Robert Henri Quotes - Page 2

Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness.

The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish, and spirits must flow. There must be courage. There are no easy ruts to get into which lead to happiness. A man must become interesting to himself and must become actually expressive before he can be happy.

When the motives of artists are profound, when they are at their work as a result of deep consideration, when they believe in the importance of what they are doing, their work creates a stir in the world.

Artists must be men of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers; read, study and think a great deal of life.

Color is only beautiful when it means something.

Your painting is the marking of your progression into nature, a sensation of something you see way beyond the two pretty colors over there. Don't stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.

To have ideas one must have imagination. To express ideas one must have science.

The big painter is one who has something to say. He thus does not paint men, landscape or furniture, but an idea.

There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land.

Look for echoes. Sometimes the same shape or direction will echo through the picture.

When we respect the nude, we will no longer have any shame about it.

Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out.

Drawing is not following a line on the model, it is drawing your sense of the thing.

It seems to me that before a man tries to express anything to the world he must recognize in himself an individual, a new one, very distinct from others.

The picture that looks as if it were done without an effort may have been a perfect battlefield in its making.

Don't stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.

There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.

The fun of living is that we have to make ourselves, after all.

A Curve does not exist in its full power until contrasted with a straight line.

Through art mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men.

Beauty is no material thing. Beauty cannot be copied. Beauty is the sensation of pleasure on the mind of the seer. No thing is beautiful. But all things await the sensitive and imaginative mind that may be aroused to pleasurable emotion at sight of them. This is beauty.

In every human being there is the artist, and whatever his activity, he has an equal chance with any to express the result of his growth and his contact with life. I don't believe any real artist cares whether what he does is 'art' or not. Who, after all, knows what art is?

You will never draw the sense of a thing unless you are feeling it at the time you work.

A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods.

To be free, to be happy and to be fruitful, can only be attained through sacrifice of many common but overestimated things.