Up: [[Visual Arts]] Created: 2023-07-19 Updated: 2026-02-08 > [!Orbit] Robert Henri > The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable. > [!Orbit] Aristotle > The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. > [!Orbit] Rick Rubin in *The Creative Act* > Fear of criticism. Attachment to a commercial result. Competing with past work. Time and resource constraints. The aspiration of wanting to change the world. And any story beyond 'I want to make the best thing I can make, whatever it is' are all undermining forces in the quest for greatness. (p. 216) > [!Orbit] Hans Hofmann > When the impulses which stir us to profound emotion are integrated with the medium of expression, every interview of the soul may become art. > This is contingent upon mastery of the medium. > [!Orbit] Simonides > Painting is silent poetry, while poetry is painting that talks. > [!Orbit] Karla McLaren in *Embracing Anxiety* > Art can access the wordless part of us that sees the world in unusual ways and carries unusually deep knowledge. > [!Orbit] Leonardo da Vinci > Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. > [!Orbit] T.S. Eliot > Art and poetry can communicate before they are understood. > [!Orbit] Gabrielle Roth > Art is not just ornamental, an enhancement of life. Art is a path in itself, a way out of the predictable and conventional...a map to self-discovery. > [!Orbit] Andre Gide > The work of art is the exaggeration of the idea. > [!Orbit] Enrique Martinez Celaya, artist in *Nomad* > Art is a leap in consciousness, but its workings are mysterious, unspoken. (p. 73) > [!Orbit] Julia Cameron > Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing. > [!Orbit] Jean Anouilh > The object of art is to give life shape. > [!Orbit] Jill Mellick in *The Art of Dreaming* > The real product (of art) is inner renewal. (p. 24) > [!Orbit] Social media post on 2025-06-25 > AI accidentally made me believe in the concept of a human soul by showing me what art looks like without it. > [!Orbit] Henri Matisse > I was very embarrassed when my canvases began to fetch high prices. I saw myself condemned to a future of nothing but masterpieces. > [!Orbit] Francis Bacon > The job of the artist is to deepen within the mystery. > [!Orbit] Cathy Wild in *Wild Ideas: Creativity from the inside out* > Our creations rise to the level of art when imbued with soul. (p. 199) > [!Orbit] [[David Whyte]] > Art is the act of triggering deep memories of what it means to be fully human. > [!Orbit] René Magritte > Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist. > [!Orbit] George Bernard Shaw > You use a glass mirror to see your face. You use works of art to see your soul. > [!Orbit] Georgia O’Keeffe > I found I could say things in colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way. > Things I had no words for. > [!Orbit] Edgar Degas > A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.