Quotes about Creativity

it has always been so much my desire to paint for those who don't know the artistic side of a painting.

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.

So don't study and swot too much, for that makes one sterile. Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don't take art or love too seriously- there is very little one can do about it

One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one's own palette alone, and then nature is the result.

When I see how several painters I know here are struggling with their watercolours and paintings so that they can't see a solution anymore, I sometimes think: Friend, the fault is in your drawing. I don't regret for a moment that I did not go in for watercolour and oil painting straight away. I am sure I will catch up if only I struggle on, so that my hand does not waver in drawing and perspective.

Do go on doing a lot of walking and keep up your love of nature, for that is the right way to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see. And there are painters who never do anything that is no good...

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? If you hear a voice within saying 'You are not a painter' then by all means paint — and that voice will be silenced.

I couldn't care less what the colours are in reality.

And then there are painters who never do anything that is no good, who cannot do anything bad, just as there are ordinary people who can do nothing but good.

You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas, which says to the painter, 'You can't do a thing'.

In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.

Now and then when I am writing, I automatically do a small drawing, such as I sent you lately. I did one this morning representing Elijah in the desert under an orange sky, with some hawthorns in the foreground. It is nothing special, but I see it all so clearly before me, and I think that at such moments I could speak about it enthusiastically - may it be given me to do so later on.