Inspiring Art Quotes

If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.

Edward Hopper

Art, Creative, Would Be

Ray Spangenburg, Kit Moser, Edward Hopper, Diane Moser (2002). “Edward Hopper: The Life of an Artist”, Enslow Pub Incorporated

56 Copy quote

Show source
Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

Vincent Van Gogh

Love, Life, Strength

Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.110, Simon and Schuster

45 Copy quote

Show source
To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.

Robert Schumann

Inspiring, Art, Men

70 Copy quote
A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

Michelangelo

Art, Pain, Inspiration

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1913). “Michelangelo: A Record of His Life as Told in His Own Letters and Papers”

127 Copy quote

Show source
In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art, Hands, Imagine

37 Copy quote
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.

Robert Hughes

Artist, Doubt, Inspirational Art

20 Copy quote
The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

Pablo Picasso

Music, Art, World

50 Copy quote
Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

Edgar Degas

Art, Experience, Painting

62 Copy quote
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Pablo Picasso

Life, Art, Expression

67 Copy quote
It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

Pablo Picasso

Art, Children, Years

"The Drum Perspective". Book by Peter Erskine and ‎Rick Mattingly (p. 73), 1998.

17 Copy quote

Show source
To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspirational, Courage, Art

89 Copy quote
The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

Willa Cather

Life, Beautiful, Truth

Willa Cather (2012). “The Song of the Lark”, p.305, Courier Corporation

36 Copy quote

Show source
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Aristotle

Art, Philosophy, Philosophical

194 Copy quote
Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.

Stella Adler

Life, Music, Crush

Stella Adler (2012). “Stella Adler on America's Master Playwrights: Eugene O'Neill, Thornton Wilder, Clifford Odets, William Saroyan, Tennessee Williams, William Inge, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee”, p.11, Vintage

106 Copy quote

Show source
The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

Pablo Picasso

Life, Beautiful, Art

Elizabeth Cowling, Pablo Picasso (2002). “Picasso: style and meaning”, Phaidon Press

51 Copy quote

Show source
Desire is not what you see, but what you imagine.

Paulo Coelho

Life, Art, Inspiration

14 Copy quote
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Henry David Thoreau

Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.87, BookBaby

268 Copy quote

Show source
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Henry David Thoreau

Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.208, Xist Publishing

58 Copy quote

Show source
An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

James Whistler

Tattoo, Art, Creativity

58 Copy quote
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

Oscar Wilde

Music, Art, Creative

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1043, GENERAL PRESS

88 Copy quote

Show source
Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

Leonardo da Vinci

Art, Creativity, Drawing

49 Copy quote
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

Dorothea Lange

Inspirational, Photography, Creativity

Dorothea Lange, Robert Coles (1982). “Photographs of a Lifetime”

68 Copy quote

Show source
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something.

Steve Jobs

Creativity, Artist, Obvious Things

Steve Jobs (0101). “Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs”, p.35, Prabhat Prakashan

75 Copy quote

Show source
An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.

Charles Horton Cooley

Art, Failure, Creative

48 Copy quote
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Pablo Picasso

Life, Motivational, Music

"LIFE", Vol. 57, nr. 11, (p. 9), September 11, 1964.

147 Copy quote

Show source