creativity

Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.

Leonardo da Vinci

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You cannot explain me with "isms."  They are very bad
for an artist.  What one must believe in is color.

Marc Chagall

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.

Willa Cather

Were art to redeem humanity it could do so only by saving us from
the seriousness of life and restoring to us an unexpected childishness.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Somebody was saying to Picasso that he ought to make pictures of things
the way they are--objective pictures.  He mumbled that he wasn't quite sure
what that would be.  The person who was bullying him produced a photograph
of his wife from his wallet and said, "There, you see, that is a picture of how she
really is."  Picasso looked at it and said, "She is rather small, isn't she?  And flat?"

Gregory Bateson

I don't paint things.  I only paint the difference between things.

Henri Matisse

It is only the untalented director who imagines him or herself in every part,
wants his or her own thoughts and emotions portrayed; it is only the
untalented who make their own limitations those of the actors as well.

Liv Ullman

When anyone seriously pursues an art--painting, poetry, sculpture,
composing--over twenty or thirty years, the sustained discipline carries
the artist down to the countryside of grief; and that descent, resisted
so long, proves invigorating. . . . As I've gotten older, I find I am able
to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.

Robert Bly

As the poets and painters of centuries have tried to tell us, art is not
about the expression of talent or the making of pretty things.  It is
about the preservation and containment of soul.  It is about arresting
life and making it available for contemplation.  Art captures the
eternal in the everyday, and it is the eternal that feeds soul—
the whole world in a grain of sand.

Thomas Moore

When we create or appreciate art, we set free the spirit trapped within.
That is why art arouses such joy.  Art--whether skillfully executed or not--
is the emotion, the pleasure of expressing life as it is.  Those who see art
are moved by its passion and strength, its intensity and beauty.  That is
why it is impossible to separate life from art.  Political and economic
developments may seem to dominate the news, but culture and education
are the forces that actually shape an age, since they transform the human heart.

Daisaku Ikeda
Buddhism Day by Day

If you have ever sat on a mountaintop and surveyed the country below,
you must realize that what you saw was even more beautiful because of
the awesome silence which surrounded you.  Art galleries maintain a quiet
because curators realize that a painting viewed in the midst of noise is less
beautiful than when it is contemplated in the midst of silence.  One really
cannot appreciate the great art treasures housed in museums on days when
noisy crowds gather around every object to be viewed. . . . The beauty
of art will show itself in greater force in the midst of silence.  Not only does
silence enhance the beauty of art, but adds to the experience its own sublime beauty.

Karl Pruter

The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art
tells you to take your time.  Always listen to the art.

Junot Diaz

I am interested in art as a means of living a life;
not as a means of making a living.

Robert Henri

Art when really understood is the province of every human being.
It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well.  It is not an
outside, extra thing.
When the artist is alive in anyone, whatever their kind of work
may be, they become inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing
creatures.  They become interesting to other people.  They disturb,
upset, enlighten, and they open ways for a better understanding.
Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, they
open it, show that there are still more pages possible.
The world would stagnate without them, and the world would be
beautiful with them; for they are interesting to themselves and they
are interesting to others.  They do not have to be painters or
sculptors to be artists.  They can work in any medium.  They simply
have to find the gain in the work itself, not outside it.

Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl.  An artist can look at a
pretty girl and see the old woman she will become.  A better artist can look at
an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be.  But a great artist--
a master--and that is what Auguste Rodin was--can look at an old woman, portray
her exactly as she is. . . and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be. . .
and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or
even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply
imprisoned inside her ruined body.  He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy
that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart. . . no
matter what the merciless hours have done to her.  Look at her, Ben.  Growing old
doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired--but it does to them.

Robert A. Heinlein

We talk too much.  We should talk less and draw more.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Art is a deliberate recreation of a new and special reality that grows
from your response to life.  It cannot be copied; it must be created.

unattributed

When I listen to background music, when I look at a work
of art created with care and love, when I read a novel written
with style, I am touched by the beauty of communication.  Art
is a form of communication.  Whether a work of art is
considered worthwhile depends on whether it is
capable of echoing our perception of beauty.

unattributed
Happiness One Day at a Time

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

Jean-Luc Godard

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite
of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist.  The artist does not tinker
with the universe, but recreates it out of his or her own experience
and understanding of life.

Henry Miller

Without painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and the emotions produced
by natural beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm.

Herbert Spencer

It can happen anywhere, anytime.  You do not have to be in some setting
hallowed by greatness, or in the presence of an artist honored around the
world.  Art can work its magic any time you are in the presence of a work
created by someone who has gone inside the act of creation to become
what they are creating.  When this takes place time stands still and if our
hearts are open to the experience, our spirits soar and
our imaginations fly unfettered.
You need these moments if you are ever to have a life that is more than
the sum of the daily moments of humdrum affairs.

Kent Nerburn
Letters to My Son

Good art wounds as well as delights.  It must, because our
defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us.
But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to
healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games
and ego-preserving strategies.

Rollo May
My Quest for Beauty

On this beautiful Planet Earth we have seven billion people, and we
all are artists.  It doesn't matter where we were born, or what language
we speak, or what religion we have, or what philosophy we follow—we
all are artists, each one of us.  I'm talking about the totality of humanity
around this beautiful Planet Earth.  Of course many people are not aware
that they are artists, but once you have that awareness and you see that
your art is your own story, then it's easy to understand that if you don't
like your own story only you can change it.  Nobody else can change it,
but you can change it.  Similarly, you cannot change anybody else's story.
You cannot change your beloved's story, your children's story,
your parents', or anybody else's.

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
Little Book of Wisdom

The artist must be in his or her work as God is in creation, invisible
and all-powerful; his or her presence should be felt everywhere,
but the artist must never be seen.

Gustave Flaubert