Emil Nolde Quotes

#1. Art is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks ... Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time.

Emil Nolde

#2. Clever people master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties.

Emil Nolde

#3. Pictures are spiritual beings. The soul of the painter lives within them.

Emil Nolde

#4. Sometimes it seems to me that I am capable of absolutely nothing, but that nature through me can accomplish a great deal.

Emil Nolde

#5. The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.

Emil Nolde

#6. Yellow can express happiness, and then again, pain. There is flame red, blood red, and rose red; there is silver blue, sky blue, and thunder blue; every color harbors its own soul, delighting or disgusting or stimulating me.

Emil Nolde

#7. There cannot be creation without a lot of energy.

Emil Nolde

#8. What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

Emil Nolde

#9. Colours in vibration, peeling like silver bells and clanging like bronze bells, proclaiming happiness, passion and love, soul, blood and death.

Emil Nolde

#10. A work becomes a work of art when one re-evaluates the values of nature and adds one's own spirituality.

Emil Nolde

#11. As an artist I am attracted by decadence, by those who exhaust their lives in the shallow pursuits of pleasure. Occasionally, I feel that spiritually I participate in all these kinds of lives.

Emil Nolde

#12. The art of an artist must be his own art. It is ... always a continuous chain of little inventions, little technical discoveries of one's own, in one's relation to the tool, the material and the colors.

Emil Nolde