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Artist Quotes

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Artist Quotes

“A defective voice will always preclude an artist from achieving the complete development of his art, however intelligent he may be.... The voice is an instrument which the artist must learn to use with suppleness and sureness, as if it were a limb.”

Ifs May Art Use Artist Voice Acting Achieve Development Intelligent Instruments Limbs Defective

Author:Sarah Bernhardt

“He [the artist] ought to have 'these powerful organs of expression' - colour and chiaroscuro - entirely at his command, that he may use them in every possible form, as well as that he may do with the most perfect freedom; therefore, whether he wishes to make the subject of a joyous, solemn, or meditative character, by flinging over it the cheerful aspect which the sun bestows, by a proper disposition of shade, or by the appearances that beautify its arising or its setting, a true "General Effect" should never be lost sight of.”

“Artists no longer starve in garrets. Some people may think this is not wholly a good thing, that being an artist has become too comfortable, at least in the West. I'm not sure I agree. It's a mark of civilization to encourage the arts and the life of the mind.”

People Thinking Mind May Art Artist Civilization Comfortable Mark Agree Good Things West Not Sure Being An Artist

Author:J. M. Coetzee

“All the best artists have shown that the greatest achievement in the production of fine color is the concealment of pigments, and not the parade of them; and we may say the same of execution.”

May Artist Color Fine Achievement Productions Colour Execution Parades All The Best Greatest Achievement Concealment Pigment Best Artist

Book:Kindred spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American landscape

Source: Kindred spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American landscape

“An artist may sustain a body of work as an ecosystem, in which every part is used to every advantage, not consuming any part without regenerating it.”

May Body Used Artist Advantage Consuming Ecosystems

Author:Jan Peacock

“Some artists, such as Jack Kirby, need no plot at all. I mean I'll just say to Jack, "Let's let the next villain be Dr. Doom" ... or I may not even say that. He may tell me. And then he goes home and does it. He's so good at plots, I'm sure he's a thousand times better than I. He just makes up the plots for these stories. All I do is a little editing ... I may tell him that he's gone too far in one direction or another. Of course, occasionally I'll give him a plot, but we're practically both the writers on the things.”

Needs Giving May Mean Littles Doe Stories Home Artist Courses Next Gone Thousand Plot Villain Drs Editing Doom One Direction

Book:Stan Lee: conversations

Source: Stan Lee: conversations

“Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.”

Heart May Artist Fire Warm Smoke Wisps Smoke And Fire

Author:Vincent Van Gogh

“One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.”

Way Love May Soul Artist Loneliness Smoke Blazing Chimneys Wisps

Author:Vincent Van Gogh

“An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great power and art in small things roughly and rudely done, than many another in a great work. A man may often draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day . . . . and it shall be fuller of art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole year's careful labor.”

Men Years May Art Done Whole Shows Artist Understanding Half One Day Paper Draws Labor Careful Pens Sheets Small Things Great Work Great Power Whole Year

Author:Albrecht Durer

“I think that sometimes fans or supporters say "I love this artist" but they may not realize that he loves them back.”

Thinking May Sometimes Artist Realizing Fans Supporter

Author:Prince Royce

“A life lived in chaos is an impossibility for the artist. No matter how unstructured may seem the painter's garret in Paris or the poet's pad in Greenwich Village, the artist must have some kind of order or he will proudce a very small body of work. To create a work of art, great or small, is work, hard work, and work requires discipline and order.”

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“An artist may visit a museum but only a pedant can live there.”

May Artist Museums Pedants

Book:The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Art, Volume VII, Book Four

Source: The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Art, Volume VII, Book Four

“It is the artists who make the true value of the world, though at times they may have to starve to do it. They are like earthworms, turning up the soil so things can grow, eating dirt so that the rest of us may eat green shoots.”

World May Artist Values Grows Eating Green Soil Dirt True Value

Book:Serenissima

Source: Serenissima

“whatever a work of art may be, the artist certainly cannot dare to be simple. He must have a nature as complicated and as violent, as totally unsuggestive of the word innocence, as a modern war.”

May Art War Artist Simple Modern Dare Complicated Violent Innocence Works Of Art Modern War

Book:The strange necessity: essays by Rebecca West

Source: The strange necessity: essays by Rebecca West

“One of the marks of true genius is a quality of abundance. A rich, rollicking abundance, enough to give indigestion to ordinary people. Great artists turn it out in rolls, in swatches. They cover whole ceilings with paintings, they chip out a mountainside in stone, they write not one novel but a shelf full. It follows that some of their work is better than other. As much as a third of it may be pretty bad. Shall we say this unevenness is the mark of their humanity - of their proud mortality as well as of their immortality?”

Source: The Nature of the Artist: An Address Delivered at the Dedication Ceremonies for Lee Pattison Recital Hall, Wilbur Hall, Mary Kimberly Residence Hall

“An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. An artist requires the healing of time alone. Without this period of recharging, our artist becomes depleted. Until we experience the freedom of solitude, we cannot connect authentically. We may be enmeshed, but we are not encountered. Art lies in the moment of encounter. We meet our truth and we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression.”

May Art Self Moments Lying Artist Healing Creative Expression Periods Solitude Encounters Me Alone Self Expression Alone Time Upkeep Recharging

Author:Julia Cameron

“art itself shuns commonality: while the scientist may seek the phenomenon that repeats itself, the artist seeks the exception.”

May Art Artist Scientist Repeats Exception Phenomenon Commonality

Book:A Critical Study of Philip Guston

Source: A Critical Study of Philip Guston

“For popular purposes, at least, the aim of literary artists should be similar to that of Rubens in his landscapes, of which, without neglecting the minor traits or finishing, he was chiefly solicitous to present the leading effect, or what we may call the inspiration.”

Should May Inspiration Purpose Artist Effects Aim Landscape Neglect Traits Minors Finishing Authorship Rubens

Book:Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion

“A professional entertainer who allows himself to become known as a singer of folk songs is bound to have trouble with his conscience provided, of course, that he possesses one. As a performing artist, he will pride himself on timing and other techniques designed to keep the audience in his control ... his respect for genuine folklore reminds him that these changes, and these techniques, may give the audience a false picture of folk music.”