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“I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo — that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture — great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast — for luncheon — for dinner — for tea — for supper — for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 2, originally published in Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan (March 1927), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 28.
“Just now I'm painting a beautiful woman, smiling, burnt to a crisp, with feathers of all colors, held up by a small die of burning marble; the die is in turn held up by a little puff of smoke, churned and quite; in the sky there are asses with parrot-heads, grasses and beach sand, all about to explode, all clean, incredible objective..”
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in Dali's letter to his art-friend Lorca, 1927; as quoted in Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War, Robin Adèle Greeley, p. 67
“Begin by drawing and painting like the old masters. After that do as you see fit - you will always be respected.”
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'What is Pop Art? Answers from 8 Painters', Part 1, G. R. Swenson, in Art News 62 (November 1963)
“(You wouldn't believe the number of people who hang the electric chair painting in the homes, especially if the colour of the canvas matches the curtains.)”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Marie Deparis (2009), "Mounir Fatmi: Gardons Espoir / Keeping Faith" (bilingual exhibition notice, as a retranslation from the French "On n'imagine pas le nombre de personnes qui accrocheraient chez elles l…
“Mathematics, trigonometry, chemistry, psychoanalysis, music, and what not have been related to cubism to give it an easier interpretation. All this has been pure literature, not to say nonsense, which brought bad results, blinding people with theories. Cubism has kept itself within the limits and limitations of painting, never pretending to go beyond it.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have got to be able to picture side by side everything Matisse and I were doing at that time. No one has ever looked at Matisse's painting more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote by old Picasso (1960's); as quoted in 'Matisse & Picasso', Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2003, p 1
“I was thinking about Casagemas's death that started me painting in blue.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Pierre Daix, La Vie de Peintre de Pablo Picasso, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1977.
“To contradict. To show one eye full face and one in profile. Nature does many things the way I do, but she hides them! My painting is a series of non-sequiturs. ...”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in: Pierre Cabanne (1977), Pablo Picasso: His Life and Times, p. 268.
“I do not see why so much importance should be attached to the idea of 'research' in painting.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else. After all, what is a painter? He is a collector who gets what he likes in others by painting them himself. This is how I begin and then it becomes something else.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in: Ann Livermore (1988), Artists and Aesthetics in Spain. p. 154
“Friends are not primarily absorbed in each other. It is when we are doing things together that friendship springs up – painting, sailing ships, praying, philosophizing, fighting shoulder to shoulder. Friends look in the same direction. Lovers look at each other — that is, in opposite directions. To transfer bodily all that belongs to one relationship into the other is blundering.”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the big failures in human history has been the agelong attempt to stop women painting their faces.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As I Please," Tribune (28 April 1944)
“Poetry Fetter'd. Fetters the Human Race. Nations are Destroy'd, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry, Painting, and Music are Destroy'd or Flourish!”
William Blake (1757–1827) said by 1827 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man axalotl here below but I ask very little. Some fragments of Pamphylides, a Choctaw blood-mask, the prose of Scaliger the Elder, a painting by Fuseli, an occasional visit to the all-in wrestling, or to my meretrix; a cook who can produce a passable 'poulet à la Khmer,' a Pong vase. Simple tastes, you will agree, and it is my simple habit to indulge them!”
Cyril Connolly (1903–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a man has not studied painting, or at any rate black and white drawing, his eyes are wild; learning to draw tames them. The first step towards taming the eyes is to teach them not to see too much.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most artists, whether in religion, music, literature, painting, or what not, are shopkeepers in disguise. They hide their shop as much as they can, and keep pretending that it does not exist, but they are essentially shopkeepers and nothing else.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her likeness ! why it is a vain endeavour To image it. Painting or words may never Say what she was ; yet dwell I on the task, As if that Poesy had a right to ask From Memory its treasure.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1826 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (25th March 1826) Ianthe. A Portrait (under the pen name Iole)
“In this consists the difference between painting and poetry : the painter reproduces others, — the poet reproduces himself.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, may truly be called the efflorescence of civilised life.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a great difference between painting a face and not washing it.”
Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) said by 1661 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or said it in a book, another in a painting.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I said to Mauve: Do you approve of my coming here for a month or so and troubling you for some advice now and then, after that time I will have over come the first 'petites miseres' of painting.. .Well, Mauve at once set me down before a still life of a pair of old wooden shoes and some other objects, and so I could set to work.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in December 1881; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, p. 29 (letter 162)
“The Dupré's [pictures] are superb and there's a Daubigny.. ..that I couldn't get enough of. The same goes for a small Corot [probably Corot's painting 'Pond at Ville-d'Avray',] a stretch of water and the edge of a wood on a summer morning about 4 o'clock. A single small pink cloud indicates that the sun will come up in a while. A stillness and calm and peace that enchants one.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In his letter to Theo, from The Hague, 15/16 July 1882 - original manuscript of letter no. 246 - at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. b237 a-b V/1962,
“My intention is to make in Drenthe so much progress in painting that when I come back I may be qualified for the 'Society of Draughtsmen' [a group of London illustrators]. This stands again in connection with the second plan of going to England [to become an illustrator].”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands, Summer 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 319) p. 21
“I am busy painting every day studies of the weavers here, which I think are technically better than the painted studies from Drenthe, which I sent you.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Letter 355, from Nuenen The Netherlands, January 1884; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, page: Catalog: Dutch Period 2. - Weaver
“Here's what I wanted to say about the white and the black [tones]. Let's take 'The Sower'. The painting is divided into two; one half is yellow, the top; the bottom is violet. Well, the white trousers [Van Gogh darked them later!] rest the eye and distract it just when the excessive simultaneous contrast of yellow and violet would annoy it. That's what I wanted to say.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to , c. 19 June 1888; letter 628, van Goghmuseum
“More and more it seems to me that the pictures which must be painted to make present-day painting completely itself... are beyond the power of one isolated individual. They will therefore probably be created by groups of men combining together to execute an idea held in common.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (June, 1888) in Letters to Émile Bernard (1938) New York. See also John Rewald, History of Impressionism (1946) p. 402.
“My dear Brother, - I am working like one actually possessed, more than ever I am in a dumb fury of work.. .Perhaps something will happen to me like what Eug. Delacroix spoke of, "I discovered painting when I had no longer teeth or breath." What I dream of in my best moments is not so much of striking color effects as once more the half tones.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sept. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, p. 33 (letter 604)
“Under his [ Marc Chagall ] sole impulse metaphor made its triumphal entry into modern painting.”
André Breton (1896–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from Chagall – a biography, Jackie Wullschlagger, Knopf, Publisher, New York 2008, text from inside-cover
“Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.”
Truman Capote (1924–1984) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a 1957 interview
“The intention is to tell a story, to create a sonic world for us, a sonic painting, for us to walk into, without having to see her. She's transcending that. She's choosing to transcend that. And that's a very powerful thing to do.”
Tori Amos (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I got my first paycheck, $5'000 or something. I bought a Leger and I bought a Frida Kahlo self-portrait, but I don't know which came first. But I remember buying it and I had just gotten married and it looked completely out of place in my house in Malibu." (When asked what was the first painting she bought).”
Madonna (entertainer) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Aperture Magazine 1999
“Painting embraces and contains within itself all the things which nature produces or which results from the fortuitous actions of men... he is but a poor master who makes only a single figure well.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idea [for his painting 'Room in New York', he painted in 1932] had been in my mind a long time before I painted it. It was suggested by glimpses of lighted interiors seen as I walked along city streets at night, probably near the district where I live [Washington Square, New York] although it’s no particular street or house, but is really a synthesis of many impressions.”
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in 'Such a Life', 'Life', 102; August 1935, p. 48
“My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impressions of nature.”
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If this end is unattainable, so, it can be said, is perfection in any other ideal of painting or in any other of man's activities.”
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The technical obstacles of painting perhaps dictate this form. It derives also from the limitations of personality, and such may be the simplifications that I have attempted.”
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wish I could paint more.. .I do dozens of sketches for oils.. ..if I do one that interests me I go on to make a painting but that happens only two or three times a year.”
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in 'Travelling Man', Time January 1948
“I am after ME [his response on the question what he was after, in his sober painting in 1963 'Sun in an empty room'.”
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: 'Portrait: Edward Hopper', Brian O'Doherty, 'Art in America', 1952 (December 1964), p. 79
“Just to paint a representation or design is not hard, but to express a thought in painting is. Thought is fluid. What you put on canvas is concrete, and it tends to direct the thought. The more you punt on canvas the more you lose control of the thought. I’ve never been able to paint what I set out to paint.”
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Three Hundred Years of American Painting, Alexander Eliot; New York: Time Inc., 1957, p. 298
“The Prelude to Tristan and Isolde reminds me of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel.”
Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.”
Denis Diderot (1713–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 3, as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker
“With this painting, I tried to make everything breathe faith, quiet suffering, religious and primitive style and great nature with its scream.”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in a letter to Theo van Gogh (1889-11-20)
“freely and madly; you will make progress.. .Above all, don't sweat over a painting; a great sentiment can be rendered immediately..”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love Brittany; I find wildness and primitiveness there. When my wooden shoes ring on this granite, I hear the muffled, dull, and powerful tone which I try to achieve in painting.”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 109: in a letter to a friend, c. 1886
“[In] painting...all sensations are condensed, everyone...with a single glance [has] his soul invaded by the most profound recollections...everything is summed up in one instant. Like music, it acts on the soul through the intermediary of the senses: harmonious colors correspond to the harmonies of sound.”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Gauguin's unfinished essay 'Notes Synthetiques', published in the July / September 1910 issue of ' Vers et Prose' XXII, pp. 51-55, as cited in: Shannon N. Pritchard, Gino Severini and the symbolist aesthetics…
“No one wants my painting because it is different from other people's — peculiar, crazy public that demands the greatest possible degree of originality on the painter's part and yet won't accept him unless his work resembles that of the others!”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 205: in a letter to Ambroise Vollard, January 1900
“Genius is the aptitude for seeing invisible things, for stirring intangible things, for painting things that have no features.”
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source