If there is a higher being it is an unconscious one. A tree never worries about the house it blocks from view. — Ken Kewley Artist Ken Kewley has remarkable insight into colors. "Pure colors are rare," he says. "Look at great paintings. Look for primary colors, colors that...
The work of art provides us with new organs with which to see the world. — Maurice Merleau-Ponty We understand the world thanks to the nonfungible mental tokens we call "ideas." Ideas bridge internal and external reality and allow us to say, "Yes, I get it, I understand." But—unless...
The true use of art is to cultivate the artist’s own spiritual nature. — George Inness The 19th century American art movement known as Tonalism celebrated gentle tones, soft edges, atmosphere, and “the reality of the unseen.” Americans fell in love with it in the aftermath of the Civil...
“In art it is hard to say anything as good as saying nothing.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein People who speak harshly of painters, but don't themselves paint, irk me. Even when they speak harshly of mediocre painters. Compared to these critics, painters—even masterful ones—are always more congenial. That's true in all...
Painting a "picture" is meaningless. One paints beauty. — David Leffel In perhaps my favorite semester of college, I took a philosophy course on beauty. Philosophers call the study of beauty "aesthetics" and for 2,500 years have argued over aesthetics questions like "does a painting actually exist?" and...
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. — Lord Chesterfield Originally, "slow food" founder Carlo Petrini didn't mean to start a global movement 3o years ago. He merely wanted Europeans to preserve local cuisines. But Petrini's "Slow Food...
Painting is another way of keeping a diary. — Pablo Picasso I dashed off Social Distancing last March, the morning I realized Covid-19 was not just some flu, but "really real." Since that morning ten months ago, 389,000 Americans have died of the virus, including a close family...
An interest in things is and always was at the root of art. — John Sloan From as early as he can remember, self-taught Tennessee artist H.R. Lovell has loved things—the more ordinary, the better. "I might see things different as a painter that somebody else may have...
Though a living cannot be made from art, art makes life worth living. — John Sloan John Sloan was starving when he said what he said, so you have to forgive him. It is possible to make a living from art—and a decent one, at that. I...