting. "
— Beverly Claridge

"Que hablen de uno, aunque sea bien"
— Salvador Dalí

"Without atmosphere a painting is nothing."
— Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn

"Hans then asked him about painting from nature; Jackson...bluntly offered a phrase that entered Village lore, “I am nature.”"
— Ross Wetzsteon (Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910-1960)

"[I]t was [Barnett] Newman who made the famously wry remark, “Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds,”"
— Ross Wetzsteon (Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910-1960)

"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