Don’t worry about your originality. You couldn’t get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do.
The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.
Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness.
A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods.
A common defect of modern art study is that too many students do not know why they draw.
Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.
A Curve does not exist in its full power until contrasted with a straight line.
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.
Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. A worker or painter should enjoy his work, else the observer will not enjoy it.
Because we are saturated with life, because we are human, our strongest motive is life, humanity; and the stronger the motive back of the line the stronger, and therefore more beautiful, the line will be.
Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out.
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.
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.
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.
Concentrate on a single feature – as, build all toward one eye – make all lines lead toward that eye. (Robert Henri)
We are troubled by having two selves, the inner and the outer. The outer one is rather dull and lets great things go by.
The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation.
An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.
You pass people on the street, some are for you, some are not.
There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.
We read books. They make us think. It matters very little whether we agree with the books or not.
Sometimes we do grip the concert in a human head, and so hold it that in a way we get a record of it into paint, but the vision and expressing of one day will not do for the next.
Houses, housetops, like human beings have wonderful character. The lives of housetops. The wear of the seasons. The country is beautiful, young, growing things. The majesty of trees. The backs of tenement houses are living documents.
A work of art is the trace of a magnificent struggle.
What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of this business of making a picture.
Cherish your own emotions and never under-value them. We are not here to do what has already been done.
There is weakness in pretending to know more than you know or in stating less than you know.
The pursuit of happiness … is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.
It takes great wit and interest and energy to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.
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.
Good composition is like a suspension bridge – each line adds strength and takes none away.
Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.