Top 100 Robert Genn Quotes
#1. Prices need to be fair, appropriate and consistent.
Robert Genn
#2. One of the ways to learn is to know when you're making failures.
Robert Genn
#3. My app is the same juicy paint used by Vincent Van Gogh; my screen is the woven canvas of Titian. Painting by hand, I've come to figure, is a certain kind of love.
Robert Genn
#4. When you sit down to paint or draw, you form yourself into a posture of praise
Robert Genn
#5. Contrary to popular belief, all evolving artists are in a full time battle with mediocrity.
Robert Genn
#6. Do not be frivolous with the gift of a day. Right now it's all you have. Yesterday is history.
Robert Genn
#7. Take your brush here and there like a bee in an alpine meadow. In other words, don't laboriously work on or try to finish off one particular part. Paint promiscuously.
Robert Genn
#8. Our bodies, apart from their brilliant role as drawing exercises, are the temples of our being. Like the bodies of all fauna, they deserve both our study and our appreciation.
Robert Genn
#9. Many a fine style has evolved from a decent handicap.
Robert Genn
#10. Words are small straitjackets when put around creative flourishes and maneuverings.
Robert Genn
#11. Artists with serious aspirations need to be left alone to follow the course of their own imagination.
Robert Genn
#12. While Mojo suggests any art that invokes supernatural powers, for us creators Mojovation means finding magic in what we do.
Robert Genn
#13. In life and art we need to make sure that we honour that which our hearts and brains tell us is good. And we should cast a philosophic yet curious smile at that which our hearts and brains tell us otherwise.
Robert Genn
#14. Great paintings have gradations, large and small ... They serve to lift the subject off the two-dimensionality of the canvas. Gradations are an essential abstract convention.
Robert Genn
#15. An early flourish of confidence is useful. Then there's the small crudities - the slubs and bumps that come with outdoor work - the odd charm of imprecision.
Robert Genn
#17. I do know, for most of us, the very best of times are when you're in your own space sweating, trying to squeeze quality out of imperfect capabilities.
Robert Genn
#18. Artspeak is an arcane writing style that can result in a vocabulary of obscurities ... Today, some of the more spectacular examples are in artist's statements.
Robert Genn
#19. An abstract title suggests another value to the subject, perhaps an artistic quality that sets the viewers' sensitivities into action.
Robert Genn
#20. The studio is an extension of the sandbox and the kindergarten playroom. It has a dynamic unlike any office or factory. It's a room at the service of a dreamer on her way to becoming a master.
Robert Genn
#21. Perhaps we might, within the anatomy of our imaginations, think once more of the naked body as a vessel of grace, taste and wonder. In the spotted history of art, stranger things have happened.
Robert Genn
#22. Art is a Great Goddess of infinite intrigue and illusion, and even a lifetime of worship may not find her fickle soul.
Robert Genn
#23. Factual titling satisfies and is pure by its lack of bamboozlement.
Robert Genn
#24. Seems those with money who don't worry about money have big walls.
Robert Genn
#25. Curiosity allows your unique "owned processes" to draw you toward creative conclusions.
Robert Genn
#26. Many of us knuckle-dragging brush-painters think that 'behind the times' is part of our job description. Why deny ourselves the authentic journey of a time-honoured form?
Robert Genn
#27. Which is better
feeling good or getting good?
Robert Genn
#28. In acrylic, happiness comes a bit faster.
Robert Genn
#29. The overly-verbal artist is led by his understanding of things
rather than by direct observation of things as they are.
Robert Genn
#31. Your muse is amused and willed to further renewal during the process of mindless grabbing of reference material or errant imaginings.
Robert Genn
#32. Do something others will have the desire to plagiarize but will find difficult to do.
Robert Genn
#33. We artists stick ourselves out. This in itself deserves respect.
Robert Genn
#34. Sentimental titles are the last bastion of scoundrels, and can add significant barf to an already barfy work.
Robert Genn
#35. Critics are the products of their own times and biases and what they have to say about works of art is as transient and insubstantial as fashion.
Robert Genn
#36. Watch the greater image materialize. You need that thing over there to tell you what to do about that thing over here.
Robert Genn
#37. Exploit a subject or a theme to its greatest potential by bringing all possible reference to bear - then put aside the reference and create again using the potential of your unfettered imagination.
Robert Genn
#38. I have always found it a testament to the importance of painting that the first thing many people do when their home is on fire is to grab their paintings and then run out.
Robert Genn
#39. Art, because it's so easy to do, and yet so difficult to do well, encourages humility in the human soul.
Robert Genn
#40. We are trying to evoke and reinforce meanings from the spaces we cover and the times we're given. Short or long this becomes our purpose. What we artists do is important stuff.
Robert Genn
#41. We know the human mind is programmed to glaze over when bored. Conversely, the mind is more alert in the presence of novelty. Our muse needs to stay seductive to keep our hands doing the right things.
Robert Genn
#43. Previously unseen boo-boos come at you like tattoos on a teenage girl.
Robert Genn
#45. No one would have the courage to walk up to a writer and ask to look at the last few pages of his manuscript, but they feel perfectly comfortable staring over an artist's shoulder while he is trying to paint.
Robert Genn
#46. We have been mysteriously gifted this amazing life. Let us not complain.
Robert Genn
#47. The head governs, the heart assists, the body acts.
Robert Genn
#48. The guy may be totally motivated, connected and inspired, but if he doesn't know how to do it, he's not the guy to take out your appendix.
Robert Genn
#50. Evolved creators are just as curious about their failures as they are of their successes.
Robert Genn
#51. Paintings, like tombstones, will last a good five hundred years, well into twenty or thirty generations.
Robert Genn
#52. Creativity is dynamic, it asserts life, frees the human spirit, conquers mental lassitude and illness, and makes real the outrageous potential of the universal imagination.
Robert Genn
#53. The problem with University degrees, particularly the more spectacular ones, is that people who possess them can fall into the trap of thinking people who don't have them don't know anything.
Robert Genn
#54. As you do your work, you discover what you love to do.
Robert Genn
#55. While knowledge of tools and the love of motif may be in your backpack, and all mountains may be measured by their previous heroes, art must exist for you in a place beyond the judgment of others.
Robert Genn
#56. Flat, uninteresting parts of paintings are, in fact, a ruse to get the viewer to see what needs to be seen.
Robert Genn
#57. The short-goal habit is key to larger success and is at the root of human greatness. Life is think and do, think and do, think and do. Small steps can be greater than great leaps.
Robert Genn
#58. The brilliance of art as a collectible is that it has a way of reaching out on an emotional level. It touches on mystery, even spirituality.
Robert Genn
#59. Artists should be aware that petty stroking could be the source of arrested productivity. An artist's job includes the avoidance of premature closure by the begged or gratuitous approval of others.
Robert Genn
#60. While this may seem peculiar, the combo of work and distraction leads to levels of innovation not often generated by structured, focused thinking alone.
Robert Genn
#61. Dealer goodwill and friendship are keys to thrival.
Robert Genn
#62. As every artist who has used the method knows - photography's a loyal slave and a tyrannical master.
Robert Genn
#63. Whatever you do, don't let your system run you.
Robert Genn
#64. The most expensive bottle of wine ever sold - a 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux, supposedly once the property of Thomas Jefferson ... It was sold at Christie's in London in 1985 for $156,000.00. Like a lot of high-priced art, the bottle is essentially undrinkable.
Robert Genn
#65. Life is a passage through a museum of beauty.
Robert Genn
#66. More than any other colour, red is loaded for action.
Robert Genn
#67. Art is a course in personal development that has no reliable diploma and no known end. The pursuit of art instructs in beauty as well as ugliness, fantasy as well as common sense. Art levels souls and baffles brains. Art softens pain because it is pain. Art gives joy because it is joy.
Robert Genn
#68. Landscape painting tends to fall under more academic controls. I must say I often like working within these controls. It gives me the feeling that I'm taking part in a noble tradition.
Robert Genn
#69. I find that as I get into a painting I have high hopes, then little by little I begin to see that it is not going to be the masterpiece I thought it would be, and I start putting my hopes into the next work.
Robert Genn
#70. I simply like the monumentality of the subjects - the opportunity for metaphor and the varied light that comes with high altitudes.
Robert Genn
#71. The painting world is awash with people who cannot paint. This is a condition that would not be tolerated in other professions such as Dentistry, Medicine, or among members of the Airline Pilot's Association.
Robert Genn
#72. Our currency is what we are able to make.
Robert Genn
#73. When shucked and released from its edges, the windowless subject stands alone as its own thing.
Robert Genn
#74. Artist, gain knowledge, but know that the greatest guru of all is the guru within.
Robert Genn
#76. People suspend judgment in the presence of mystery.
Robert Genn
#77. A curiosity prompt heightens the senses and hones compositional ability ...
Robert Genn
#78. It's my wish that I can help creative people think of new ways to be creative - to get more joy and understanding from their own unique processes.
Robert Genn
#79. Your easel is the nuclear sun of an uncommon universe.
Robert Genn
#80. So who are we going to blame for our disappointments and our failures?
Robert Genn
#81. By thinking you are cleverer and more talented than your buddies, many a career has been blotted.
Robert Genn
#82. Mountains in all their moods are symbols of something greater, something worth aspiring to. Mountains are powerful, dangerous, beautiful, noble and mysterious. Mountains get respect.
Robert Genn
#83. Once as I sat painting, I became aware of a man's face hovering near me, moving closer and closer to the panel I was working on. When he spoke he said, 'That is a fantastic brush!
Robert Genn
#84. Novelty is vital to the stimulation of life ... New neural paths are sparked by caving in to notions.
Robert Genn
#85. The Canadian painter A. Y. Jackson noted that 'failure of sight' was a tiresome problem. He meant we should be able to look at our work-in-progress as if it were previously unseen.
Robert Genn
#86. While obsessive behavior may be an antisocial plague to societies and communities at large, it's total moxie when lone practitioners catch it.
Robert Genn
#87. Properly channeled, common feelings of inadequacy lead to powers of accomplishment.
Robert Genn
#88. Start with the foreground. Compositions fail when the foreground is treated as an afterthought.
Robert Genn
#89. As we grow older, we realize just how limiting were our earlier conceptions. Art is something else. Art is fluid, transmutable, open-ended, never complete, and never perfect. Art is an event.
Robert Genn
#90. The thing about art is that life is in no danger of being meaningless,
Robert Genn
#91. I suppose what you're doing as a painter is making a record of your trip through life. I can't think of any job that is quite as satisfactory as doing a painting.
Robert Genn
#92. I always thought signing was an artist's honour and guarantee of authenticity.
Robert Genn
#93. It's better to have a small diamond than a large piece of glass.
Robert Genn
#94. Style essentially appeared out of what I liked to do.
Robert Genn
#95. It's okay to doubt. It's important to test. The way to discover secrets is to be a student of your own efforts.
Robert Genn
#96. With cropping, a new integrity appears and winning abstractions flutter up like butterflies. You can afford to be critical, discriminating, innocent, open-minded, charmed, beguiled or bamboozled.
Robert Genn
#97. With repetition, the alternate approaches become clear, options open.
Robert Genn
#98. Most of my contemporary grant-getters are now doing something other than painting.
Robert Genn
#99. When I'm in the studio I often hunger for the road. And when away I long for the efficiency of the studio.
Robert Genn
#100. A list of your own making is the most powerful list of all ... The good stuff can be 'love at first sight' - in need of study, courting and claiming. And like a love note, it's nice to have things in writing.
Robert Genn
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