Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.
quote by Willem de Kooning

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
When you give an artist a canvas, you shouldn't tell him exactly how much paint to put on it, or exactly how sharp the images should be. You should let the artist get going.
quote by Reed Hundt

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Value Fever Pitch: An Artist’s Time
Bhoman F Jamhari said
'I am an artist - This does not
mean I will work for free.
I have bills just like you.
Thank you for understanding.'
Polite and to the problematic point.
Anyone who thinks believes
an artist’s time is worthless,
is definitely a person an artist
should avoid; such individuals
cannot comprehend
or remotely understand
aesthetic value of art.
Art takes time to produce.
Vision and artistic skill takes
even longer to realize to attain
expanding horizons. Time costs.
Artists of differing genre value
appreciate each other and art
which suits their temperament.
To create art
is the life blood
of an artist.
The air we breathe
is the home of art.
Creativity is our fevered mind songs
we sing in a legacy of image visions.
What kind of a con artist wants
to steal bread from an artist’s mouth;
therefore limiting the quality quantity
of future works of art, to be produced
by that artist. Answer an enemy of art.
poem by Terence George Craddock

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Creative Perceptions
Artist appropriate palette prepares
as poet intuitive channels and shares -
perceptions highlighted in paint or in rhyme,
on screen, paper, canvas, [b]rushed, touched outside Time.
Each reaches out writing, foresighting, prepares
stalls [f]rigid for music of spirit sublime.
But few can interpret the talent they praise
in the style of an artist in true paraphrase.
(24 September 2005 robi03_1306)
Bridgework
Artists palette, paints, prepare,
poets channel insight rare.
One canvas fills, one paper inks,
imagination interlinks.
Each respective stream compares
perceptions, self-respecting, thinks
perspectives sensitively, shares
intuitive fruition, links
symphonic patterns, well aware
individuals everywhere
sense beauty way beyond time's brink -
horizons widen, never shrink.
Images accompany
free originality.
(7 May 2008 variant of As Artist, Poet robi03_1396_robi03_0986 16 February 2002 robi03_0986 and also variant of Creative Perceptions
24 September 2005 robi03_1306_robi03_0986)
As Artist, Poet
As artists palette, paints, prepare
so poets channel insight rare.
One canvas fills, one paper inks,
the foremost and the least of links.
Both tune respective streams, compare
perspective, sensitively share
where, true to self there neither sinks
as each through intuitions thinks
the way to harmony, aware
that perfect strangers anywhere
may beauty sense beyond time's brink -
horizons widen, never shrink.
Both pictures form, accompany
creative thrust with spirit free.
(16 February 2002 robi03_0986)
for previous version see below
As Artist, Poet
As artists palette, paints, prepare
so poets insight channel, air: -
one canvas fills, one paper inks,
the foremost and the least of links.
Both tune respective streams with rare
sensitive perspective, care.
When true to self then neither sinks
as each through intuitions thinks
the way to harmony, to share
with perfect strangers anywhere
how beauty may beyond the brink
horizons widen, never shrink.
Both pictures form, accompany
creative thrust with spirit free...
(16 February 2002)
poem by Jonathan Robin

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A Nude Artist
A Nude Artist
he says he is a nude artist
because he is naked when he paints
such nakedness has
nothing to do with being a nude artist
a naked artist who paints a cat or a chicken
is not a nude artist
there is no nude cat
thyere is no nude chicken
just paint a naked woman
and he will be called a nude artist
an artist is not an art
he must know that
- Frog Mantra, Accents Publishing,2012 -
poem by Suchoon Mo_

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As An Artist
As an artist,
I carefully paint
a picture on my
canvas
with each stroke
I wipe away a tear
causing a smile to
reappear
As an artist
I endow your face
with my brush
making it more
perfect as I go
until at last the
image of my love
I see.
poem by Heather Burns

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Viewers are like artists.
An artist perceives, abstracts,
Concretize and present a form.
A viewer perceives, connects,
Abstracts and relate to real thing.
The beauty of the art enhances
From the style the artist employs.
The beauty of the art is understood
From the mind the viewers apply.
To be a viewer is as special as an artist.
All aren’t viewers as all aren’t artists.
14.05.2006
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

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When is a Painting Finished?
I paint.
On my easel
pictures in oil and acrylic grow
like stalagmites in limestone caves.
I think that painting is a magical act
that transforms invisible thoughts
and feelings into visible colors
and forms.
But I never can tell
when is the work finished.
After all it is always possible
to change a line, a hue, or a color
or even the whole composition.
Painters have different opinions
about this.
Some say that when the artist
successfully planted
all the details onto the canvas
the image expresses itself
as a severed autonomous entity,
which frees the painter from
the task of continuing to paint.
From then on the painting gains
an independent inner life of its own.
However, abandoning a work of art
involves a moral decision
ripened by the stiffening tension
between skill, creativity and integrity.
At what point does the polished image
meet the artist’s expectations?
And then, even if it does,
no single image can express
all that an artist wants to show,
and consequently his muses
compel him to carry on with his work
and create more paintings.
Hence the oeuvre of the artist
evolves as a set of different images
of the same single thrust and grind.
Many years ago I was wandering
through the countryside
of southern France in Provence.
Once I stopped to look at the road
where the village met the meadow.
A sturdy artist stood there
in front of his easel
painting the landscape
with skilful brushstrokes
on a well-stretched canvas.
I stared for a while
at the burgeoning picture
and then asked him:
“How do you know
when is the composition complete? ”
He gave me a piercing glance.
“Well”, he said,
“if you take a hammer
and hit me on the head
I know that the painting is finished.”
poem by Paul Hartal

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The main reason he wanted to be a recording artist was because it gives you much more freedom in your writing. You only have to please the artist and the artist is you so you can be more daring and experimental.
quote by Cynthia Weil

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You are born an artist or you are not. And you stay an artist, dear, even if your voice is less of a fireworks. The artist is always there.
quote by Maria Callas

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Artist
He stands at no easel, he mixes no paint,
He colours no canvas to gladden the eye,
Yet the picture he makes will not fade or grow faint
Till our love of the chase shall desert us and die.
He's an artist of parts
Who appeals to the hearts
That can thrill to good hunting and hounds in full cry.
By his seat in the saddle, his touch on the reins,
His skill and his mastery, who can gainsay
That here is an artist in all that pertains
To the horse and his handling - a real R.A. ?
An artist 'twould irk
Not to cut out the work
When the hats are crammed down and a fox is away.
You will find him no centre of salon or crush,
No letters attached to his name may he sign,
But there's no one so eager to handle the Brush
And there's none so consistently found on the Line.
If an artist you ask,
Here's the man for the task,
Making pictures where keenness and courage combine.
poem by William Henry Ogilvie

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Empty Canvas
the canvas is juxtaposition
images colour movement time
time shifts in thought shifts
empty mind space canvas
is whatever artist declares
canvas is painted to be
empty canvas is whatever
canvas is painted to be
endless pigment possibilities
poem by Terence George Craddock

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The Artist
The Artist and his Luckless Wife
They lead a horrid haunted life,
Surrounded by the things he's made
That are not wanted by the trade.
The world is very fair to see;
The Artist will not let it be;
He fiddles with the works of God,
And makes them look uncommon odd.
The Artist is an awful man,
He does not do the things he can;
He does the things he cannot do,
And we attend the private view.
The Artist uses honest paint
To represent things as they ain't,
He then asks money for the time
It took to perpetrate the crime.
poem by Sir Walter Raleigh

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Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can't force it.
quote by Susan Sontag

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry. If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let them take tea together three times a week.
quote by Ezra Pound

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An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.
quote by Henry Miller

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Blank Canvas
I often think the artist
Needs a vast blank canvas
I often feel the poet songs
Arise out of pure emotion
Loneliness, emptiness…
A void to be filled, transgressed.
But, what does it all say…?
On a personal, level
Anyway, about ink or oil…
Are their horizons, just?
Just as barren …as desert soil?
Hell no! Beauty is translucent.
'To a point…
But what could be more real'?
poem by Mark Heathcote

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Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.
quote by Paul Simon

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Artists.....
the role of a true artist
is to put order to the messy state of things
chopped lines are interconnected again
colors are categorized to a harmonious blending
a room of scattered old and dirty clothes
bedsheets in disarray
pillows on the floor
paper scratches and pens and ink spilled
the artist picks them all up
and puts them properly back to the places
where they must be
for at the beginning there was an order of perfection
but then this universe bangs itself against a black space of a wall
and goes into an accelerated entropy
a scattering, a chaos pursuing upon another chaos
expanding litters of planets and stars
and God the Artist gathers them all into One
Harmony, the Silenced Storm, the Wellness and Wholeness
of These All
We are all these Artists, God's Children looking for Peace.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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I was being an artist, being sensitive and technical as artists are. I'm sure Leonardo Da Vinci did that. Artists don't always feel the same as others feel about their work.
The First Artist and Author.
The first artist painted the sky with colors, such beauty,
Look at those sunsets, and the mountains, such reality;
The mountains, have shadows, of splendor that only the Master can do,
Yes! It's God who was the first Artist, and He also taught me too.
The first great artist painted the colors on the sea,
Blues, greens, aquas, Only one could do this you see;
And when there is a storm near, the sea goes so dark blue,
Yes! God is the first great artist, to paint it for me and you.
The first great Artist, loved to teach David to write poetry,
And also king Solomon, writing words of such beauty;
Oh such magnificent works, of color and in each word,
Yes! There is only one who could do this it is the Lord.
Then. We see in every rainbow, and in each shell as well,
Look at the colored sands, and in every bird, it does tell;
Then look at each animal, and also the petals of each flower too
Then as you look at these, , give Thanks for doing it for me and you.
poem by Margaret Haig

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