Do you have a blank canvas that you’re having trouble filling? In no time, you’ll be ready to paint something lovely thanks to these painting quotes.
Painting as a child was for many of us our first introduction to art. It’s chaotic and entertaining, and it gives us a creative expression as we begin to discover the world for ourselves.
Painting is a significant aspect of society and a kind of art that captures and immortalizes the times it depicts.
Seeing the masters’ exquisite works in person, or even in books, allows us to broaden our horizons through their creations. So, whether you paint or merely admire it, let these painting quotes inspire you today.
120+ Painting Quotes to Admire this Art
Painting is silent poetry. – Plutarch
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.___Vincent van Gogh
I dream my painting and I paint my dream.― Vincent Willem van Gogh
I would like to paint the way a bird sings.___Claude Monet
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.― Oscar Wilde,
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.___Henry Ward Beecher
The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.___Leonardo da Vinci
Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.__Jackson Pollock
The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to.___Frida Kahlo
Intensity is all that matters in painting. – John Piper
If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.___Edward Hopper
If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.― Vincent Willem van Gogh
A simple line painted with the brush can lead to freedom and happiness.__Joan Miro
Quotes about Painting
Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible.___Balthus
Painting is but another word for feeling. – John Constable
Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.___Balthus
Painting has as much to do with evolving consciousness as training the eye.___Glenn Haybittle
Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.___Philip Guston
Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.__Gustave Courbet
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.___Pablo Picasso
I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.― Frida Kahlo
Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.__Orhan Pamuk
Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.___Edgar Degas
Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal.___Bansky
Sometimes painting is just prayerful movement. And that is enough.__Carrie Schmitt
Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God. – Rembrandt
Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal.__Bansky
Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.― Orhan Pamuk
Painting is a language of its own. You cannot interpret one form of expression with another form of expression.__Marcel Duchamp
Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.___Philip Guston
Good painting is like good cooking; it can be tasted, but not explained.__Maurice de Vlaminck
If the world could remain within a frame like a painting on the wall, I think we’d see the beauty then and stand staring in awe.___Connor Oberst
The best reason to paint is that there is no reason to paint.– Keith Haring
Painting from nature is not copying the object, it’s realising one’s sensations.___Paul Cézanne
It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well-painted. This is the essence of academicism.___Mark Rothko
Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.___Leonardo da Vinci
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.― Pablo Picasso
For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.___Georges Rouault
The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.___Vincent van Gogh
Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature.__John Constable
If it weren’t for painting, I wouldn’t live; I couldn’t bear the extra strain of things.__Winston Churchill
Create with the heart; build with the mind.― Criss Jami,
Painting must be fertile. It must give birth to a world… it must fertilize the imagination.___Joan Miro
If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.― Edward Hopper
When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.___Berthe Morisot
All you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction, and a vision in your mind.__Bob Ross
Quotes About Painters
A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.___Leonardo da Vinci
You can’t learn techniques and then try to become a painter. Techniques are a result.___Jackson Pollock
The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.___Leonardo da Vinci
The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting.― Vincent Willem van Gogh
I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.___Henri Matisse
Painter, paint!__Salvador Dalí
The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves.___Vincent van Gogh
If you hear a voice within you saying, ”You are not a painter,” then by all means paint… and that voice will be silenced.___Vincent van Gogh
Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.___Edgar Degas
The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.___Banksy
A photograph shouldn’t be just a picture, it should be a philosophy.― Amit Kalantri
A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. – Michelangelo
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.___Henry Ward Beecher
Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.___Pablo Picasso
If I paint something, I don’t want to have to explain what it is.___Bob Ross
Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.― Pablo Picasso
There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.__Henri Matisse
A fine work of art – music, dance, painting, story – has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.― Robert McKee
I paint the spirit and soul of what I see. – Brian Froud
I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.__Frida Kahlo
All you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction, and a vision in your mind.― Bob Ross
My business is to paint what I see, not what I know is there.__J.M.W. Turner
I’m not performing miracles, I’m using up and wasting a lot of paint.___Claude Monet
If you understand a painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it.___Salvador Dalí
When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing.___Jackson Pollock
About Paintings
Without atmosphere a painting is nothing. – Rembrandt
What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.― Claude Monet
The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.___Jackson Pollock
Life, like a good painting, needs balance, a harmonious arrangement to avoid being chaotic, a mess, a failure.___Iain Pear
I’m never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel.___Claude Monet
Life is a painting, and you are the artist. You have on your palette all the colors in the spectrum – the same ones available to Michaelangelo and DaVinci.__Paul J. Meyer
A painting is complete when it has the shadows of a god.___Rembrandt
Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That’s the thing about painting, photography, cinema.___David Lynch
I’m often painted as the bad guy, and the artistic part of me wants to hand out the brush.― Criss Jami
Every painting is a voyage into a sacred harbour.___Giotto di Bondone
A painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.___Paul Gardner
The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later.___Joan Miro
Through a painting we can see the whole world.__Hans Hofmann
My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.___Agnes Martin
To my mind a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful and pretty. There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is, without creating still more of them.___Pierre-Auguste Renoir
When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don’t. I have a knack for disturbing.― Jean Cocteau
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.___Oscar Wilde
A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.___Edgar Degas
A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image.__Elaine de Kooning
Every canvas is a journey all its own. – Helen Frankenthaler
I love to look at art, I love to look at paintings, and I almost feel like the experience isn’t complete until I’ve made something of my own.___Cecily Brown
All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.― Robert Henri
Painting and Color Quotes
Color is a means to exert a direct influence on the soul. – Wassily Kadinsky
It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color – not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.___Henri Matisse
There is no blue without yellow and without orange.___Vincent van Gogh
You need the dark in order to show the light.___Bob Ross
It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color – not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.___Henri Matisse
Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.___Claude Monet
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.___Vincent van Gogh
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.___Georgia O’Keeffe
Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.___Pablo Picasso
Creativity is painting the canvas with colors, doing what you do with what you have, knowing the limits and moving beyond.___Anand Patwa
In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.___Marc Chagall
Drawing things makes them seem more real and makes me feel more alive. It also makes me pin down and remember things landscapes, season, weather, occasions, incidents, people that would otherwise have melted from my memory.___David Gentleman
Drawing is a form of probing. And the first generic impulse to draw derives from the human need to search, to plot points, to place things and to place oneself.___John Berger
Drawing is vision on paper. – Andrew Loomis
Sketching is almost everything. It is the painter’s identity, his style, his conviction, and then colour is just a gift to the drawing.___Fernando Botero
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture, with the advantage of permanence.___Henri Matisse
A blank canvas has unlimited possibilities. – Stephanie Perkins
When you want to make the main color pure and bright, don’t just keep adding bright colors on it. Just make the colors around the spot darker and dull. It will give the scene dramatical effects. I think the life is the same.___Hiroko Sakai
Quotes about Drawing
In drawing, one must look for or suspect that there is more than is casually seen.__George Bridgman
Drawing is not what one sees, but what one can make others see.___Edgar Degas
Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see – to see correctly – and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.___Kimon Nicolaides
One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.___Balthus
How you draw is a reflection of how you feel about the world. You’re not capturing it, you’re interpreting it.___Juliette Aristides
Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.___Keith Haring
Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache.___David Hockney
It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover, to your surprise, that you have rendered something in its true character.___Camille Pissarro