Artist Quotes

The day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer.

She has form," he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove - "that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks merely of music, and everybody knows that arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

As an artist, all I need is my paints and brushes - and someone to drag me away when the canvas is done

No doubt, it is useful for an artist to know all the forms of art which have preceded or which accompany his. That is a sign of strength if it is a question of looking for a stimulus or recognizing mistakes he must avoid.

The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.

Personality must be accepted for what it is. You mustn't mind that a poet is a drunk, rather that drunks are not always poets.

Wordsworth went to the Lakes, but he was never a lake poet. He found in stones the sermons he had already hidden there.

I suppose an artist takes the elements of his life and rearranges them and then has them perceived by others as though they were the elements of their lives.

I paint the way someone bites his fingernails; for me, painting is a bad habit because I don't know nor can I do anything else.

The true artist can only labor con amore.

The true artist is known by what he annexes, and he annexes everything.

The artist and his work are not to be separated. The most willfully foolish man cannot stand aloof from his folly, but the deed and the doer together make ever one sober fact.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it. To the great poet, there is only one method of music - his own. To the great painter, there is only one manner of painting - that which he himself employs. The aesthetic critic, and the aesthetic critic alone, can appreciate all forms and all modes. It is to him that Art makes her appeal.

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Writing bores me so.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

The function of the artist is to invent, not to chronicle.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages.

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public to him are non-existent.

The artist is not a reporter, but a Great Teacher. It is not his business to depict the world as it is, but as it ought to be.

It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.

Too often in the past, we have thought of the artist as an idler and dilettante and of the lover of arts as somehow sissy and effete. We have done both an injustice. The life of the artist is, in relation to his work, stern and lonely. He has labored hard, often amid deprivation, to perfect his skill. He has turned aside from quick success in order to strip his vision of everything secondary or cheapening. His working life is marked by intense application and intense discipline.

By amusing myself with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous... I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time.

Kenneth Hari is a true artist and in my opinion a psychic. When he is painting you, he feels your heart and soul.

Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.

As an artist one has no home in Europe except in Paris.

Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected.

It's not what the artist does that counts; it's what he is.

I simply painted images of what was before my eyes; it is for others to find hidden meaning in them.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

When I had to fill in my immigration papers, I gave my age as 19, and my profession as genius; I added that I had nothing to declare except my talent.

An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.

Give me a museum and I'll fill it.

Nothing can come out of an artist that is not in the man.

For an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no sittings, and the other gets no dinners.

I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified. As for the mob, I have no desire to be a popular novelist. It is far too easy.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

Freedom, individualism and being yourself so long as you don't hurt another's physical person or property: The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself.

The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet's life. It is what hehas become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince's gallery.

Let me say for the record, I am not a gangster and never have been. I'm not the thief who grabs your purse. I'm not the guy who jacks your car. I'm not down with people who steal and hurt others. I'm just a brother who fights back. I'm not some violent closet psycho. I've got a job. I'm an artist.

...why did Plato say that poets should be chased out of the republic? Precisely because every poet and every artist is an antisocial being. He's not that way because he wants to be; he can't be any other way.... and if he really is an artist it is in his nature not to want to be admitted, because if he is admitted it can only mean he is doing something which is understood, approved, and therefore old hat - worthless. Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized.

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

An artist spends himself like the crayon in his hand, till he is all gone.

The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.

I see for others... in order to put on canvas the sudden apparitions which come to me.

Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I.

He who stands most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best.

The poet is the supreme artist, for he is the master of colour and of form, and the real musician besides, and is lord over all life and all arts.

An artist must be very careful not to look for models. As soon as one artist takes another as model, he is lost. There is no other point of departure than reality.

Alone, and without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.

When the individuality of the artist begins to express itself, what the artist gains in the way of liberty he loses in the way of order.

The True Artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his shoes.

In a world that has ceased to believe in sin, the artist is responsible for the preaching.

And fame, for a painter means sales, gains, fortune, riches. And today, as you know, I am celebrated. I am rich.

What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only his eyes if he's a painter, or ears if he's a musician, or a lyre at every level of his heart if he's a poet, or even, if he's a boxer, just his muscles? On the contrary, he's at the same time a political being, constantly alive to heart-rending, burning, or happy events in the world.