Morandi Quotes

What interests me the most is expressing what's in nature, in the visible world, that is. ~ Giorgio Morandi

Nothing is more abstract than reality. ~ Giorgio Morandi

Morandi gave an intimate view of his deepest thoughts. We watched him inquiring after the devilish questions of essences and substances. ~ Wayne Thiebaud

You cannot demonstrate your own greatness by remaining at one extreme, but by reaching out to both extremes at the same time, and filling the intermediate space. ~ Giorgio Morandi

Living and working for four decades in a Bologna apartment and studio he shared with his unwed sisters, Morandi painted little but bottles, boxes, jars, and vases. Yet like that of Chardin and the underappreciated William Nicholson, Morandi's work seems to slow down time and show you things you've never seen before. ~ Jerry Saltz

Everything is a mystery, ourselves, and all things both simple and humble. ~ Giorgio Morandi

People in coats and ties were milling around the Talley gallery, and on the wall were the minimally rendered still lifes by Giorgio Morandi, most of them no bigger than a tea tray. Their thin browns, ashy grays, and muted blues made people speak softly to one another, as if a shouted word might curdle one of the paintings and ruin it. Bottles, carafes, and ceramic whatnots sat in his paintings like small animals huddling for warmth, and these shy pictures could easily hang next to a Picasso or Matisse without feeling inferior. ~ Steve Martin

I believe that nothing can be more abstract, more unreal, than what we actually see. We know that all we can see of the objective world, as human beings, never really exists as we see and understand it. Matter exists, of course, but has no intrinsic meaning of its own, such as the meanings that we attach to it. We can know only that a cup is a cup, that a tree is a tree. ~ Giorgio Morandi

One can travel this world and see nothing. To achieve understanding it is necessary not to see many things, but to look hard at what you do see. ~ Giorgio Morandi