Artist Quotes

The best way to begin is to say: Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is known. And now let us have a look at his paintings.

I will always find even the worst paintings that attempt some kind of representation better than the best invented paintings.

I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always a slight touch of mystery in my paintings.

Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.

One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.

I remember being told 'Someone's gonna make a fortune out of this rap thing' and thinking 'no way'.

I can't re-define music every week!

Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.

The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.

Never judge a work of art by its defects.

I will be a historical painter.

Father, in spite of all this spending of money in learning Latin, I will be a painter.

It's better to be hurt by the truth than to gain satisfaction from the lies.

On the little money I had collected I lived in Berlin very cheaply, ate very cheaply. And already in 1920 I saved the first salaries I received to go to Munich.

My father's parents were carpenters. They were also builders partly. They were painters. And several of them were very, active in the theatre and all such nonsense, you know.

It was my family that wanted me to be a teacher. That was safe, you see. To be a painter was terrible.

Instead of art I have taught philosophy. Though technique for me is a big word, I never have taught how to paint. All my doing was to make people to see.

In Italy the artist is a god. Now if the artist is a god, the scientist is likewise a god.

I went to the Academy and studied with Stuck who was then a big man. But didn't interest me. I didn't know that before me there was Kandinsky and Klee who had also studied with Stuck. He had a good name at that time.

I was for years in the yellow period, you know.

I was at the Royal Art School. That was a preparatory school specially for art teachers. You see, it was not so much for the development of artists. But we had there terribly stiff training.

I think Kandinsky and I were very near friends.

I love very much to draw animals.

I have taught my students not to apply rules or mechanical ways of seeing.

I have invented the Thermometer style.

I count all the time on resonance. I call on this, you see.

As basic rules of a language must be practiced continually, and therefore are never fixed, so exercises toward distinct color effects never are done or over. New and different cases will be discovered time and again.

Any ground subtracts its own hue from the colors which it carries and therefore influences.

Ah, the creative process is the same secret in science as it is in art. They are all the same absolutely.

It is not so for art in appreciation because art is concerned with human behavior. And science is concerned with the behavior of metal or energy. It depends on what the fashion is. Now today it's energy. It's the same soul behind it. The same soul, you see.