“My idea of a perfect surrealist painting is one in which every detail is perfectly realistic, yet filled with a surrealistic, dreamlike mood. And the viewer himself can't understand why that mood exists, because there are no dripping watches or grotesque shapes as reference points. That is what I'm after: that mood which is apart from everyday life, the type of mood that one experiences at very special moments.” IdeasMomentsPerfectWatchesSpecialPaintingTypeShapesFilledEverydayDetailsMoodRealisticEveryday LifeViewersSurrealismGrotesqueDrippingSurrealistSpecial Moments Author:Ian Hornak
“What I so like about Poussin and Cezanne is their sense of organization. Ilike the way in which they develop space and shape in architecturalcontinuity - the rhythm across their paintings. When I paint a landscape, Iget the greatest pleasure out of composing it. As I paint, I try to work outa visual sonata form or a fugue, with realistic images.” WayTryingFormSpacePleasurePaintingShapesOrganizationPaintWork OutRhythmLandscapeVisualsRealisticComposingGreatest PleasuresFugueSonatasCezanne Author:Ian Hornak
“Literature expresses itself by abstractions, whereas painting, by means of drawing and colour, gives concrete shape to sensations and perceptions.” GivingMeanLiteraturePaintingShapesPerceptionDrawingColourSensationsConcreteAbstraction Author:Paul Cezanne
“It is an intimately communicative affair between the painter and his painting, a conversation back and forth, the painting telling the painter even as it receives its shape and form.” FormPaintingShapesConversationAffairPainterIntimacyBack And Forth Book:The Shape of Content Source: The Shape of Content
“What I would like in my painting is simply a spray of colour that hangs like a cloud, but does not lose its shape.” DoeLosesPaintingShapesCloudsColourSpray Author:Jules Olitski
“Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space. I know of no sculpture, painting or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters. At first the colossal aspect may dominate; then we perceive and respond to the delicate and persuasive complex of nature.” KnowsFirstsMayLightSpiritualFallWaterSpaceWonderRocksPaintingShapesAspectStonesGreenComplexesForestsCommandGoldenPerceiveValleysDelicateCompellingSunriseSoarSculptureThunderCliffsExceedWhisperingGlitterPersuasiveColossalEdificeDomesGraniteYosemiteFlowing Water Author:Ansel Adams
“With monochrome painting... the idiosyncrasy of the work, its difference, its expression, lies in shape.” LyingDifferencesPaintingExpressionShapesIdiosyncrasiesMonochrome Author:Guido Molinari
“You begin by engaging the left hemisphere of the brain with the overall shape, the basic structure of the painting, and then eventually you engage with the colour, with the mood of the painting and then you are entering the activities of the right hemisphere - and it is in the right hemisphere that ideas of space are born, the realization that you are seeing space.” IdeasLeftBornSpaceBrainSeeingPaintingActivityShapesStructureMoodRealizationColourEnteringEngagingHemisphere Author:Guido Molinari
“School and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting as I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to be at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself. I found that I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way things that I had no words for.” WayWantWantedSchoolFoundStupidTaughtPaintingFoolShapesConcernDecidedPaintPainterColourVery Stupid Author:Georgia O'Keeffe
“The theme, or harmony, of a painting can be created by any one of its visual elements. A single colour... repetition of shapes... Light can be a theme.” LightPaintingShapesElementsHarmonyThemeVisualsColourRepetition Author:Mike Svob
“When I look at a wildlife or nature subject, I dont see the feathers in the wings, I just count the wings. I see exciting shapes, color combinations, patterns, textures, fascinating behavior and endless possibilities for making interesting pictures. I regard the picture as an ecosystem in which all the elements are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced, without trimming or unutilized parts; and herein lies the lure of the painting; in a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe.” WorldLooksLyingArtistUniverseInterestingSubjectsPossibilityColorPaintingShapesBehaviorElementsExcitingRegardWingsChaosPatternsEndlessCombinationFascinatingBalancedFeathersTextureWildlifeEcosystemsLureTrimmingEndless PossibilitiesRectangles Author:Charley Harper
“Shape and color are my two strong things. And by doing this, drawing plants has always led me into my paintings and my sculptures.” TwoStrongColorPaintingShapesPlantDrawingSculpture Author:Ellsworth Kelly
“Painting dissolves the forms at its command, or tends to; it melts them into color. Drawing, on the other hand, goes about resolving forms, giving edge and essence to things. To see shapes clearly, one outlines them--whether on paper or in the mind. Therefore, Michelangelo, a profoundly cultivated man, called drawing the basis of all knowledge whatsoever.” MenGivingMindHandsFormColorPaintingShapesPaperEssenceBasesEdgesDrawingCommandOutlines Author:Alexander Eliot
“From building a fire one can learn something about artistic composition. If you use only small kindling and large logs, the fire will quickly eat up the small pieces but will not become strong enough to attack the large ones. You must supply a scale of sizes from the smallest to the largest. The human eye also will not make its way into a painting or building unless a continuum of shapes leads from the small to the large, from the large to the small.” IfsWayHumansEnoughUseEyeStrongFirePiecesBuildingPaintingShapesSizeScalesArtisticSmallestCompositionStrong EnoughContinuumHuman EyesSmall PiecesKindling Author:Rudolf Arnheim
“The freedom he gave himself to work and change shape and change ideas and work all the time with joy, the joy of painting was in [Publo] Picasso, which I found beautiful.” IdeasBeautifulJoyFoundPaintingShapes Author:Agnes Varda
“Painting is a duality and abstract painting is an entirely aesthetic thing. It always remains on one level. It is only really interesting in the beauty of its patterns or its shapes.” InterestingLevelsPaintingShapesRemainsPatternsAbstractAestheticDualityReally InterestingAbstract Painting Author:Francis Bacon
“I realized that I had things in my head not like what I had been taught - not like what I had seen - shapes and ideas so familiar to me that it hadn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to stop painting, to put away everything I had done, and to start to say the things that were my own.” IdeasDoneMy OwnTaughtPaintingShapesDecidedI RealizedFamiliar Book:Some Memories of Drawings Source: Some Memories of Drawings
“I find that I have painted my life, things happening in my life - without knowing. After painting the shell and shingle many times, I did a misty landscape of the mountain across the lake, and the mountain became the shape of the shingle - the mountain I saw out my window, the shingle on the table in my room. I did not notice that they were alike for a long time after they were painted.” LongRoomsKnowingSawsPaintingShapesMountainLong TimeHappeningsWindowTablesThings HappenLandscapeLakesShellsMistyShingles Book:Georgia O'Keeffe Source: Georgia O'Keeffe
“Do you think it interests me that this painting represents two figures? These two figures existed, they exist no more. The sight of them gave me an initial emotion, little by little their real presence grew indistinct they became a fiction for me, then they disappeared, or rather, were turned into problems of all kinds. For me they are no longer two figures but shapes and colours, don't misunderstand me, shapes and colours, though, that sum up the idea of the two figures and preserve the vibration of their existence.” ThinkingKindLittlesTwoIdeasRealProblemInterestEmotionExistenceFictionFiguresPaintingGrewShapesSightAll KindsPreservesColourInitialsVibrations Author:Pablo Picasso
“Neither is there figurative and non-figurative art. All things appear to us in the shape of forms. Even in metaphysics ideas are expressed by forms. Well then, think how absurd it would be to think of painting without the imagery of forms. A figure, an object, a circle, are forms; they affect us more or less intensely.” ThinkingWellsArtIdeasWould BeFormFiguresObjectsPaintingShapesAll ThingsCirclesAbsurdMetaphysicsImageryFigurative Art Author:Pablo Picasso
“I was never good at painting. The great turning point came when I had a block of wood and I carved a shape into the wood and put a small piece of timber into that space - like a negative - and so it made an endless column, only inward.” MadeSpacePiecesPaintingShapesNegativeWoodsEndlessBlockInwardColumnsTurning PointsTimberSmall Pieces Author:Carl Andre
“At a young age, I really wanted to make music and make my own sort of thing. I'm sure if it wasn't music, it would have been writing, or it would have been maybe painting. I just always had the drive to try and make something with my hands and to just pull something out of myself and shape it and see it in front of me, if that makes any sense.” IfsWritingTryingHas BeensHandsAgeWantedYoungMy OwnFrontsPaintingShapesYoung Age Author:El-P
“I practice the artist's golden rule. I wouldn't want somebody telling me how to finish my painting, I'm not going to tell him how to finish his movie or how to shape his movie.” WantArtistPracticePaintingShapesGoldenGolden Rule Author:Wayne White
“I was envious of [Vincent] Van Gogh because I could never make a painting that beautiful! (Ridiculous, I know.) That was when the character of Ivy [Wilkes] began to take shape for me.” KnowsCharacterBeautifulPaintingShapesRidiculousVansEnviousIvy Author:Liza Campbell