Colour Quotes - Page 31

• There's a Legion that never was 'listed, That carries no colours or crest, But, split in a thousand detachments, Is breaking the road for the rest.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Splits, Detachment, Legion

  Rudyard Kipling (2011). “The Seven Seas”, p.52, House of Stratus

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• The actual basis of colour is instability. Once you accept that in lieu of something which is stable, which is form, you are dealing with something which is unstable in its basic character, you begin to get a way of dealing with it.

  Bridget Riley

  Character, Way, Accepting

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• I learned from Seurat this important thing about colour and light, that 'a light' can be built from colour. I learned a great deal about interaction, that 'a blue' in different parts will play all sorts of different roles.

  Bridget Riley

  Play, Light, Blue

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• If you can allow colour to breathe, to occupy its own space, to play its own game in its unstable way, it's wanton behaviour, so to speak. It is promiscuous like nothing.

  Bridget Riley

  Space, Games, Play

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• I'm what I seem; not any dyer gave, But nature dyed this colour that I have.

  Martial

  Nature, Seems

  Martial (1871). “The Epigrams of Martial”, p.621

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• All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence.

  William Butler Yeats

  Art, Essence, Purpose

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• The proprietor had hair so red that pigmentation had flowed out into every visible inch of his skin and even into the pinks of his eyes, as the colour of flowering cherry trees stains their leaves.

  Quentin Crisp

  Eye, Hair, Tree

  "The Naked Civil Servant". Book by Quentin Crisp, Chapter 13, 1968.

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• The element of heroic maleness had always been present in the concept of the artist as one who rides the winged horse above the clouds beyond the sight of lesser men, a concept seldom applied to those who worked with colours until the nineteenth century. When the inevitable question is asked, "Why are there no great women artists?" it is this dimension of art that is implied. The askers know little of art, but they know the seven wonders of the painting world.

  Germaine Greer

  Horse, Art, Men

  Germaine Greer (2001). “The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work”, p.105, Tauris Parke Paperbacks

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• Subduing and subdued, the petty strife, Which clouds the colour of domestic life; The sober comfort, all the peace which springs From the large aggregate of little things; On these small cares of daughter, wife or friend, The almost sacred joys of home depend.

  Hannah More

  Daughter, Spring, Women

  Hannah More (1840). “The Miscellaneous Works of Hannah More”, p.205

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• Collect impressions. Don't be in a hurry to write them down. Because that's something music can do better than painting: it can centralise variations of colour and light within a single picture a truth generally ignored, obvious as it is.

  Claude Debussy

  Writing, Light, Variation

  Claude Debussy, François Lesure, Roger Nichols (1987). “Debussy Letters: ,”, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press

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• Colour-blindness always extends to the complementary colours. Those who are red blind are also green blind; those who are blind to blue have no consciousness of yellow. This law holds good for all mental phenomena; it is a fundamental condition of consciousness.

  Otto Weininger

  Blue, Law, Yellow

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.110, Рипол Классик

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• When all candles are out, all cats are grey,
  All things are then of one color, as who say.
  And this proverb faith, for quenching hot desire,
  Foul water as soon as faire, will quench hot fire.

  John Heywood

  Cat, Water, Hot

  "Proverbs". Part I, chapter 5, 1546.

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• When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower; when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly.

  John Ruskin

  Children, Flower, Men

  John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.312, University of Virginia Press

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• Just as the eye was made to see colours, and the ear to hear sounds, so the human mind was made to understand, not whatever you please, but quantity.

  Johannes Kepler

  Eye, Mind, Sound

  "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science". Book by Edwin Arthur Burtt, 1925.

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• But thou, my son, study to make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth.

  Matthew Arnold

  Truth, Son, Hue

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.381, Delphi Classics

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• You can't teach colour from Cézanne, you can only teach it from something like this bubble-gum wrapper.

  Allan Kaprow

  Gum, Teach, Bubbles

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• My talent lies in the expression of my life and creative power through light, colour and form. As a painter I can convey the essence of life.

  Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

  Lying, Light, Expression

  "Art of the 20th century, Part 1". Book by Karl Ruhrberg, p. 178, 2000.

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• I'm very interested in how colour and shape are perceived.

  Wanda Koop

  Shapes, Interest

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• The art of British Columbia's native Indians played a big role in inspiring my creativity... the simplicity of the images, the graciousness of the lines and curves, and the emotional impact of the bright simple primary colours.

  Joe Average

  Art, Creativity, Simple

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• The Mackenzie had never met folk so poor in story and song and legends, and it moved him to a pity that pricked at his eyes. Without that tapestry of colour and words and ritual, what was life but eating and mating, sleeping and moving your bowels? All of them good and necessary, but not enough; and they themselves needed that framework too, to give them meaning.

  S.M. Stirling

  Song, Moving, Eye

  "The Sword of the Lady". Book by S. M. Stirling, 2009.

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• The capacity to transform itself from the inside makes capitalism a somewhat peculiar beast - chameleon-like, it perpetually changes it colour; snake-like, it periodically sheds its skin.

  David Harvey

  Snakes, Skins, Peculiar

  "The Limits To Capital". Book by David Harvey, 1982.

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• Do you know why the leaves change colour?... Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poison it can't rid itself of otherwise. That red there--that's a man's skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies.

  Mark Lawrence

  Weed, Men, Tree

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• Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.

  Okakura Kakuzo

  Creativity, Sadness, Artist

  Andrew Forbes, David Henley, Okakura Kakuzo “The Illustrated Book of Tea”

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• One can derive the same fun from print-making as from making mud pies and great subtlety can be achieved through the use of transparent inks, half-tone screens and even accidental colour combinations, which is often where the art hides.

  Ralph Steadman

  Art, Fun, Pie

  "The Joke's Over". Book by Ralph Steadman, 2006.

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• [Vathek] has, in parts, been called, but to some judgments, never is, dull: it is certainly in parts, grotesque, extravagant and even nasty. But Beckford could plead sufficient "local colour" for it, and a contrast, again almost Shakespearean, between the flickering farce atrocities of the beginning and the sombre magnificence of the end. Beckford's claims, in fact, rest on the half-score or even half-dozen pages towards the end: but these pages are hard to parallel in the later literature of prose fiction.

  William Thomas Beckford

  Fiction, Half, Literature

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