While I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality... true art lies in a reality that is felt.

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum

A painting is what you make of it, besides which, 'Moon, Weeping' has a better ring to it than 'Paintbrush, Dripping.

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation

A man and his art are like a fool and his king.

A great artist is always before his time or behind it

Art is a kind of illness

For the mystic what is how. For the craftsman how is what. For the artist what and how are one.

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

Art is the struggle to understand.

The artist does not see things as they are, but as he is.

An artist cannot talk about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

An art critic is someone who appreciates art, except for any particular piece of art.

A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection.

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

Behind unfinished art cries an unfinished artist.

An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it.

The true painter strives to paint what can only be seen through his world.

Artistry is an innate distrust of the theory of reality concocted by the five senses.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

An artist must be careful not to throw his ideas out with the trash.

As my artist's statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke

A picture is a poem without words

We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

You don't take a photograph, you make it

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

Creativity takes courage

Every artist was first an amateur

When painting, an artist must take care not to trap his soul in the canvas.

Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum.

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

An artist's career always begins tomorrow.

The best way to learn about art is to attach yourself to an artist. You've got to be in his studio, in his guts, in his hair, bothering him all the time.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.

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

What was any art but a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

Anyone who's making their living from their creativity, you're so emotionally attached to the process that it really does just eat you up completely.

Picasso is not our greatest painter, but he is our greatest artist. He's the great satyr art figure. His whole life is a work of art.

Reflexes and instincts are not pretty. It is their decoration that initiates art.

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

The artist's talent sits uneasy as an object of public acclaim, having been so long an object of private despair

Art is spirituality in drag.

It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man.

As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life

Art disturbs, science reassures.

What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.

Art hath an enemy called ignorance.

Art doesn't have to matter to a lot of people to matter a lot.

One of the best things about paintings is their silence which prompts reflection and random reverie.

Colors are the deeds and sufferings of light.

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.

Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.

It is for every normal human being to be an artist. It is his divine heritage, every child is an artist. Human society kills it in us before we reach maturity.

Every child is an artist, with imagination and the artistic instinct. Life stamps these out...

All great art comes from a sense of outrage.

Art is the triumph over chaos.

If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered.