Art & Beauty Quotes

I would rather die of passion than of boredom

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery

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

To create one’s own world takes courage

To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at

Too much beauty, I think, is its own kind of blindness. There is so much to see that the mind cannot sort it, or hold onto it, and it blurs itself in the radiance

The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract; while a world at peace produces realist art

We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

The chief enemy of creativity is 'good' sense.

I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting

There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.

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

Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented – which is what fear and anxiety do to a person – into something whole

Beauty awakens the soul to act

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing

The artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.

The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul

The painter should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him.

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time, anthropomorphous apes... will no doubt be exterminated

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

People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it’s simply necessary to love.

Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.

The details are not the details. They make the design

The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity

Let the beauty we love be what we do

Every canvas is a journey all its own

If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses

Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great

Art is never finished, only abandoned

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

I don't know whether I could draw, but I knew that art was a kind of magic to be practiced. It isn't what you do, but the way you do it.

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

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing

That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal; from which it follows that irregularity—that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment—is an essential part and characteristic of beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.

What is commonly called ugliness in nature can in art become full of beauty.

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not

To draw, you must close your eyes and sing

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle

There is no must in art because art is free

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

To invent is to discern, to choose

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary

Beauty will save the world.

The experience of beauty is a dialogue between the viewer and the object, and in that dialogue, something new is created

Beauty is not caused. It is.

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours

There are no ugly women, only lazy ones

What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.

The beautiful is as useful as the useful. Perhaps more so.

To be an artist is to believe in life

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

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

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

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

Nothing can be loved or feared unless it is first understood, and beauty is born of that understanding.

In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.

The function of the creative artist consists of making laws, not in following laws already made

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts—that is the duty of the artist

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

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom

There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion

Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.

The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask

Art is the most beautiful of all lies

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them

The painter tries to master colour, but if he succeeds, he realizes that colour is the master