Top 172 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Henri - Page 2

The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. In such moments activity is inevitable, and whether this activity is with brush, pen, chisel, or tongue, its result is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state.

Don't worry about the rejections. Everybody that's good has gone through it. Don't let it matter if your works are not "accepted" at once. The better or more personal you are the less likely they are of acceptance.

Personal experimentation is revealing, and once you get into it, immensely engaging.

A Curve does not exist in its full power until contrasted with a straight line.

You will never draw the sense of a thing unless you are feeling it at the time you work.

It seems to me that before a man tries to express anything to the world he must recognize in himself an individual, a new one, very distinct from others.

Drawing is not following a line on the model, it is drawing your sense of the thing.

Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. None of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence.

If a certain activity, such as painting, becomes the habitual mode of expression, it may follow that taking up the painting materials and beginning work with them will act suggestively and so presently evoke a flight into the higher state.

I can think of no greater happiness than to be clear-sighted and know the miracle when it happens. And I can think of no more real life than the adventurous one of living and liking and exclaiming the things of one's own time.

The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art.

Look for echoes. Sometimes the same shape or direction will echo through the picture.

The good thing about painting from memory is that so much is forgotten.

When we respect the nude, we will no longer have any shame about it.

There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land.

Renoir had not only a great interest in human character, in human feeling, but had also a great love for the people he painted.

There are pictures that manifest education and there are pictures that manifest love.

All outward success, when it has value, is but the inevitable result of an inward success of full living, full play and enjoyment of one's faculties.

The world will see many fashions of art and most of the world will follow the fashions and make none. These cults - these 'movements' - are absolutely necessary, or at any rate their causes are, for somewhere in their centres are the ones who bear the Idea, the ones who have questioned, 'But what do I think?' and 'How shall I say it best?

Art is the giving by each man of his evidence to the world. Those who wish to give, love to give, discover the pleasure of giving. Those who give are tremendously strong.

I am always sorry for the Puritan, for he guided his life against desire and against nature. He found what he thought was comfort, for he believed the spirit's safety was in negation, but he has never given the world one minute's joy or produced one symbol of the beautiful order of nature. He sought peace in bondage and his spirit became a prisoner.

Many receive a criticism and think it is fine; think they got their money's worth; think well of the teacher for it, and then go on with their work just the same as before. That is the reason much of the wisdom of Plato is still locked up in the pages of Plato.

The pictures which do not represent an intense interest cannot expect to create an intense interest.

Do whatever you do intensely. The artist is the man who leaves the crowd and goes pioneering. With him there is an idea which is his life.

Self-education only produces expressions of self.

Art appreciation, like love, cannot be done by proxy: It is a very personal affair and is necessary to each individual.

In great art there is no beginning and end in point of time. All time is comprehended.

The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish, and spirits must flow. There must be courage. There are no easy ruts to get into which lead to happiness.

We make our discoveries while in the state [of high functioning] because then we are clear-sighted.

The big painter is one who has something to say. He thus does not paint men, landscape or furniture, but an idea.

Paint like a fiend when the idea possesses you.

Art tends toward balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in.

Feel the dignity of a child. Do not feel superior to him, for you are not.

Painting should never look as if it were done with difficulty, however difficult it may actually have been.

The fun of living is that we have to make ourselves, after all.

The artist should have a powerful will. He should be powerfully possessed by one idea

Your only hope of satisfying others is in satisfying yourself. I speak of a great satisfaction, not a commercial satisfaction.

Colors are beautiful when they are significant.

Educate yourself. Don't let me educate you

Don't stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.

In a tree there is a spirit of life, a spirit of growth and a spirit of holding its head up.

There are forms that can only be seen when you are near a painting, others only appear when you are far away.

After all, the goal is not making art. It is living a life. Those who live their lives will leave the stuff that is really art.

The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook.

All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.

Your painting is the marking of your progression into nature, a sensation of something you see way beyond the two pretty colors over there. Don't stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.

An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.

In certain books—some way in the first few paragraphs you know that you have met a brother.

To be free, to be happy and to be fruitful, can only be attained through sacrifice of many common but overestimated things.

The only sensible way to regard the art life is that it is a privilege you are willing to pay for... You may cite honors and attentions and even money paid, but I would have you note that these were paid a long time after the creator had gone through his struggles.

To paint is to know how to put nothing on canvas, and have it look like something when you stand back.

Students work in schools making life studies for years, win prizes for life studies and find in the end that they know practically nothing of the human figure. They have acquired the ability to copy.

Whatever you feel or think your exact state at the exact moment of your brush touching the canvas is in some way registered in that stroke.

Through art, mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. They are the bonds of a great Brotherhood. Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space cannot separate them.

Each man must take the material that he finds at hand, see that in it there are the big truths of life, the fundamentally big forces, and then express in his art whatever is the cause of his pleasure.

Many things that come into the world are not looked into. The individual says 'My crowd doesn't run that way.' I say, don't run with crowds.

Do not worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to.

It's a wrong idea that a master is a finished person. Masters are very faulty; they haven't learned everything and they know it.

Lines are results, do not draw them for themselves.

When the motives of artists are profound, when they are at their work as a result of deep consideration, when they believe in the importance of what they are doing, their work creates a stir in the world.