How to Read Paintings Quotes

“Magritte presents ordinary objects in impossible contexts. He challenges us to consider our place in relation to the world: our own humanity.”
― Liz Rideal, How to Read Paintings

“Oscar Wilde suggested that every portrait painted with feeling is of the artist not the sitter. The artist reveals himself through the coloured canvas. The self-portrait is therefore a consultation of what the artist wishes to say about their art, a physical rendering that aims to included a psychoanalytical evaluation. It may offer and insight into the essence of their creative unconscious, their ambitions and desires. Yet the act of painting a self portrait is also implicitly about death.”
― Liz Rideal, How to Read Paintings

“The word 'composition' applies to music, too, and it can be useful to think about how art is created in relation to music when trying to analyse it.”
― Liz Rideal, How to Read Paintings

“Art is a visual language, not one of words, and so conclusions about artworks based on verbal or written communication are parallel but not a true equivalent.”
― Liz Rideal, How to Read Paintings