Many people turn to the portfolios of prolific artists, writers, and other creatives when seeking artistic inspiration.
Here are some inspiring art quotes from some of history’s most creative figures.
Gustav Klimt
To be an artist is to believe in life.
Henry Moore
Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.
Pablo Picasso
The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artists own spiritual nature.
George Inness
The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.
Gustav Klimt, 1914 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Jerzy Kosinski
Great art picks up where nature ends.
Claude Monet
If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.
Edward Hopper
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until i set him free.
George Inness, 1890 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Michelangelo
Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete.
I paint my own reality.
It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.
Claude Monet, 1899 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Louise Bourgeois
On Creating Great Art
Ansel Adams, ca.
1950 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
You dont take a photograph, you make it.
Ansel Adams
The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.
Frida Kahlo, 1932 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
In this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it.
Paul Klee
Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.
Leonardo da Vinci
I have a flood of ideas in my mind.
Ansel Adams, ca. 1950 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
I just follow my vision.
Making your unknown known is the important thing.
Georgia OKeeffe
Creativity takes courage.
Paul Gauguin, 1891 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Henri Matisse
Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am independent!
I can live alone and I love to work.
Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Eric Gill
Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.
Salvador Dali
We dont make mistakes, just happy little accidents.
Bob Ross
The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Salvador Dalí, 1939 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
Pablo Picasso
Dont think about making art, just get it done.
Let everyone else decide if its good or bad, whether they love it or hate it.
Pablo Picasso, 1908 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
While they are deciding, make even more art.
Andy Warhol
I want to make paintings that look as if they were made by a child.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Art is never finished, only abandoned.
Oscar Wilde, 1882 (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Leonardo Da Vinci
Art is the proper task of life.
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
Francis Bacon
No great artist ever sees things as they really are.
If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
Oscar Wilde
Painting is easy when you dont know how, but very difficult when you do.
Edgar Degas
One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.
Leonardo da Vinci
There are no rules.
That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen.
Go against the rules or ignore the rules.
That is what invention is about.
Helen Frankenthaler
