A Quote by Semir Zeki

No one would want to pay a penny for an empty canvas by me. But it would be quite another if the empty canvas were signed by a great artist. I would be surprised if an empty canvas by Picasso or Matisse signed and inscribed with the words, 'I wanted to paint such and such on this canvas, but did not do so,' would not fetch thousands... After all, with an empty canvas, the possibilities are limitless, and so perhaps is the cash.

Semir Zeki

Quote Topics

After Another Artist Canvas Cash Did Empty Empty Canvas Fetch Great Great Art Great Artist Limitless Matisse Me Paint Pay Penny Perhaps Picasso Possibilities Quite Signed Surprised Thousands Want Wanted Were Words Would Would Be

Quote Author

Semir Zeki
British - Educator
Born: 1940

To end up with a canvas that is no less beautiful than the empty canvas is to begin with.

Robert Motherwell

When I was in art college, I would be painting, and I would create something on a canvas that was actually quite attractive. But if I got frightened and tried to protect that, that canvas would die.

Michael Ironside

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

An empty canvas, apparently really empty, that says nothing and is without significance – almost dull, in fact – in reality, is crammed with thousands of undertone tensions and full of expectancy. Slightly apprehensive lest it should be outraged.

Wassily Kandinsky

Freeform radio is an art form. The airwaves are the empty canvas, the producer is the artist, and the sound is the paint.

Julius Lester

Empty canvas. In appearance - really empty, silent, indifferent. Stunned, almost. In effect - full of tensions, with thousand subdued voices, heavy with expectations. A little frightened because it may be violated

Wassily Kandinsky

There is, I am convinced, no picture that conveys in all its dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, despairing, remediless, supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would show only a woman looking down at her empty arms.

Charlotte Bronte

Life in itself is an empty canvas; it becomes whatsoever you paint on it. You can paint misery, you can paint bliss. This freedom is your glory.

Rajneesh

A canvas is never empty.

Robert Rauschenberg

An empty canvas is full.

Robert Rauschenberg

Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all.

Vincent Van Gogh

I think we're all born with this huge canvas in front of us and the paintbrushes and the paint, and we choose what to put on this canvas.

Louise Hay

I was always interested in language. I thought, why not? If a painting, by the normal definition of the term, is paint on canvas, why can't it be painted words on canvas?

John Baldessari

My belief is that it is most important for an artist to develop an approach and philosophy about life - if he has developed this philosophy, he does not put paint on canvas, he puts himself on canvas.