Warshak Paintings Quotes

Moving Forward"

The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
that I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can't reach.
With my sense, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
and in the ponds broken off from the sky
my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I had a total revelation with the feminist moment, with Carolee Scheeman and Marina Abromovic and of course Joan Jonas; that was a big breakthrough with me. And through them, [I was introduced to] Chris Burden and Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci. You can almost call it a gang, because the works are always talking together. That stuff had a huge impact on me, but other than that, my interest had always been old paintings. ~ Ragnar Kjartansson

And yes, there are things I want to keep, that I like around me - especially when there's very little left. I just want to keep those little bits of reminders of my past. There are certain drawings from the '60s; certain little paintings from the '60s that I keep. ~ Robert Barry

Drawings, paintings, and sculptures. That's the three pillars of art academia. ~ Barry McGee

I have tried to draw the human effigy (and all the other subjects dealt with in my paintings) in an immediate and effective way without any reference to the aesthetic. ~ Jean Dubuffet

I'm from Holland and the history of "Admiral" is something you would read about when you're at school. Nobody knows about these stories and when you go to any museum in Holland, you will see these paintings of these 17th century sea beckels that the Dutch were in to, so it always intrigued me. ~ Roel Reine

In some of the early northern European paintings, Christ looks like you flushed him out from under a bridge, but in Sunday-school books and the sorts of pictures they sell at Christian supply stores, he falls somewhere between Kenny Loggins and Jared Leto, always doe-eyed and, of course, white, with brown - not black - hair, usually wavy. And he always has a fantastic body, shown at its best on the cross, which - face it - was practically designed to make a man's stomach and shoulders look good.

What would happen, I often wonder, if someone sculpted a morbidly obese Jesus with titties and acne scars, and hair on his back? On top of that, he should be short - five foot two at most. "Sacrilege!" people would shout. But why? Doing good deeds doesn't make you good-looking. ~ David Sedaris

My interest in art must have started with my Catholic upbringing. Art was everywhere: churches with its paintings, sculptures, stained glass, textiles, and fine metalwork. ~ Cheech Marin

If a director says he doesn't care how many people see his films at all, I simply don't believe him. Otherwise why would he bother to make the film? The only explanation would be that it would be an act of masturbation. I think that every creator is looking for a receptor. He's looking for an audience. There are two parts of the equation: a creator and, necessarily, the receiver of the work. It's the same thing for a painter who wants his paintings to be seen. ~ Michael Haneke

That by listening to some music, by reading some books, by looking at paintings, and most important by hanging out with one another - by collaborating with one another and creating your own network - you can achieve something that is much better than what is out there. ~ David Amram

The paintings in our galleries are seen one day in bright sunshine and another day in the dim light of a rainy afternoon, yet they remain the same paintings, ever faithful, ever convincing. To a marvelous extent they carry their own light within. For their truth is not that of a perfect replica, it is the truth of art. ~ Ernst Gombrich

This was especially true in some millennialist sects that filled their literature with paintings of Armageddon. Pictures of terrified people running away from some formless fiery doom that burned their world down behind them, while smug worshipers - of the correct religion, of course - watched from safety as God got with the smiting. ~ James S.A. Corey

Because this painting has never been restored there is a heightened poignance to it somehow; it doesn't have the feeling of unassailable permanence that paintings in museums do.

There is a small crack in the lower left, and a little of the priming between the wooden panel and the oil emulsions of paint has been bared. A bit of abrasion shows, at the rim of a bowl of berries, evidence of time's power even over this - which, paradoxically, only seems to increase its poetry, its deep resonance. If you could see the notes of a cello, when the bow draws slowly and deeply across its strings, and those resonant reverberations which of all instruments' are nearest to the sound of the human voice emerge - no, the wrong verb, they seem to come into being all at once, to surround us, suddenly, with presence - if that were made visible, that would be the poetry of Osias Beert.

But the still life resides in absolute silence.

Portraits often seem pregnant with speech, or as if their subjects have just finished saying something, or will soon speak the thoughts that inform their faces, the thoughts we're invited to read. Landscapes are full of presences, visible or unseen; soon nymphs or a stag or a band of hikers will make themselves heard.

But no word will ever be spoken here, among the flowers and snails, the solid and dependable apples, this heap of rumpled books, this pewter plate on which a few opened oysters lie, giving up their silver.
Mark Doty

What am I in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

I taught principally German language and literature at Eton. But any master with private pupils must be prepared to teach anything they ask for. That can be as diverse as the early paintings of Salvador Dali or how bumblebees manage to fly. ~ John Le Carre

It occurs to me that I could learn from this child something about the nature of humanity--and if I accept Harry's pronouncement that I am a born philosopher then this baby could be an ambitious philosophical project! What if I reared it in a cupboard without light? Or in a room full of mirrors? Or Dali paintings? Apparently babies have to learn to smile so what if I never taught him or showed him laughter? No television of course no movies maybe no society either--what if he never saw another human other than me or not even me? What would happen? Would cruelty develop in that miniature universe? Would sarcasm? Would rage? Yes I could really learn something here tho why stop at one child? Could have a collective of children of "family" & alter variables in environment that will govern life of each one to see what's natural what's inevitable what's environmental & what's conditioning. Above all I will strive to raise a being that understands itself. What if I gave child head start by encouraging self-awareness at an unnaturally young age, maybe 3? Maybe earlier? Would need to create optimum conditions for flowering of self-awareness. This child will know a lot of solitude that's for sure. ~ Steve Toltz

Entering into the spirit of this interior, you will discover the best possible atmosphere in which to show fine paintings or listen to music. It is this atmosphere that seems to me most lacking in our art galleries, museums, music halls and theaters. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

Like a guide dog, paintings help you see. ~ Martin Mull

How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner. ~ David Mitchell

The illustrations in picture books are the first paintings most children see, and because of that, they are incredibly important. What we see and share at that age stays with us for life. ~ Anthony Browne

It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge. ~ Alain De Botton

Paintings can make you cry and it's just **colored dirt**. ~ Chuck Close

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter's soul. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

I learn my lines while on the golf course. I try to do two or three things at once. I have ideas for books all the time, I have ideas for paintings all the time, and I write them all down. I take my sketchpad and my iPad, which I design on, and I do sit down and do specific tasks at specific times. ~ Jane Seymour

The room was lit with small reading lamps and there were books everywhere: piled on the coffee table, under the coffee table, on the sofa and under it, too. Books were stacked up the stairs and through the hall. Fern could see a small forest of books in the kitchen, books stacked on the table, the counters, like dishes in the the dish rack. Books lined every wall so that you couldn't see the walls at all. In fact, a mirror had been hung over the books as if the wall were made of books. And the oil paintings, which hung over the stacked books, depicted books. ~ N.E. Bode

If you're a guest [at my $113 million house], you'll be able to call up on screens throughout the house almost any image you like - presidential portraits, reproductions of High Renaissance paintings, pictures of sunsets, airplanes, skiers in the Andes, a rare French stamp, the Beatles in 1965. ~ Bill Gates

There is truth in stories," said Arthur. "There is truth in one of your paintings, boy or in a sunset or a couplet from Homer. Fiction is truth, even if it is not a fact. If you believe only in facts and forget stories, your brain will live, but your heart will die. ~ Cassandra Clare

Occasionally, I like to select a mentor, a master, and let him guide me through a revision of one of my paintings ... I try to move into his terrain, bringing my own ammunition ... I do not believe ... that this belittles my own personality. ~ Rico Lebrun

I should also mention that the Neue Galerie is piping music into the galleries where "Klee and America" is hanging, a practice for which vulgar is not even close to the word. Yes, I like Schumann's Carnaval, but I'm damned if I know why anybody thinks the paintings of Paul Klee profit from being viewed with Carnaval playing in the background. ~ Terry Teachout

The poetical term fête galante refers to a new genre of paintings and drawings that blossomed in the early 18th century during the [French] Regency period (1715-1723) and whose central figure was Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Inspired by images of bucolic merrymaking in the Flemish tradition, Watteau and his followers created a new form, with a certain timelessness, characterised by greater subtlety and nuance.

These depict amorous scenes in settings garlanded with luxuriant vegetation, real or imaginary: idealised dancers, women and shepherds are shown engaged in frivolous pursuits or exchanging confidences. The poetical and fantastical atmospheres that are a mark of his work are accompanied by a quest for elegance and sophistication characteristic of the Rococo movement, which flourished during the Age of Enlightenment, evidenced in his flair for curved lines and light colours.

The flexibility of the fête galante theme proved to be an invitation to experimentation and innovation, and the genre was to inspire several generations of artists, occupying a central place in French art throughout the 18th century. Works by other highly creative painters, such as François Boucher (1703-1770) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), illustrate their very personal visions of the joys of the fête galante as first imagined by Watteau. ~ Christoph Vogtherr

that 'now' you're talking about hardly exists. We feel it, but it's impossible to measure. The past is always eating up the present." I stroked his hair and paused. "I think I've always loved paintings for that reason. Somebody makes a canvas in time, but after it's made, a painting stays in the present. ~ Siri Hustvedt

I don't love her!" he shouted. His voice echoed through his empty apartment. He stood and toppled his coffee table, its glass top shattering as it hit the floor. He kicked the sofa several times then went on a full rampage through his lavish apartment. Every ornament got a taste of his wrath. Curtains were ripped off the railings. Paintings were hit off the wall. Vases were flung across the room. Nothing was exempt from this riotous frenzy. Loud banging. Damaged furniture. Cracked glass. Everything that was whole and complete needed to be destroyed. Everything needed to feel the same way he did.
Broken… Shattered…
"I don't love her." He collapsed hopelessly into the mess he created, not caring about the jagged pieces of glass that pierced his skin. "I don't love her." He shut his eyes but the tears streamed down his cheeks regardless. "Love isn't this painful. ~ Jacqueline Francis - The Journal

His drawings were not originals then, only copies. He must have been doing them as a sort of retirement hobby, he was an incurable amateur and enthusiast; if he'd become hooked (on these rock paintings) he would have combed the area for them, collecting them with his camera, pestering experts by letter whenever he found one; an old man's delusion of usefulness. ~ Margaret Atwood

Those drugs in our backpacks are important, but this" - I helplessly pointed to the paintings around us - " this is just as important. It's our heritage, our legacy, the sum of who we are. When this is gone, in a few months or years, a part of us will be lost forever. Civilization won't shine quite as bright. ~ Manel Loureiro

Sometimes the things I learn making paintings or drawings - composition, colour, expressionism, texture - can directly influence the making of a film. Sometimes it's great that they are different, and simply taking a break from one medium to spend time with another, recharges the batteries and I feel refreshed. ~ Dave McKean

My reading and studying and retellings of old stories didn't do anything except help me think better. I was at least thoughtful. Too thoughtful, my friends said. And all I thought about was myths and old paintings that made me feel drunk on wine or struck my lightning but didn't matter to most people. ~ Francesca Lia Block

Dane lived above a greengrocer's shop at 26 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, with her secretary, Olwen Bowen, herself a writer of children's books, but who now devoted herself to the care of her companion. 'One climbed up a rickety staircase and there was Winifred, surrounded by her paintings, sculptures, a piano and goodness knows how many books, where she would give many after-the-theatre parties . . . ~ Philip Hoare

I once heard some idiot on the radio saying that all great art has suffering as its dominant theme, and that the greatest artists are only able to create because they suffer immensely in their own lives. What a bunch of bullshit. Look at Van Gogh's paintings: there's as much joy in them as there is pain. Suffering is only a single color, and by itself it's boring. ~ Bart Yates

We all know that men in moderate circumstances can have just as comfortable houses as the richest, just as comfortable clothing, just as good food. They can see just as fine paintings, just as marvelous statues, and they can hear just as good music. They can attend the same theaters and the same operas. They can enjoy the same sunshine, and above all, can love and be loved just as well as kings and millionaires. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

But all attractions are alike,' he said. 'They come from an emptiness inside.' He hammered on this chest with his index finger. 'Something's missing and you have to fill it. Books, paintings, people, they're all the same...'
'A lot of people do without books and paintings.'
'True,' he said, 'but that doesn't affect the argument.' Paris turned his head to one side and chewed on his lip. 'Of course, nothing ever does the trick. Nobody's really satisfied for long. ~ Siri Hustvedt

My painting carries with it the message of pain. ~ Frida Kahlo

Gold, silver, jewels, purple garments, houses built of marble, groomed estates, pious paintings, caparisoned steeds, and other things of this kind offer a mutable and superficial pleasure; books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy. ~ Francesco Petrarca

The earliest paintings I loved were always the most non-referential paintings you can imagine, by painters such as Mondrian. I was thrilled by them because they didn't refer to anything else. They stood alone, and they were just charged magic objects that did not get their strength from being connected to anything else. ~ Brian Eno