Mary Cassatt
Women
should be someone and not something.
Marc Chagall
Mine alone is the country of my soul.
If I create from the heart,
nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.
Love and fantasy, go hand in
hand.
Color is all. When color is
right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music;
everything is vibration.
All colors are the friends of
their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.
In our life there is a single
color, as on an artist palette which provides the meaning of life and art. It
is the color of love.
What a genius, that Picasso. It
is a pity he doesn't paint.
I have always painted pictures
where human love floods my colors.
Changes in societal structure and
in art would possess more creditbility if they had their origins in the soul
& spirit. If people read the words of the prophets with closer attention,
they would find the keys to life.
I had only to open my bedroom
window, and blue air, love, and flowers entered with her.
Only love interests me, and I am
only in contact with things I love.
I am a child who is getting on.
In the arts, as in life,
everything is possible provided it is based on love.
Art seems to me to be a state of
soul more than anything else.
Salvador Dali
Have no fear of perfection -
you'll never reach it.
Surrealism is destructive, but it
destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.
The only difference between me
and a madman is I'm not mad.
Take me, I am the drug; take me,
I am hallucinogenic
The first man to compare the
cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it
was possibly an idiot.
The thermometer of success is
merely the jealousy of the malcontents.
One day it will have to be officially
admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than
the world of dreams.
The difference between false
memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones
that look the most real, the most brilliant.
It is not necessary for the
public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not
necessary for me to know it myself.
Mistakes are almost always of a
sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them,
understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to
sublimate them.
Let my enemies devour each other
Drawing is the honesty of the
art. There is no possibility of cheating: It is either good or bad.
The secret of my influence has
always been that it remained secret.
Everything alters me, but nothing
changes me.
Everyone should eat hashish, but
only once.
What is a television apparatus to
man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the
seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through
walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.
I do not understand why, when I
ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I'm never served a cooked telephone.
There are some days when I think
I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.
This grandiose tragedy that we
call modern art.
We are all hungry and thirsty for
concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its
exact virginity to figurative art.
When I paint, the Sea Roars...Others Splash about in the bath
New skin, a new land! And a land
of liberty, if that is possible! I chose the geology of a land that was new to
me, and that was young, virgin, and without drama, that of America. I traveled
in America, but instead of romantically and directly rubbing the snakeskin of
my body against the asperities of its terrain, I preferred to peel protected
within the armor of the gleaming black crustacean of a Cadillac which I gave
Gala as a present. Nevertheless all the men who admire and the women who are in
love with my old skin will easily be able to find its remnants in shredded
pieces of various sizes scattered to the winds along the roads from New York
via Pittsburgh to California. I have peeled with every wind; pieces of my skin
have remained caught here and there along my way, scattered through that
promised land which is America; certain pieces of this skin have remained
hanging in the spiny vegetation of the Arizona desert, along the trails where I
galloped on horseback, where I got rid of all my former Aristotelian planetary
notions. Other pieces of my skin have remained spread out like tablecloths
without food on the summits of the rocky masses by which one reaches the Salt
Lake, in which the hard passion of the Mormons saluted in me the European
phantom of Apollinaire. Still other pieces have remained suspended along the
antediluvian bridge of San Francisco, where I saw in passing the ten thousand
most beautiful virgins in America, completely naked, standing in line on each
side of me as I passed, like two rows of organ-pipes of angelic flesh with
cowrie-shell sea vulvas.
Don't bother about being modern,
unfortunately it is the only thing that, whatever you do you cannot avoid.
Do I take drugs? I am the drug.
At the age of six I wanted to be
a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing
steadily ever since.
An elegant woman is a woman who
despises you and has no hair under her arms.
Each morning when I awake, I
experience again a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dali.
A true artist is not one who is
inspired, but one who inspires others.
Have no fear of perfection -
you'll never reach it.
Leonardo da Vinci
Painting is poetry that is seen rather than
felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.
A painter should begin every
canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where
exposed by the light.
Once you have tasted flight, you
will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have
been, and there you will always long to return.
Simplicity is the ultimate
sophistication.
Study without desire spoils the
memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
It had long since come to my
attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen
to them. They went out and happened to things.
The painter has the Universe in
his mind and hands.
One can have no smaller or
greater mastery than mastery of oneself.
Nothing strengthens authority so
much as silence.
Nothing can be loved or hated
unless it is first understood.
I love those who can smile in
trouble...
The noblest pleasure is the joy
of understanding.
The smallest feline is a
masterpiece.
As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so
life well used brings happy death.
I love those who can smile in
trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and
whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto
death
Art is never finished, only
abandoned.
If you are alone you belong
entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong
only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his
conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into
the same plight.
The greatest deception men suffer
is from their own opinions.
I have from an early age abjured
the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the
murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
The function of muscle is to pull
and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.
Learning never exhausts the mind.
There are three classes of
people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.
The knowledge of all things is
possible
I have been impressed with the
urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Being willing is not
enough; we must do.
As you cannot do what you want,
Want what you can do
The deeper the feeling, the
greater the pain
It is easier to resist at the
beginning than at the end.
Principles for the Development of
a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop
your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to
everything else.
Every now and then go away, have
a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be
surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of
it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more
readily seen.
One has no right to love or hate
anything if one has not acquired a thorough knowledge of its nature. Great love
springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you know it but
little you will be able to love it only a little or not at all.
Where the spirit does not work
with the hand, there is no art.
The artist sees what others only
catch a glimpse of.
While I thought that I was
learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
Time stays long enough for those
who use it.
Intellectual passion drives out
sensuality.
Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant
water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does
inaction sap the vigors of the mind.
Life without love, is no life at
all
Patience serves as a protection
against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as
the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you
must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be
powerless to vex your mind.
The time will come when men such
as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of
men.
All our knowledge has its origin
in our perceptions
I have offended God and mankind
because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.
He who thinks little errs much…
All sciences are vain and full of
errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all
Knowledge.
Water is the driving force in
nature.
God sells us all things at the
price of labor.
Blinding ignorance does mislead
us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!
A poet knows he has achieved
perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing
left to take away.
Our life is made by the death of others.
Once you have tasted the taste of
sky, you will forever look up
He who possesses most must be
most afraid of loss.
Realize that everything connects
to everything else.
Make your work to be in keeping
with your purpose
The average human looks without
seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting,
moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or
fragrance, and talks without thinking.
You will never have a greater or lesser
dominion than that over yourself...the height of a man's success is gauged by
his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. ...And this
law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over
himself will have no dominion over others.
Obstacles cannot crush me; every
obstacle yields to stern resolve.
He who loves practice without
theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and
never knows where he may cast.
He who wishes to be rich within a
day, will be hanged within a year.
He who does not oppose
evil......commands it to be done.
In rivers, the water that you
touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with
present time.
My body will not be a tomb for
other creatures.
Marriage is like putting your
hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.
Art is the queen of all sciences
communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.
The acquisition of knowledge is
always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things
and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first
known.
Why does the eye see more clearly
when asleep than the imagination when awake?
While I thought that I was
learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
Truth at last cannot be hidden.
Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a
judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.
Learning is the only thing the
mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.
The mind that engages in subjects
of too great variety becomes confused and weakened.
Many have made a trade of
delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes.
While human ingenuity may devise
various inventions to the same ends, it will never devise anything more
beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than nature does, because
in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.
Learn how to see. Realize that
everything connects to everything else.
Anyone who conducts an argument
by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his
memory.
As every divided kingdom falls,
so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.
The painter will produce pictures
of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.
Man has much power of discourse
which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is
useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.
Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant
water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does
inaction sap the vigor of the mind. So we must stretch ourselves to the very
limits of human possibility. Anything less is a sin against both God and man.
Experience does not err; only
your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.
Men of lofty genius when they are
doing the least work are most active.
Those who, in debate, appeal to
their qualifications, argue from memory, not from understanding.
We must doubt the certainty of
everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt
things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.
What is fair in men, passes away,
but not so in art
He is a poor pupil who does not
go beyond his master.
A well-spent day brings happy
sleep
Details make perfection, and
perfection is not a detail.
There are three classes of
people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.
Simplicity is the best
sophistication
Having wandered some distance
among gloomy rocks, I came to the entrance of a great cavern ... Two contrary
emotions arose in me: fear and desire--fear of the threatening dark cavern,
desire to see whether there were any marvelous things in it.
Truly man is the king of beasts,
for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial
places.
He who does not punish evil,
commands it to be done.
The human bird shall take his
first flight, filling the words with amazement all writings with his fame, and
bringing eternal glory to those whose nest whence he sprang.
He who truly knows has no
occasion to shout.
Experience is never at fault; it
is only your judgment that is in error, in promising itself such results from
experience as are not caused by our experiments. For having given a beginning,
what follows from it must necessarily be a natural development of such a
beginning, unless it has been subject to a contrary influence, while, if it is
affected by any contrary influence, the result which ought to follow from the
aforesaid beginning, will be found to partake of this contrary influence in a
greater or lesser degree in proportion as the said influence is more or less
powerful than the aforesaid beginning.
The organ of perception acts more
readily than judgment.
Wisdom is the daughter of
experience
The eye sees a thing more clearly
in dreams, than the imagination awake.
The worst evil which can befall
the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.
It is an acknowledged fact that
we perceive errors in the work of others more readily than in our own.
If you find from your own experience
that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written
down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own
findings.
Nothing strengthens authority so
much as silence.
All our knowledge hast its origins
in our perceptions … In nature there is no effect without a cause … Experience
never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects
such as are not caused by your experiments … Science is the observation of
things possible, whether present or past; prescience is the knowledge of things
which may come to pass.
Simplicity is the ultimate form
of sophistication.
To me it seems that those
sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of
all certainty, first-hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has
passed through one of the five senses. And if we doubt the certainty of
everything which passes through the senses, how much more ought we to doubt
things contrary to these senses – ribelli ad essi sensi – such as the existence
of God or of the soul or similar things over which there is always dispute and
contention. And in fact it happens that whenever reason is wanting men to cry
out against one another, which does not happen with certainties. For this
reason we shall say that where the cry of controversy is heard, there is no
true science, because the truth has one single end and when this is published,
argument is destroyed forever.
The supreme misfortune is when
theory outstrips performance
And you who wish to represent by
words the form of man and all the aspects of his membrification, relinquish
that idea. For the more minutely you describe the more you will confine the
mind of the reader, and the more you will keep him from the knowledge of the
thing described. And so it is necessary to draw and to describe.
A wave is never found alone, but
is mingled with the other waves.
He who can copy can do.
Just as a well-filled day brings
blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death.
When once you have tasted flight,
you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you
have been, and there you will always long to return.
Our life is made by the death of
others
If the painter wishes to see
beauties that charm him, it lies in his power to create them, and if he wishes
to see monstrosities that are frightful, ridiculous, or truly pitiable, he is
lord and God thereof.
Iron rusts from disuse; water
loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the
mind.
I awoke only to find that the
rest of the world was still asleep.
If the painter has clumsy hands,
he will be apt to introduce them into his works, and so of any other part of
his person, which may not happen to be so beautiful as it ought to be. He must,
therefore, guard particularly against that self-love, or too good opinion of
his own person, and study by every means to acquire the knowledge of what is
most beautiful, and of his own defects, that he may adopt the one and avoid the
other.
Why does the eye see a thing more
clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?
I abhor the supreme folly of
those who blame the disciples of nature in defiance of those masters who were
themselves her pupils
...the love of anything is the
offspring of knowledge, love being more fervent in proportion as knowledge is
more certain. And this certainty springs from a complete knowledge of all parts
which united compose the whole of the thing which out to be loved.
How may paintings have preserved
the image of a divine beauty which in its natural manifestation has been
rapidly overtaken by time or death. Thus, the work of the painter is nobler than
that of nature, its mistress.
The draperies that clothe figures
must show that they are inhabited by these figures, enveloping them neatly to
show the posture and motion of such figures, and avoiding the confusion of many
folds, especially over the prominent parts, so that these may be evident
The water you touch in a river is
the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus
it is with time present.
Life, if well spent, is long.
If there's no love, what then?
Although a man be not a painter,
he may have just opinions of the forms of men.
We respect him by learning from
him — Freud on Leonardo Da Vinci
In time and with water,
everything changes
Blinding ignorance does mislead
us.
O! Wretched mortals, open your
eyes!
Look at walls splashed with a
number of stains, or stones of various mixed colors. If you have to invent some
scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of landscapes, adorned with
mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys and hills, in various
ways.
Also you can see various battles, and lively postures of strange figures,
expressions on faces, costumes and an infinite number of things, which you can
reduce to good integrated form.
This happens on such walls and varicolored
stones, which act like the sound of bells, in whose peeling you can find every
name and word that you can imagine.
Do not despise my opinion, when I
remind you that it should not hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the
stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in
which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas. The mind
of the painter is stimulated to new discoveries,
the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes
and monstrous things, such as devils and similar things, which may bring you
honor, because by indistinct things the mind is stimulated to new inventions.
Edward Hopper
If you could say it in words,
there would be no reason to paint.
Great art is the outward
expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in
his personal vision of the world.
More of me comes out when I
improvise.
No amount of skillful invention
can replace the essential element of imagination.
The only real influence I've ever
had is myself.
Robert Hughes
The greater the artist, the
greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a
consolation prize.
Henri Matisse
From the moment I held the box of
colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a
beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.
The importance of an artist is to
be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the
language of art.
Without hard work, talent is not
enough
I do not distinguish between the
construction of a book and that of a painting and I always proceed from the
simple to the complex.
Creativity takes courage.
There are always flowers for
those who want to see them.
I didn't expect to recover from
my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed
time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept
it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical
suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only
of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little
bit, even under difficult conditions.
We ought to view ourselves with
the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a
thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.
To look at something as though we had never
seen it before requires great courage.
You must forget all your
theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your
own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the
subject.
...for whether we want to or not,
we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its
delusions.
Another word for creativity is
courage.
You study, you learn, but you guard the
original naïveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the
drunkard or love is within the lover.
Nothing can be accomplished
without love.
Exactitude is not truth.
I don't know whether I believe in God or not.
I think, really, I'm some kind of a Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put
oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.
I am unable to distinguish
between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.
To arrive is to be in prison.
Time extracts various values from
a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten,
and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.
Whoever wishes to devote himself
to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue
Derive happiness in oneself from
a good day’s work, from illumination the fog that surround
Anything that is not necessary to
the painting damages it.
I am unable to make any
distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that
feeling into painting.
Claude Monet
Color is my daylong obsession,
joy, and torment.
I must have flowers, always, and
always.
Everyone discusses my art and
pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is
simply necessary to love.
Every day I discover more and
more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do
everything, my head is bursting with it.
My garden is my most beautiful
masterpiece
The more I live, the more I
regret how little I know
It's on the strength of
observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve
unceasingly.
I would like to paint the way a
bird sings.
The richness I achieve comes from
nature, the source of my inspiration.
I'm not performing miracles, I'm
using up and wasting a lot of paint...
If the world really looks like
that I will paint no more!
I perhaps owe having become a
painter to flowers.
I can only draw what I see.
I get madder and madder on giving
back what I feel.
Georgia O'Keeffe
Nobody sees a flower - really -
it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to
have a friend takes time.
Where I was born and where and
how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been
that should be of interest.
I found I could say things with
color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way... things I had no words
for.
I have things in my head that are
not like what anyone taught me — shapes and ideas so near to me,so natural to
my way of being and thinking.
I can't live where I want to, I
can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I
want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted
to.
One day a hummingbird flew in--It fluttered against the window
till I got it down where I could reach it with an open umbrella----When I had it in my hand it was
so small I couldn't believe I had it--but I could feel the intense life--so
intense and so tiny--...You were like the humming bird
to me...And I am rather inclined to feel
that you and I know the best part of one another without spending much time
together----It is not that I fear the
knowing--
It is that I am at this moment
willing to let you be what you are to me--it is beautiful and pure and very
intensely alive.
To create one's own world takes
courage.
You are one of my nicest
thoughts.
I'm frightened all the time. But
I never let it stop me. Never!
I wish people were all trees and
I think I could enjoy them then.
I said to myself, I have things
in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so
near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred
to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been
taught.
Nothing is less real than
realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by
emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.
One cannot be an American by
going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America,
like America, love America and then work.
I often painted fragments of
things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the
whole could.
When you take a flower in your
hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I hate flowers.
I made you take time to look at
what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your
associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I
think and see what you think and see—and I don't.
I found I could say things with
color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way- things I had no words for.
I decided I was a very stupid
fool not to at least paint as I wanted to ... I found that I could say things
with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way-- things I had no words
for.
I said to myself 'I have things
in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me--shapes and idea so near
to my-- so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to
me to put them down.' I decided to start anew to strip away what I had been
taught...
I got half-a-dozen paintings from
that shattered plate.
The unexplainable thing in nature
that makes me feel the world is big fat beyond my understanding – to understand
maybe by trying to put it into form. To find the feeling of infinity on the
horizon line or just over the next hill.
When you take a flower in your
hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that
world to someone else.
I found I could say things with
color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.
Pablo Picasso
Everything you can imagine is
real.
Every child is an artist. The
problem is how to remain a n artist once he grows up.
Art is the lie that enables us to
realize the truth.
Art washes away from the soul the
dust of everyday life.
Others have seen what is and
asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.
Ah, good taste! What a dreadful
thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.
Only put off until tomorrow what
you are willing to die having left undone
There are painters who transform
the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art
and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun
When I was a child my mother said
to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk,
you'll be the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.
The chief enemy of creativity is
good sense.
I am always doing that which I
cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
What do you think an artist is?
...he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate,
or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in
their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument
of war.
It takes a very long time to
become young.
The urge to destroy is also a
creative urge.
Bad artists copy. Good artists
steal.
Inspiration exists, but it has to
find you working.
If I paint a wild horse, you
might not see the horse... but surely you will see the wildness!
There are only two types of
women: goddesses and doormats.
There is no abstract art. You
must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of
reality.
Learn the rules like a pro, so
you can break them like an artist.
Computers are useless. They can
only give you answers.
I do not seek. I find.
God is really only another
artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real
style, He just goes on trying other things.
Painting is just another way of
keeping a diary.
I'd like to live as a poor man
with lots of money.
To draw, you must close your eyes
and sing
The world doesn't make sense, so
why should I paint pictures that do?
If only we could pull out our
brain and use only our eyes.
We all know that Art is not
truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is
given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince
others of the truthfulness of his lies.
It took me four years to paint
like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
Youth has no age.
People want to find a meaning in
everything and everyone. That's the disease of our age...
If I don't have red, I use blue.
We artists are indestructible;
even in a prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own
world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the
dusty floor of my cell.
I paint objects as I think them,
not as I see them.
Give me a museum and I'll fill
it.
Good Artists Copy, Great Artists
Steal
I begin with an idea and then it
becomes something else.
He can who thinks he can, and he
can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.
Action is the foundational key to
all success.
Every positive value has its
price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.
The meaning of life is to find
your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.
Love is the greatest refreshment
in life
We don't grow older we grow
riper.
When art critics get together
they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they
talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.
Colors, like features, follow the
changes of the emotions.
Everything is a miracle. It is a
miracle that one does not melt in one's bath.
Go and do the things you can't.
That is how you get to do them.
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.
Every now and then one paints a
picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to
other things.
Art is the elimination of the
unnecessary.
Art is never chaste. It ought to
be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not
sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not
art.
Anything new, anything worth
doing, can't be recognized.
Why do two colors, put one next
to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? No. Just as one can never
learn how to paint.
What one does is what counts. Not
what one had the intention of doing.
What do you think an artist is?
An imbecile who only has eyes, if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician,
or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a
boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time he is also a political
being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things
that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could
it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool
indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so
abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an
instrument of war.
Painting is not made to decorate
apartments. It's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.
Painting is stronger than me, it
makes me do it's bidding.
There is only one way to see
things, until someone shows us how to look at them with different eyes.
Some painters transform the sun into a yellow
spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.
You have to have an idea of what
you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.
Whatever the source of emotion
that drives me to create, I want to give it a form which has some connection
with the visible world, even if it is only to wage war on that world....I want
my paintings to be able to defend themselves to resist the invader, just as
though there were razor blades on all surfaces so no one could touch them
without cutting his hands.
The more technique you have the less you have
to worry about it. The more technique there is the less there is.
It took me a lifetime.
The people who make art their
business are mostly imposters.
Matisse makes a drawing, then he
makes a copy of it. He copies it five times, ten times, always clarifying the
line. He’s convinced that the last, the most stripped down, is the best, the
purest, the definitive one; and in fact, most of the time, it was the first. In
drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.
Everyone wants to understand art.
Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night,
flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the
case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above
all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit
of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to
plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain
them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.
Good artists copy; great artists
steal.
Painting it's a blind man
profession. Painter is painting not what he sees but what he feels.
I am always doing that which I
cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
It is your work in life that is
the ultimate seduction.
I'm not a developer; I am.
Every child is an artist. The
problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
We have a definite but unknown
quantity of experience at our disposal. As soon as the hourglass is turned, the
sand will begin to run out and once it starts, it cannot stop until it's all
gone.
When I was a kid I drew like
Michelangelo. It took me years to learn to draw like a kid.
The purpose of art is washing the
dust of daily life off our souls.
To find is the thing.
Art is not chaste. Those ill
prepared should be allowed no contact with art. Art is dangerous.
If it is
chaste, it is not art.
In art intentions are not
sufficient and, as we say in Spanish, love must be proved by deeds and not by
reasons. What one does is what counts and not what one had the intention of
doing.
The fact that for a long time
Cubism has not been understood and that even today there are people who cannot
see anything in it means nothing. I do not read English, an English book is a
blank book to me. This does not mean that the English language does not exist.
Why should I blame anyone but myself if I cannot understand what I know nothing
about?
Who sees the human face
correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?
An idea is a point of departure
and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought
The older you get, the stronger
the wind gets — and it's always in your face.
I am always doing things I can't
do, that's how I get to do them.
When children paint, they express
their ideas rather than their perception, and when Picasso had recourse to such
a technique, then that was his personal response to his approaching death.
My mother said to me, if you are
a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the
Pope. Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.
I am always doing things I can’t
do. That is how I get to do them.
It takes a long time to grow
young.
It would be very interesting to
preserve photographically not the stages, but the metamorphoses of a picture.
Possibly one might then discover the path followed by the brain in
materializing a dream.
All children are artists. The problem is how
to remain an artist once he grows up.
When you come right down to it
all you have is yourself. The sun is a thousand rays in your belly. All the
rest is nothing.
When I was as old as these
children, I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw
like them.
In the South of Spain, one could
look to vice as quickly as to virtue for a sense of tradition. — Norman Mailer
Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man
Others have seen what is and
asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not
Sex and art are the same thing.
Every act of creation is first of
all an act of destruction.
Pablo's many stories and
reminiscences about Olga and Marie-Thérese and Dora Maar, as well as their
continuing presence just offstage in our own life together, gradually made me
realize that he had a kind of Bluebeard complex that made him want to cut off
the heads of all women he had collected in his private museum. But he didn't
cut the heads entirely off. He preferred to have life go on and to have all
those women who had shared his life at one moment or another still letting out
little peeps and cries of joy or pain and making a few gestures like disjointed
dolls, just to prove there was some life left in them, that it hung by a
thread, and that he held the other end of the thread. From time to time they
would provide a humorous or dramatic or sometimes tragic side to things, and
that was all grist to his mill. — Françoise Gilot Life with Picasso
Jackson Pollock
Love is friendship set to music.
Every good artist paints what he
is
The modern artist is working with
space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.
The painting has a life of its
own
Every good painter paints what he
is.
Painting is self-discovery. Every
good artist paints what he is.
Technique is just a means of
arriving at a statement.
Energy and motion made visible –
memories arrested in space
It doesn't matter how the paint
is put on, as long as something is said.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Why shouldn’t art be pretty?
There are enough unpleasant things in the world.
The pain passes, but the beauty
remains.
To my mind, a picture should be
something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many
unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.
There are quite enough unpleasant
things in life without the need to manufacture more.
I've been 40 years discovering
that the queen of all colors was black.
The work of art must seize upon
you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist
conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you
along in his passion.
His last words about painting,
age 78...”I think I'm beginning to learn something about it. “
We are in a period of searchers
rather than of creators.
Only the painter who knows his
business can create the impression that a picture was done in one stroke.
When I've painted a woman's
bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished.
The pain passes, but the beauty
remains.
The more they measure, the more
they realize how much the Greeks departed from regular and banal lines in order
to produce their effect.
Diego Rivera
I am an atheist and I consider
religions to be a form of collective neurosis. I am not an enemy of the
Catholics, as I am not an enemy of the tuberculars, the myopic or the
paralytics; you cannot be an enemy of the sick, only their good friend in order
to help them cure themselves.
You have to trust a TRUE
compliment as much as a critique.
Andy Warhol
They always say time changes
things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
Don't pay any attention to what
they write about you. Just measure it in inches.
People should fall in love with
their eyes closed.
When people are ready to, they change.
They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to
it. You can't make them change if they don't want to, just like when they do
want to, you can't stop them.
Sometimes people let the same
problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, so what. That's
one of my favorite things to say. So what.
Art is what you can get away
with.
The idea of waiting for something
makes it more exciting
I never fall apart, because I
never fall together.
As soon as you stop wanting
something, you get it.
I'm afraid that if you look at a
thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.
I wonder if it's possible to have
a love affair that lasts forever.
I think having land and not
ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.
It does not matter how slowly you
go so long as you do not stop.
I think everybody should be nice
to everybody.
An artist is somebody who
produces things that people don't need to have.
Beauty is a sign of intelligence.
Sometimes the little times you
don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a
whole period of your life.
Everybody must have a fantasy.
It’s not what you are that
counts, it’s what they think you are.
Being born is like being
kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.
Every song has a memory; every
song has the ability to make or break your heart, shut down the heart, and open
the eyes. But I’m afraid if you look at a thing long enough; it loses all of
its meaning
I like to be the right thing in
the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place. Being the right thing
in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place is worth it because
something interesting always happens.
People sometimes say that the way
things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually, it's the way things happen
to you in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look strong and real,
whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like you're watching
television -- you don't feel anything.
I like boring things.
A picture means I know where I
was every minute. That's why I take pictures. It's a visual diary.
You have to do stuff that average
people don't understand because those are the only good things.
I'm not afraid to die; I just
don't want to be there when it happens
In the future, everybody will be
world famous for fifteen minutes.
And your own life while it's
happening to you never has any atmosphere until it's a memory.
I have Social Disease. I have to
go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my
dogs.
I am a deeply superficial person.
Everyone winds up kissing the
wrong person goodnight.
The mystery was gone but the
amazement was just starting.
But I always say, one's company,
two's a crowd, and three's a party
The best thing about a picture is
that it never changes, even when the people in it do.
What's great about this country
is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially
the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and
you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just
think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get
you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes
are the same and all the Cokes are good.
Fantasy love is much better than
Reality Love.
I always think about what it
means to wear eyeglasses. When you get used to glasses you don't know how far
you could really see. I think about all the people before eyeglasses were
invented. It must have been weird because everyone was seeing in different ways
according to how bad their eyes were. Now, eyeglasses standardize everyone's
vision to 20-20. That's an example of everyone becoming more alike. Everyone
could be seeing at different levels if it weren't for glasses.
People should fall in love with
their eyes closed. Just close your eyes. Don’t look and it’s magic
I'm the type who'd be happy not
going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the
places I wasn't going to. I'm the type who'd like to sit home and watch every
party that I'm invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.
If everyone isn't beautiful, then
no one is.
I just do art because I’m ugly
and there’s nothing else for me to do.
Isn't life a series of images
that change as they repeat themselves?
I believe in low lights and trick
mirrors.
I don't know where the artificial
stops and the real starts.
Don't think about making art,
just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they
love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.
People need to be made more aware
of the need to work at learning how to live because life is so quick and
sometimes it goes away too quickly.
Fantasy love is much better than
reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions
are between two opposites that never meet.
During the 1960s, I think, people
forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever
remembered.
I had a lot of dates, but I
decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.
An artist is someone who produces
things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it
would be a good idea to give them.
There are beautiful sounds in
rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most
songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound...We're musical
primitives.
I can never get over when you're
on the beach how beautiful the sand looks and the water washes it away and
straightens it up and the trees and the grass all look great. I think having
land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want
to own.
People's fantasies are what give
them problems. If you didn't have fantasies you wouldn't have problems because
you'd just take whatever was there.
Sometimes people let the same
problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what.
My mother didn't love me. So
what.My husband won't ball me. So
what. I'm a success but I'm still
alone. So what.
I don't know how I made it
through all the years before I learned how to do that trick. It took a long
time for me to learn it, but once you do, you never forget.
I think it would be very
glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor's finger.
You need to let the little things
that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you.
Everybody has a different idea of
love. One girl I know said, I knew he loved me when de didn't come in my
mouth.
Actually, I jade very quickly.
Once is usually enough. Either once only, or every day. If you do something
once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it,
say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.
Dying is the most embarrassing
thing that can ever happen to you, because someone’s got to take care of all
your details.
Most people in America think Art
is a man's name.
Why do people spend their time
being sad when they could be happy?
At the times in my life when I
was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn't
find any takers, so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like
not being alone... I became a loner in my own mind... I decided I'd rather be
alone.
I love Los Angeles. I love
Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want
to be plastic.
Remember, they've never seen you
before in their life.
The girls in California were
probably prettier in a standard sense than the New York girls--blonder and in
better health, I guess; but I still preferred the way the girls in New York
looked--stranger and more neurotic a girl always looked more beautiful and
fragile when she was about to have a nervous breakdown.
Everything has it's beauty but
not everyone sees it
Those who talk about
individuality the most are the ones who most object to deviation, and in a few
years it may be the other way around. Some day everybody will just think what
they want to think, and then everybody will probably be thinking alike; that seems
to be what is happening.
Sex is the biggest nothing of all
time.
You have to be willing to get
happy about nothing.
I never understood why when you
died, you didn't just vanish, everything should just keep going on the way it
was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone
to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say
'figment'.
The nicer I am, the more people
think I'm lying.
It's the movies that have been
running things in America ever since they were invented.
They show you what to
do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you
feel about it.
I never wanted to be a painter; I
wanted to be a tap dancer.
Everybody has their own America,
and then they have pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but
they can’t see…So the fantasy corners of America…you’ve pieced them together
from scenes in movies and music and lines from books. And you live in your
dream America that you’ve custom-made from art and schmaltz and emotions just
as much as you live in your real one.
When I look around today, the biggest
anachronism I see is pregnancy. I just can't believe that people are still
pregnant.
The idea is not to live forever,
it is to create something that will.
Some people spend their entire
lives thinking about one particular famous person. They pick one person who's
famous, and they dwell on him or her. They devote almost their entire
consciousness to thinking about this person they've never even met, or maybe
met once. If you ask any famous person about the kind of mail they get, you'll
find that almost every one of them has at least one person who's obsessed with
them and writes constantly. It feels so strange to think that someone is
spending their whole time thinking about you.
I never think that people die.
They just go to department stores.
The world fascinates me.
I suppose I have a really loose
interpretation of work, because i think that just being alive is so much work
at something you don't always want to do. The machinery is always going even
when you sleep
Since people are going to be
living longer and getting older, they'll just have to learn how to be babies
longer.
So today if you see a person who
looks like your teenage fantasy walking down the street, it's probably not your
fantasy, but someone who had the same fantasy as you and decided instead of
getting it or being it, to look like it, and so he went to the store and bought
the look that you both like.
So forget it. Just think about
all the James Deans and what it means.
Making money is art. And working
is art. And good business is the best art.
People sometimes say that the way
things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually its the way things happen
to you in real life that’s unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and
real, whereas when things really do happen to you, its like watching
television. You don't feel anything.
Everybody winds up kissing the
wrong person goodnight.
I suppose I have a really lose
interpretation of 'work,' because I think that just being alive is so much work
at something you don't always want to do.
I think pot should be legal. I
don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.
Before I was shot, I always
thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I
was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way
things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in
life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas
when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't
feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was
watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television.
When I got my first television
set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.
I'm bored with that line. I never
use it anymore. My new line is In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.
I’m really afraid to feel happy
because it never lasts
It's the movies that have really
been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you
what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look
how you feel about it.
Space is all one space and
thought is all one thought, but my mind divides its spaces into spaces into
spaces and thoughts into thoughts into thoughts. Like a large condominium.
Occasionally I think about the one Space and the one Thought, but usually I
don't. Usually I think about my condominium.
Everything is more glamorous when
you do it in bed anyway.
I love Los Angeles. I love
Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want
to be plastic.
Kiss me with your eyes.
Whenever I’m interested in
something, I know the timing’s off, because I’m always interested in the right
thing at the wrong time. I should just be getting interested after I’m not
interested any more.
You know it's ART, when the check
clears.
If something's going to happen
for you, it will, you can't make it happen. And it never does happen until
you're past the point where you care whether it happens or not.
I guess it's for your own good
that it always happens that way, because after you stop wanting things is where
having them won't make you go crazy.
I don't want to be smart, because
being smart makes you depressed.
When people are ready to, they
change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get
around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when
they do want to, you can’t stop them.
Just because people throw it out
and don't have any use for it, doesn't mean it's garbage.
The biggest price you pay for
love is that you have to have somebody around, you can't be on your own, which
is always so much better.
In the future, everyone will be
world-famous for 15 minutes. Andy Warhol 1968
He revised it in 1979: In 15
minutes, everybody will be famous.
Security breeds stagnation.
You can never predict what little
things in the way somebody looks or talks or acts will set off peculiar
emotional reactions in other people.
I always notice flowers.
I always run into strong women
who are looking for weak men to dominate them.
The symptom of love is when some
of the chemicals inside you go bad. So there must be something in love because
your chemicals do tell you something.
I believe in low light and trick mirrors.
I believe in plastic surgery.
If something's going to happen
for you, it will, you can't make it happen. And it never does happen until
you're past the point where you care whether it happens or not.
If I ever have to cast an acting
role, I want the wrong person for the part. I can never visualize the right
person in a part. The right person for the right part would be too much.
Besides, no person is every completely right for any part, because part in a
role is never real, so if you can't get someone who's perfectly right, it's
more satisfying to get someone who's perfectly wrong. Then you know you've
really got something.
The only time I ever want to be
something is outside a party so I can get in.
I’m afraid that if you look at a
thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.
Business art is the step that
comes after art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a
business artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.
During the hippie era people put down the idea of business. They’d say money is
bad and working is bad. But making money is art, and working is art - and good
business is the best art.
When I did my self-portrait, I
left all the pimples out because you always should. Pimples are a temporary
condition and they don't have anything to do with what you really look like.
Always omit the blemishes—they're not part of the good picture you want.
The child-like, gum-chewing
naïveté , the glamour rooted in despair, the self- admiring carelessness, the
perfected otherness, the wispiness, the shadowy, voyeuristic, vaguely sinister
aura, the pale, soft-spoken magical presence, the skin and bones…
