Oskar Kokoschka Quotes

• True dreams and visions should be as visible to the artist as the phenomena of the objective world.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Dream, Artist, Vision

  58 Copy quote

• Consciousness is a sea ringed with visions.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Sea, Vision, Consciousness

  17 Copy quote

• Open your eyes at last and see... now I will open the book of the world for you,there are no words in it, just pictures.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Book, Eye, World

  "Von der Natur der Gesichte-On the nature of visions", lecture - Vienna, 1912.

  26 Copy quote

• However ugly a face may be, we can discover some beauty in it if we first experience wonder before it and then begin to understand it, too.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Ugly, May, Faces

  16 Copy quote

• The life of the consciousness is boundless. It interpenetrates the world and is woven in all its imagery. Therefore, we must listen closely to our inner voice.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Voice, Intuition, Woven

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• How do I define a work of art? It is not an asset in the stock-exchange sense, but a man's timid attempt to repeat the miracle that the simplest peasant girl is capable of at any time, that of magically producing life out of nothing.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Girl, Art, Men

  Oskar Kokoschka, Marlborough Gallery (1981). “Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980): memorial exhibition”

  17 Copy quote

• I cannot say why I wanted to paint. The only answer is in the pictures themselves.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Answers, Paint, Wanted

  "My Life". Book by Oskar Kokoschka, 1974.

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• All that's left now is purely poetic work, putting more life into individual places, as I've made so sure of the fundamental mood and dimension of expression that it won't leave me groping around in uncertainty any more.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Expression, Fundamentals, Dimensions

  22 Copy quote

• I consider myself responsible to the coming generations, which are left stranded in a blitzed world, unaware of the soul trembling in awe before the mystery of life.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Responsibility, Soul, Generations

  Oskar Kokoschka, Marlborough Gallery (1981). “Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980): memorial exhibition”

  7 Copy quote

• The awareness of imagery is part of living... a life which derives its power from within itself will focus on the perception... of images.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Focus, Perception, Awareness

  "On the nature of visions". Lecture in Vienna, 1912.

  8 Copy quote

• I used to be too subjective, and I was always tempted to find my inner self in the exterior and dissipate my imagination on other people and on life.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Self, People, Imagination

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• I try to keep my sitters moving and talking, to make them forget they are being painted. This has nothing to do with extracting intimate secrets or confessions, but rather with establishing, in motion, an essential image of the kind that remains in memory or recurs in dreams.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Dream, Memories, Moving

  17 Copy quote

• Consciousness is the grave of things, the place where they cease to exist, beyond which they end. And when they have ended, it seems that they no longer have any essential existence except in the visions in me.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Vision, Essentials, Consciousness

  7 Copy quote

• The most fundamental in me is coming uppermost, and the transient, the sensational, is dispersing, because it can't adversely influence what is essential to me.

  Oskar Kokoschka

  Essentials, Fundamentals, Influence

  7 Copy quote

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