Artist Quotes - Page 5

• The great artist is the simplifier.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Writing, Great Art, Creating Beauty

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• To be an artist, one must . . . never shirk from the truth as he understands it, never withdraw from life

  Diego Rivera

  Art, Growth, Shirk

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• To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Mean, Perfect

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• We have art in order not to die of the truth.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Art, Order, Creative

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• No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Farewell, House, Together

  Frank Lloyd Wright (2005). “Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography”, p.168, Pomegranate

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• A cultured society that has fallen away from its religious traditions expects more from art than the aesthetic consciousness and the 'standpoint of art' can deliver. The Romantic desire for a new mythology... gives the artist and his task in the world the consciousness of a new consecration. He is something like a 'secular saviour' for his creations are expected to achieve on a small scale the propitiation of disaster for which an unsaved world hopes.

  Hans-Georg Gadamer

  Religious, Art, Giving

  "Truth and Method". Book by Hans-Georg Gadamer (p. 76), 1960.

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• An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.

  George Santayana

  Dream, Art, Design

  Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 3

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• An artist is an explorer. He has to begin by self-discovery and by observation of his own procedure. After that he must not feel under any constraint.

  Henri Matisse

  Discovery, Self, Procedures

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• To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Art, Practice, Soul

  "Finding Soul in LA: Five Creative Adventures in the City" by Roxie Sarhangi, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 18, 2014.

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• Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.

  Amy Lowell

  Art, Men, Expression

  Amy Lowell (1931). “Tendencies in Modern American Poetry”, p.7, Ardent Media

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• The search for an equilibrium is essential for the artist, to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.

  Mark Tobey

  Space, Essentials, Equilibrium

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• An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.

  Andy Warhol

  Art, War, People

  Andy Warhol (2014). “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again”, p.157, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.

  Steven Pressfield

  Art, Selfish, Creativity

  Steven Pressfield (2002). “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles”, p.165, Black Irish Entertainment LLC

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• The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.

  Wassily Kandinsky

  Keys, Hands, Soul

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• Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Creative, Stealing

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• I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.

  Ben Shahn

  Believe, Labels, Left

  Ben Shahn (1957). “The Shape of Content”, p.48, Harvard University Press

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• I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

  John Steinbeck

  Inspirational, Education, Teacher

  John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.123, Penguin

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• The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!

  Auguste Rodin

  Men, Moved, Be A Man

  "The Origins of Creativity". Book by Karl H. Pfenninger, ‎Valerie R. Shubik, ‎Bruce Adolphe (p. 50), 2001.

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• The artist is not a special kind of man, but every man is a special kind of artist.

  Ananda Coomaraswamy

  Men, Special, Kind

  Transformation of Nature in Art (1934) ch. 2

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• Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.

  Georgia O'Keeffe

  Life, Beautiful, Art

  Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.256, UPNE

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• To be an artist is to believe in life.

  Henry Moore

  Life, Beauty, Beautiful

  Henry Moore, David Mitchinson (1981). “Henry Moore sculpture”, Not Avail

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• If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.

  Marc Chagall

  Life, Beautiful, Art

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• 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.

  Andy Warhol

  Art, Business, Thinking

  Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (1975) ch. 10

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• No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.

  Edvard Munch

  Art, Reading, Men

  "The St. Cloud Manifesto" (Impressions from a ballroom, New Year's Eve in St. Cloud) by Edvard Munch, 1889.

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• Artists today think of everything they do as a work of art. It is important to forget about what you are doing - then a work of art may happen.

  Andrew Wyeth

  Art, Work, Thinking

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