River > River's Quotes

“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.”
― Vincent Willem van Gogh

“The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.”
― Vincent Willem van Gogh

“All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.”
― Robert Henri

“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

“The painter is not simply someone who looks and who sees. Above all, the artist is someone who exposes a personal vision by rendering it visible. The painter shows or allows the seeing of "something" that without him, without his intervention, would not be seen. He manifests through his work a possibility of seeing that would otherwise remain latent. In other words, painting is an art that reveals or unveils the world from an angle that the world itself does not present to us. Painting creates. It does not limit itself to imitation or reproduction. Any desire to confine painting within the limits of déjà vu would be a gross misunderstanding of the essence of what painting is. Painting allows us to see that which without it would never be seen.”
― Marcel Paquet, Botero: Philosophy of the creative act

“A painted surface is a real, living form.”
― Kazimir Severinovich Malevich

“I haven't the slightest idea what art is, but to be a painter is something of which you have to prove.”
― Wayne Thiebaud

“I paint the spirit and soul of what I see.”
― Brian Froud

“Painting is marvelous; it makes you happier and more patient. Afterwards you do not have black fingers as with writing, but blue and red ones.”
― Hermann Hesse

“You see, for me a painting is a dramatic action in the course of which the reality finds itself split apart. For me, that dramatic action takes precedence over all other considerations. The pure plastic act is only secondary as far as I'm concerned. What counts is the drama of that plastic art, the moment at which the universe comes out of itself and meets its own destruction.”
― Francoise Gilot, Life With Picasso

“I hear the question upon your lips: What is it to be a colour?

Colour is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness. Because I’ve listened to souls whispering – like the susurrus of the wind – from book to book and object to object for tens or thousands of years, allow me to say that my touch resembles the touch of angels. Part of me, the serious half, calls out to your vision while the mirthful half sours through the air with your glances.

I’m so fortunate to be red! I’m fiery. I’m strong. I know men take notice of me and that I cannot be resisted.

I do not conceal myself: For me, delicacy manifests itself neither in weakness nor in subtlety, but through determination and will. So, I draw attention to myself. I’m not afraid of other colours, shadows, crowds or even of loneliness. How wonderful it is to cover a surface that awaits me with my own victorious being! Wherever I’m spread, I see eyes shine, passions increase, eyebrows rise and heartbeats quicken. Behold how wonderful it is to live! Behold how wonderful to see. I am everywhere. Life begins with and returns to me. Have faith in what I tell you.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

“Painting is a great outlet for those inner emotions you cannot get out any other way.”
― Carol Brearley

“A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people”
― Edgar Degas

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

“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”
― Pablo Picasso

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

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
― Edgar Degas

“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”
― Oscar Wilde

“If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Art is the proper task of life. ”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.”
― Pablo Picasso