A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”
“A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude.”
Source: Essays and Lectures
“A painter was asked why, since he made such beautiful figures, which were but dead things, his children were so ugly; to which the painter replied that he made his pictures by day, and his children by night.”
Source: Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci: Complete & Illustrated
“A painter who has the feel of breasts and buttocks is saved.”
“A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.”
“A painter's got a canvas. The writer's got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence.”
“A painter's hand has a thirst for thieving, it steals from heaven and makes a gift to the memories of men, it feigns eternity and it delights in this pretence almost as if it had created rules of its own, more durable and more profoundly true.”
“A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.”
Source: Lucian Freud: naked portraits : Werke der 40er bis 90er Jahre
“A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art.”
Source: Kandinsky
“A painting can't be everything. You have to stop, at some point. It has to be finished, if you want anyone to see it. Some people just continue to work on things, forever. I don't know which is better.”
“A painting has a lot of advantages over other forms of communication. Unlike a movie, you don't have to put it into a machine and turn it on. It's just there every day. It's not limited by the element of time. It's a constant part of the home.”
“A painting has an intrinsic value which has nothing to do with critical assessments.”
“A painting has its own existence and reality, and I make changes freely to meet the painting's needs. This sometimes takes me in another direction.”
“A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.”
“A painting is a symbol for the universe. Inside it, each piece relates to the other. Each piece is only answerable to the rest of that little world. So, probably in the total universe, there is that kind of total harmony, but we get only little tastes of it.”
“A painting is a universal language which everyone can read, understand, and interpret in his own way through the power of imagination.”
“A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything.”
Source: Degas by Degas
“A painting is an object which has an emphatic frontal surface. On such a surface, I paint a black band which does not recede, a color band which does not obtrude, a white square or rectangle which does not move back or forth, to or fro, or up or down; there is also a painted white exterior frame band which is edged round the edge to the black. Every part is painted and contiguous to its neighbor; no part is above or below any other part. There is no hierarchy. There is no ambiguity. There is no illusion. There is no space or interval (time).”
“A painting is complete when it has the shadows of a god.”
“A painting is finished when the artist says it is finished.”
“A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made comes back as an object.”
Source: Writers on Howard Hodgkin
“A painting is finished when to have done less would be considered a sin and more a crime.”
Source: The Studio Handbook for Working Artists: A Survival Manual
“A painting is life and a painting is death . . . the picture is our own legacy left by tomorrow's dead for tomorrow's living.”
“A painting is merely the image of a tree, a man, or any other object reflected in a fountain. The difference between a painting and sculpture is the difference between a shadow and the thing which casts it.”
“A painting is more than the sum of its parts”
Source: Flipped
“A painting is more than the sum of its parts,' he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic.”
Source: Flipped
“A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.”
“A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience.”
“A painting is not made to be sniffed.”
“A painting is not thought out in advance. While it is being done, it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it’s finished, it goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it”
“A painting is nothing more than light reflected from the surface of a pigment-covered canvas. But a great painter can make you see the depth, make you feel the underlying emotion, make you sense the larger world. That, too, is the power of science: to sense and convey the depth and dimensionality of nature, to glance at the surface and to divine the shape of the universe around us.”
“A painting is what you make of it, besides which, 'Moon, Weeping' has a better ring to it than 'Paintbrush, Dripping.”
“A painting is worth a thousand confused art-gallery visitors.”
Source: The New Land
“A painting of any quality is always going to have nerdy energy, an affirmation behind it. It's gonna be like a kid playing a video game.”
“A painting of Jesus hanging on the cross in agony can emit the energies of peace and reverence generated by a phenomenon known as the “psychic feeding of the masses.” The emotions and thoughts from two billion Christians become absorbed into the image of an agonizing Jesus, then radiate from it.
But the same art piece can also emit energies of sadness, agony, depression, grief, horrific pain, and death.”
Source: The Power of Tattoos: Twelve Hidden Energy Secrets of Body Art Every Tattoo Enthusiast Should Know
“A painting only lives in the eye of the beholder”
“A painting probably is the most shocking increase in value, from what it costs to make to what you sell it for.”
“A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.”
“A painting that is well composed is half finished.”
“A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image.”
“A painting which does not take its inspiration from the heart is nothing more than futile juggling.”
“A painting with a message does not happen by accident. It happens when you place elements in their order of importance.”
“A Painting without emotion is like a tree without roots.”
“A painting without something disturbing in it – what's that?.”
“A painting works only on the edge of not working. Then what is ungraspable comes near.”
“A painting, you know, it's all dirty material. But it's about transformation. Taking that earth, that heavy earthen kind of thing, turning it into air and light.”
“A pair of Blahniks and a girl can vanquish anything”
“A pair of Blue Noses on the next bench glared their disapproval at Evie’s knee-length dress. Evie decided to give them a real show. She hiked her skirt and, humming jauntily, rolled down her stockings, exposing her legs. It had the desired effect on the Blue Noses, who moved down the platform, clucking about the “disgrace of the young.” She would not miss this place.”
“A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and enflame him; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess 'em.”
Source: Henry Esmond: The English Humourists; The Four Georges
“A pair of brilliantly cut cotton trousers can be more beautiful than a gorgeous silk gown.”