Oil Painting Quotes

• Oil-painting is a developed technique. Why go backwards?

  Edvard Munch

  Artist, Oil, Technique

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• If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting.

  Peter Shaffer

  New York, London, Watercolors

  The New York Times, April 13, 1975.

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• Do you know what the difference is between Friendship and Love? Friendship is the photograph, Love is the oil painting.

  Frank Delaney

  Love Is, Oil, Differences

  Frank Delaney (2011). “The Matchmaker of Kenmare: A Novel of Ireland”, p.16, Random House

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• It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Children, Years

  "The Drum Perspective". Book by Peter Erskine and ‎Rick Mattingly (p. 73), 1998.

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• Fiction is not photography, it's oil painting.

  Robertson Davies

  Photography, Oil, Fiction

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• A story isn't a charcoal sketch, where every stroke lies on the surface to be seen. It's an oil painting, filled with layers that the author must uncover so carefully to show its beauty.

  Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Lying, Oil, Stories

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• Flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented

  Willem de Kooning

  Oil, Flesh, Reason Why

  Quoted in N.Y. Times, 14 Oct. 1974

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• Technology's always changing. There was a time where oil painting was a new technology. That changed painting.

  Joe Bradley

  Technology, Oil, Painting

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The media ... is like an oil painting. Close up, it looks like nothing on Earth. Stand back and you get the drift.

  Bernard Ingham

  Media, Oil, Looks

  Bernard Ingham (1992). “Kill the messenger”, Burns & Oates

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• I am primarily an oil painter and a studio painter, so originally I was going to do an oil painting.

  Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

  Oil, Painting, Painter

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• Remember crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.

  Banksy

  Real, Oil, People

  "Banksy: The Graffitist Goes Straight". www.theguardian.com. June 14, 2009.

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• I guess a drag queen's like an oil painting: You gotta stand back from it to get the full effect.

  Harvey Fierstein

  Queens, Humorous, Oil

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• Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence.

  Paul Strand

  Order, Oil, Drawing

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• Women are important in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. But while their faces are seen everywhere- in oil paintings, watercolours, drawings, - their voices are never heard.

  Jan Marsh

  Voice, Oil, Drawing

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• Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects. Everything became exchangeable because everything became a commodity.

  John Berger

  Oil, Painting, Appearance

  "John Berger, Provocative Art Critic, Dies at 90" by Randy Kennedy, www.nytimes.com. January 2, 2017.

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• I am planning a one-man art show of original Batman oil paintings that I will show in New York City.

  Bob Kane

  Art, New York, Men

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• I’ve been looking at oil paintings from oriental artists lately, and the one artist who’s inspired me right now is a man named Hokusai and I’ve had his book by my bed looking at how he interprets landscapes – mountains and water and flowers and birds.

  Renee O'Connor

  Flower, Book, Artist

  "Renee O’Connor Exclusive Interview". The Star Scoop Interview, www.thestarscoop.com. March 30, 2005.

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• I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just started making oil paintings.

  Chuck Close

  Squares, Color, Oil

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• Never trust an ugly woman. She's got a grudge against the world,' said Grandma who was no oil painting herself.

  Richard Peck

  Grandma, Oil, World

  Richard Peck (2000). “A Long Way From Chicago: A Novel in Stories”, p.11, Penguin

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• When I adjust materials of different kinds to one another, I have taken a step in advance of mere oil painting, for in addition to playing off color against color, line against line, form against form, etc., I play off material against material, for example, wood against sackcloth.

  Kurt Schwitters

  Taken, Color, Play

  "Abstract Art". Book by Anna Moszynska, p. 68-69, 1990.

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• I went back to the Art Institute, then spent the summer at the Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, Michigan. That's what really awakened me. I made a lot of oil paintings and my first performance.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Summer, Art, School

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• When I became tired of oil painting at one stage, I used collage and this proved to be influential in the design and composition of my later works.

  Myfanwy Pavelic

  Tired, Oil, Design

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• In classical oil painting, there seemed to be a radical turn to seeing things as the camera sees them, with that technological modification. I began to have a tremendous problem with all of this.

  Henry Flynt

  Artist, Oil, Cameras

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• Used to be, conservatives revered the Average American, that Norman Rockwell oil painting of diner food, humble faith, honest toil, and Capraesque virtue.

  James Wolcott

  Humble, Average, Toil

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• With proper acting, I don't know what I would play - I got sent a script for a play, and it said in the notes that my proposed character was 'hideously fat and ugly'. That made my day. I mean, I do know I am no oil painting.

  Jo Brand

  Character, Mean, Oil

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