Inspiring Quotes About Art and Being an Artist

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.

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

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.

A picture is a poem without words.

Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.

We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.

It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.

To create, one must first question everything.

I must have flowers, always, and always.

I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.

Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.

To be an artist, you need to exist in a world of silence.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity.

I wanted to start a revolution, using art to build the sort of society I myself envisioned.

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.

I shut my eyes in order to see.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Tell your own story, and you will be interesting.

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time.

Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.

Contrary to general belief, an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs.

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

History develops, art stands still.

Nature is the art of God.

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

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

I feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply.

Nothing is art if it does not come from nature.

Art is what you can get away with.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

Great art can only be created out of love.

All art is a kind of confession.

I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that's the job of art.

Every piece of art is a mirror and serves the function of reflectivity to expose to you and reveal to you more of who you are.

I've learned that I'm most powerful when I'm doing my art.

Building art is a synthesis of life in materialised form. We should try to bring in under the same hat not a splintered way of thinking, but all in harmony together.

Of late years (perhaps as a result of our political changes) art has borrowed from history more than ever.

As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.

If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if one is idle.

Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life.

The value of art is in the observer.

The R.O.I. from funding public art is $infinity.

You can't rush an art form.

Freedom is the soul of art.

Art is the child of Nature.

Art is a form of catharsis.

Art is born in attention.

A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.

True artists scorn nothing.

Art is a jealous mistress.

Art is a way of survival.

All art is quite useless.

There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.

Making art is a journey.

Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.

Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.

Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.

If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.

Seeing is not enough; you have to feel what you photograph.

Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal.

Use your blood to paint. Keep painting until you faint. Keep painting until you die.

Painter, paint!

A simple line painted with the brush can lead to freedom and happiness.

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy --the joy of being Salvador Dalí-- and I ask myself in rapture: What wonderful things is this Salvador Dalí going to accomplish today?

Art is to console those who are broken by life.

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.

I dream my painting and I paint my dream.

I know I will leave my work unfinished. I just hope I planted enough seeds in my children and grandchildren that they will continue.

No great work of art is ever finished.

Above all, an artist must never be too easily satisfied with what he has done.

Finish the work, otherwise an unfinished work will finish you.

Without atmosphere a painting is nothing.

It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color -- not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.

You need the dark in order to show the light.

An artist discovers his genius the day he dares not to please.

I am an artist because the knot is so powerful I just can not, nor want to be, anything else or do anything else.

What art offers is space -- a certain breathing room for the spirit.

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

In art, and in the higher ranges of science, there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavor. There is no true greatness in art or science without that sense of harmony.

The purpose of art is mystery.

Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know.

He only moves toward the perfection of his art whose criticism surpasses his achievement.

The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist.

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

The public wants to understand and learn in a single day, a single minute, what the artist has spent years learning.

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

The true painter must be able, with the most usual things, to have the most unusual ideas.

Not everyone is capable of madness; and of those lucky enough to be capable, not many have the courage for it.

People love mystery, and that is why they love my paintings.

What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.

Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.

Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums.

I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint.

If you understand a painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it.

The fact I myself do not understand what my paintings mean while I am painting them does not imply that they are meaningless.

If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open.

One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with.

Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I accomplish.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does, the better.

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.

Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.

A true artist is not one who is inspired but one who inspires others.

I started painting as a hobby when I was little. I didn't know I had any talent. I believe talent is just a pursued interest. Anybody can do what I do.

All you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction, and a vision in your mind.

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

To be great, art has to point somewhere.

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

Knowing how to look is a way of inventing.

Life is too short to remain unnoticed.

Art is not a thing, it is a way.

The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.

Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to the horse, the rudder to a ship.

The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.

Art is coming face to face with yourself.

Art is a line around your thoughts.

To be an artist is to believe in life.

A true masterpiece does not tell everything.

Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.

Art is a way of recognizing oneself.

I am not strange. I am just not normal.

I guess I'm a little weird. I like to talk to trees and animals. That's okay though; I have more fun than most people.

If you hear a voice within you saying, You are not a painter, then by all means paint… and that voice will be silenced.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

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

A work is finished when an artist realizes his intentions.

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life.

Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.

An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success.

You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life.

Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

In the mind of every artist there is a masterpiece.

Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art.

The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to.

I had so much fire in me and so many plans.

The great artist is the simplifier.

No art is possible without a dance with death.

It is good to 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 well done.

Art is 110 percent sweat.

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.

A very subtle difference can make the picture or not.

Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies.

There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.

The secret of art is love.

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.

Forget yourself. Become one with eternity. Become part of your environment.

The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.

Color is a power which directly influences the soul.

There is no must in art because art is free.

Art is born of humiliation.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.

Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.

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

Surprise is key in all art.

Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.

The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

One eye sees, the other feels.

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.

Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.