Canvas Quotes - Page 23

• When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly than he knew, Rembrandt's brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend. When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Writing, Artist, Way

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• A canvas is an arena in which to act.

  Jackson Pollock

  Arena

  Jackson Pollock (2003). “Jackson Pollock. Englische Ausgabe.”, Kehrer Verlag

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• It's not necessarily a church theme and it's not really about church. I like my album themes to be metaphors because it gives me the freedom to speak about something else that's going on in my life, so the Born Sinner thing is not about church, it's not even about religion. It's using that as canvas to get other messages across and that's what the album will be.

  J. Cole

  Giving, Church, Albums

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• What a severe yet master artist old Winter is... No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel.

  John Burroughs

  Winter, Artist, Pigment

  John Burroughs, Farida Anna Wiley (1997). “John Burroughs' America: Selections from the Writings of the Naturalist”, p.124, Courier Corporation

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• The spot paintings, the spin paintings, they're all a mechanical way to avoid the actual guy in a room, myself, with a blank canvas.

  Damien Hirst

  Procrastination, Guy, Way

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• For a filmmaker, it's a rare chance to do a personal film on a big canvas.

  Ang Lee

  Chance, Film, Bigs

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• My way is to seize an image the moment it has formed in my mind, to trap it as a bird and to pin it at once to canvas. Afterward I start to tame it, to master it. I bring it under control and I develop it.

  Joan Miro

  Bird, Mind, Way

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• I am not concerned with simply surviving. I am very concerned about improving. I start each day by examining yesterday's work and looking for areas where I can improve. I am always trying to draw the characters better, and trying to design each panel somewhat in the manner a painter would treat his canvas.

  Charles M. Schulz

  Character, Always Trying, Yesterday

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• The heart is an artist that paints over what profoundly disturbs it, leaving on the canvas a less dark, less sharp version of the truth.

  Dean Koontz

  Truth, Heart, Dark

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Forever Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel”, p.8, Bantam

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• My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.

  Steve Prefontaine

  Art, Philosophy, Book

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• A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; -- not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, May, Lips

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Walden; Or, Life in the Woods”, p.67, Courier Corporation

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• ...she took her hand and raised her brush. For a moment it stayed trembling in a painful but exciting ecstacy in the air. Where to begin?--that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in idea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but to the swimmer among them are divided by steep gulfs, and foaming crests. Still the risk must run; the mark made.

  Virginia Woolf

  Running, Simple, Air

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• A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Inspirational, Life, Art

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• Life is a blank canvas, and you need to throw all the paint on it you can.

  Danny Kaye

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

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• I believe everything creative is somewhat collaborative. If you're a painter and someone stretches your canvas, it was collaborative on some level.

  Ron White

  Believe, Creative, Levels

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• The future remains uncertain and so it should, for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires. Thus always the human condition faces a beautifully empty canvas. We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.

  Frank Herbert

  Future, Journey, Desire

  Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.311, Penguin

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• The artist invites the spectator to take a journey within the realm of the canvas... Without taking the journey, the spectator has really missed the essential experience of the picture.

  Mark Rothko

  Artist, Journey, Essentials

  Mark Rothko, Christopher Rothko (2006). “The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art”, p.47, Yale University Press

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• The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few sounds

  Alfred de Vigny

  Paper, Firsts, Sound

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• Last forever!' Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.

  Annie Dillard

  Inspiring, Prayer, Forever

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.84, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

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• Do not imagine that I would disregard that thing that lies beneath the mask... but be sure that when the outside is rightly seen, the thing that lies under the surface will be found upon your canvas.

  William Merritt Chase

  Lying, Imagine, Mask

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• I'm not videotaping my life, but in a way I am trying to put certain things about myself on canvas.

  Martin Scorsese

  Trying, Way, Revelations

  Martin Scorsese, Peter Brunette (1999). “Martin Scorsese: Interviews”, p.56, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Light is my brush. Film is my canvas.

  Steve Coleman

  Light, Film, Brushes

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• I am a canvas of my experiences, my story is etched in lines and shading, and you can read it on my arms, my legs, my shoulders, and my stomach.

  Kat Von D

  Stories, Legs, Lines

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• A painter's got a canvas. The writer's got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence.

  Keith Richards

  Silence, Musician, Paper

  Twitter post from Sep 17, 2012

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• The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.

  Louis L'Amour

  Time, Men, Way

  Louis L'Amour (2008). “Education of a Wandering Man”, p.28, Bantam

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