50 + Inspiring Art Quotes From Famous Artists

Art Quotes

Many creative people, including artists, sculptors, and writers, seek inspiration from famous artists by admiring their artwork or reading their powerful messages and beliefs.

Art quotes by famous artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Claude Moet (just to name a few) have inspired emerging artists for decades.

The creative power of words can not be disregarded, and all creative people should admire the inspiration that creative minds share.

NFAM has come up with a list of the most potent and influential quotes about art from famous artists worldwide.

Famous Artists Inspirational Quotes

Here are a collection of some inspirational quotes from famous artists worldwide. Every day an artist becomes inspired by the wisdom of their favorite famous artist. Enjoy these quotes about art and become inspired for your next masterpiece.

“The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.” – Claude Monet

“Amateurs look for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” – Chuck Close

“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” – Edward Hopper

“It doesn’t matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said.” – Jackson Pollock

“Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say ‘almost’ because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor’s ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea.”- Barbara Hepworth

“Art is anything you can get away with.” – Andy Warhol

“Every artist was first an amateur” Henri Matisse

“Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso

“A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art.” – Wassily Kandinsky

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

“You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” – Salvador Dalí

“Ask yourself: “Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream?” – Ansel Adams

“The secret to doing anything is believing that you can do it. Anything that you believe you can do strong enough, you can do. Anything. As long as you believe.” –  Bob Ross

“It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.” – Louise Bourgeois

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle

“Color which, like music, is a matter of vibrations, reaches what is most general and therefore most indefinable in nature: its inner power.” –  Paul Gauguin

“For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.” – Georges Rouault

“Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you’re willing to practice, you can do.” – Bob Ross

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can” – Frida Kahlo

Creating Work Of Art Quotes

“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” – Salvador Dali

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” – Francis Bacon

“Everything starts from a dot.” – Wassily Kandinsky

“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.” – Frida Kahlo

“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.” – Alberto Giacometti

“Great art picks up where nature ends.” – Marc Chagall

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas

“In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” – Marc Chagall

 “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” – Marc Chagall

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” – Andy Warhol

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” Paul Cezanne

“Painting is a means of self-enlightenment.” – John Olsen

“Art is gesture, with the advantage of permanence. ― Henri Matisse

If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. – Vincent Van Gogh

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” –Leonardo da Vinci

“There are no rules. That is how art is born, how you see, but what you make others see.” ― Edgar Degas 

“Painting is a thundering collision of different worlds, intended to create a new world in and from the struggle with one another, a new world which is the work of art.” – Wassily Kandinsky

Being An Artist Quotes

“The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” – Piet Mondrian

“I shut my eyes in order to see.” – Paul Gauguin 

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” – Francis Bacon

“To create one’s own world takes courage.” Georgia O’Keeffe

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. – Vincent Van Gogh

“To be an artist is to believe in life.” – Henry Moore

“I tried to make everything breathe in this painting: faith, quiet suffering, religious and primitive style, and great nature with its scream.” – Paul Gauguin

“Every good painter paints what he is.” – Jackson Pollock

“Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.” – Rene Magritte

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” – Pablo Picasso

“A Good artist has less time than ideas.” – Martin Kippenberger

“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy, and torment.” – Claude Monet

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” – Michelangelo

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” – Twyla Tharp

“I can’t think of anything more rewarding than being able to express yourself to others through painting. Exercising the imagination, experimenting with talents, being creative; these things, to me, are truly the windows to your soul.” – Bob Ross

“I don’t say everything, but I paint everything.” – Pablo Picasso

“The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Final Thoughts About Inspiring Art Quotes From Famous Artists

We hope you enjoyed these quotes about art. There are thousands of quotes about art and quotes about being an artist that we could not have possibly documented all of them. The ones listed above are some of our favorite inspirational quotes by Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, and other famous artists quotes.

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