Top 17 Rubens Quotes & Sayings

When I modeled, my name always came with a preface: 'the voluptuous Sophie Dahl.' I was the anti-waif, as round as a Rubens.

If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been revered as a fabulous model. Kate Moss? Well, she would have been the paintbrush.

To my eye Rubens' colouring is most contemptible. His shadows are a filthy brown somewhat the colour of excrement.

But why I cry out against Rubens is because he painted undressed people instead of naked ones.

Just competing in the Brazilian GP is a dream for all Brazilian racing drivers. I remember sitting in the grandstands when I was a kid, watching Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet and even Rubens Barrichello. After that, to race there in Formula One is a feeling that is hard to explain.

My studio practice is a - I suppose a bit more like [Thomas] Gainsborough or [Peter Paul] Rubens in the sense that any artist who wants to create a grand narrative on a grand scale has to sort of parse out some of the smaller aspects of painting or the more mundane aspects of painting to others.

I am a man of Brazil, of F1. My middle name needs to change to Rubens F1 Barrichello. I have no intention of saying goodbye.

If I were alive in Rubens's time, I'd be celebrated as a model. Kate Moss would be used as a paint brush.

It's no easy matter to paint a background. I venture to say that the old painters had more difficulty with their grounds than with their figures. You know the story of Vandyke brought to Rubens with this recommendation: 'He already knows how to paint a background.' 'That is more than I can do!' was the reply.

A Gustave Courbet portrait of a trout has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion.

I recommend that you should work actively... and study the artistic structures of Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Watteau, Poussin, and other painters, even Chardin, where he is an artist. Study very closely their dabbing manner of execution and try to copy a small piece of canvas, just one square inch.

I read somewhere that Rubens said students should not draw from life, but draw from all the great classic casts. Then you really get the measure of them, you really know what to do. And then, put in your own dimples. Isn't that marvelous!

I don't disagree with seeing a Rubens of a nude body, but I don't believe in a nude body in action. With Rubens, thank goodness, they aren't in action.

On the left is the realist tradition of the 19th century, with its impulse to social description, radical criticism and meditation on things as they are... culminating in Courbet at his mightiest (The Studio, The Funeral at Ornans and a portrait of a trout that has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion).

Whether you think you like Rubens or not, his influence runs through the pathways of painting. Like Warhol, he changed the game of art.

For popular purposes, at least, the aim of literary artists should be similar to that of Rubens in his landscapes, of which, without neglecting the minor traits or finishing, he was chiefly solicitous to present the leading effect, or what we may call the inspiration.

For - to say a few words on technique - whereas the curved line was used predominantly for reasons of beauty, (Phidias, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rubens) it has been used more and more economically for reasons of truth (Millet, Monet, Paul Cézanne) until it will end as the straight line for reasons of Love. This will enable the art of the future to create an international form; a form understandable to all and vital enough to the expression of a general feeling of love in a monumental way. Such is the future.