Top 100 Good Painting Quotes
#1. Art, if it is successful in the task of questioning reality, if it is good painting and not merely a performance of dexterity, will be an affirmation of God.
Patrick Swift
#2. If you want to get one hour of good painting in, you have to have four hours of uninterrupted time.
David Lynch
#3. I contend that one is likely to find more truth in fiction. A good painting after all is more truthful than a photograph. Remember that, Young Messenger, for all your days.
Vince Vawter
#4. A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.
Hedy Lamarr
#5. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.
Mark Rothko
#6. What is the use of good painting? We want a spell cast upon the optical part of our existence! We seldom really see the world, but when we do, we become as still as a picture.
Robert Musil
#7. It is better to have a good painting with ten holes than ten bad paintings without any holes.
Edvard Munch
#8. Good painting is like good cooking; it can be tasted, but not explained.
Maurice De Vlaminck
#9. Good art in general aspires to something, as a good painting aspires to something, almost spiritual or holy.
Gerhard Richter
#11. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something.
Georgia O'Keeffe
#12. Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture.
Michelangelo
#14. Anything is good painting material once you get to know it.
David Milne
#15. I've no doubt that those photographs i took will make people look at everything in a more interesting way - the little tear on one piece of paper, the shadow on another. But good painting has always done that - made you see things. And the most ordinary can be the most extraordinary.
David Hockney
#16. I'm not sure that Van Gogh got up in the morning and looked at the crows and the bizarre clouds and went damn that's a good painting, you know? No, he considered shooting himself, and one day he did.
Mick Farren
#17. It often takes two to do a good painting - one to paint it, and another to rap the painter smartly with a hammer before he or she can ruin it.
Richard Schmid
#18. A good painting has to do about 12 things at once.
Joe Bradley
#19. In fairness, I don't think that everyone understands what I say, but I think they understand part of it and part of what the issues are ... Just the same way that people like a good painting, I think people really like understanding, knowing about the world.
Lisa Randall
#20. 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.
Banksy
#21. Good design, like good painting, cooking, architecture or whatever you like, is a manifestation of the capacity of the human spirit to transcend its limitations.
George Nelson
#22. The ego must be developed, not for its own sake, but because it is needed by society. If you are only interested in self-realization then you cannot make a good painting. To do this you have to have thought about forming, and about how ideas of forming stem from history.
Joseph Beuys
#23. When you have made a good painting, don't do another like it, but remember the process, what you did, what you were thinking and feeling.
Walter Darby Bannard
#24. The problem with Matisse is that I can't ever figure out when he's done a good painting or a bad painting because I don't know how to analyse him. I just know that I like the way he put it on and I like his airs and forms.
Susan Rothenberg
#25. Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.
Jackson Pollock
#26. I have it on good report that not only does Ambrose have a tiny, tiny penis, but he can only become aroused when in the presence of a dead dog, a painting of the Duke of Gibea, and a shirtless galley drummer.
Patrick Rothfuss
#27. "Good" people are those who don't hold in the thoughts, but find proper outlets like writing, painting, music, etc.
Matthew Carter
#28. Critic asks: 'And what, sir, is the subject matter of that painting?' - 'The subject matter, my dear good fellow, is the light.
Claude Monet
#29. Everything I do, it's a bit painterly. I like being surrounded by objects, mostly on paper. I like the images. I like the painting. I like good photography. It's something that makes me an emotional connection, and I feel comfortable around it.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
#30. Every now and again, a painting will get away from my control and take over. Sometimes it's a good thing. Sometimes it's a giant drooling hairy thing with pointy teeth. You know how it is.
Ursula Vernon
#31. I feel like vocals are to music what portraits are to painting. They're the humanity. Landscapes are good and fine, but at the end of the day everyone loves the Mona Lisa.
Grimes
#32. I started billboard painting in Minneapolis, and I went to General Outdoor Advertising, and I said, 'I could do that.' They said, 'Oh yeah ... we can always use a good man around here.'
James Rosenquist
#33. Good native Taste, tho' rude, is seldom wrong,
Be it in music, painting, or in song:
But this, as well as other faculties,
Improves with age and ripens by degrees.
John Armstrong
#34. I've known painters who never did any good work because instead of painting their models they seduced them.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
#35. To make music I rely on other people, which is good - that's the main difference in painting and music at this stage. They are separate parts of my life really, like having two jobs, one in a bar, one in a lighthouse.
Danny Fox
#36. I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.
Claude Monet
#37. Will you teach me how to paint?"
"Just paint."
"I'm not any good."
"Do it for therapy. You can go to art school later.
Benjamin Alire Saenz
#38. I was never good at painting. The great turning point came when I had a block of wood and I carved a shape into the wood and put a small piece of timber into that space - like a negative - and so it made an endless column, only inward.
Carl Andre
#39. But it's been a wonderful change. I've found myself. I am stronger than I have ever been. I am painting, and I'm good at it. I have goals and desires. That's a positive change. Not something to be afraid of.
M.J. Rose
#40. Comedy is the one absolutely self-aware art form. Actually, hip-hop's another one, I suppose. Because in your songs you're talking about how good a hip-hop artist you are. It's like a painter painting a panting of himself painting a painting.
Bo Burnham
#41. There are so many good ones to paint and if you paint as well as you really can and keep out of all other things and do that, it is the true thing.
Ernest Hemingway,
#42. In the exhibition at Galerie Perrotin, they have the Sarajevo painting - I think it's very good to nail down this story of Pol Pot and other people, not all dictators but most of them.
Erro
#43. It doesn't matter that your painting is small. Kopecks are also small, but when a lot are put together they make a ruble. Each painting displayed in a gallery and each good book that makes it into a library, no matter how small they may be, serve a great cause: accretion of the national wealth.
Anton Chekhov
#44. Among the guitarists, Wes Montgomery is fantastic. He's always good to let you know what the art form is all about. It's the same still life that everybody is painting, but in comes Wes Montgomery, and it's right there!
Bill Cosby
#46. You see, painting has now become, or all art has now become completely a game, by which man distracts himself. What is fascinating actually is, that it's going to become much more difficult for the artist, because he must really deepen the game to become any good at all.
Francis Bacon
#47. But, as sculpture and painting are gifts of God, what I insist on is, that both shall be used purely and lawfully, that gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon us, for His glory and our good, shall not be preposterously abused, nay, shall not be perverted to our destruction.
John Calvin
#48. The good thing about painting from memory is that so much is forgotten.
Robert Henri
#49. Is he actually good?" Judith asked. "He's incredible." "Sorry, are we talking about the painting or the shagging?" Nev asked. "The painting!" He grinned. "Right.
Ruthie Knox
#50. Maybe vagueness has been good for me. The word means two different things in Tokyo and Osaka, you know. In Tokyo it means stupidity, but in Osaka they talk about vagueness in a painting and in a game of Go.
Yasunari Kawabata
#51. Painting isn't a question of sensibility; it's a matter of seizing the power, taking over from nature, not expecting her to supply you with information and good advice.
Pablo Picasso
#52. Every good picture leaves the painter eager to start again, unsatisfied, inspired by the rich mine in which he is working, hoping for more energy, more vitality, more time - condemned to painting for life.
John French Sloan
#53. I enjoy painting. I don't know if I'm good at it, but I paint. I paint very quickly.
Anthony Hopkins
#54. Wrestling needs to be about the art form again. It needs to be about painting a picture and having a really good match.
Hulk Hogan
#55. Gotta have opposites, light and dark and dark and light, in painting. It's like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in awhile so you know when the good times come. I'm waiting on the good times now.
Bob Ross
#56. You have to live in a state of thinking your painting is good, or you couldn't do it.
Roger De Grey
#57. If art depended on content, then one painting of an apple would be as good as the next one.
Walter Darby Bannard
#58. It's good to be employable, but I hope to show the truth. The paintings seem true because nobody wants me to do them.
Jenny Holzer
#59. I much prefer playing the bad guys. I think they are always the most interesting characters. I liken it to painting: if you're playing the good guy, you get three colors: red, white and blue. But if you're the bad guy, you get the whole palette.
Ronny Cox
#60. 90% of every art form is garbage - dance and stand-up, painting and music. Focus on the 10% that's good, suck it up, and drive on.
Patton Oswalt
#61. No one can really explain in a rational way what makes a good photograph or a bad photograph ... This is why the art world will not throw billions of dollars at photography the way it has at painting; and that is what makes it an exciting medium.
David Wojnarowicz
#62. We have to have the money to do the work we want to do, as well as to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. Fat commissions are good, but not always easy to come by, and each new painting takes its time. So we need to find every way possible to earn extra income from our work.
Elizabeth Aston
#63. Acting, music, painting ... it's very subjective. So what I might think is a great actor, you might think is not a very good actor at all.
Billy Boyd
#64. I think not knowing what to think of your paintings is a good place to be.
Julian Schnabel
#65. Not only has volume been ratcheted up but expectations have, too. Quiet success
painting a picture, writing a poem, writing an algorithm
is all well and good, but if you haven't become famous doing it, then did it really matter?
Sophia Dembling
#66. Painting is something that requires a lot of time - it's not just one good idea out of art school.
Caio Fonseca
#67. The wall between writing and painting is just good grammar.
Moderation in moderation.
Fun is scary with a happy ending.
Just love. If love doesn't transform that which annoys you, it will be easier to tolerate.
Emily Thornton Calvo
#68. When I was three or four, I was really good at drawing and painting, and everyone used to say, "You're going to go to art college." I didn't really know what that meant.
Noel Fielding
#69. By the end of the interview, George and I had clicked....I mean, we weren't BFF's spray-painting hearts and our initials on freeway underpasses or anything. But we seemed to understand each other.
Christopher Paul Meyer
#70. Without good drawing, the foundation of a painting will collapse.
Ken Danby
#71. People whose understanding and taste in literature, painting, and music are beyond question are, for the most part, ignorant of what is good or bad art in the theater.
Minnie Maddern Fiske
#72. Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and
if at all possible
speak a few sensible words.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#73. Telling someone like my mother that Hell is a real, physical place, somewhere you can travel to and from, would be like spray-painting the statue of Jesus hanging over the pulpit during mass. Better off telling her the Pope is gay.
Bill Blais
#74. I'm a pretty good drawer. I have trouble painting because you literally have to wait for the paint to dry. I'm disciplined, but I'm not patient.
Douglas Coupland
#75. I've certainly always had a very high regard for Botswana and so I paint a very good picture of the country and I've never pretended to be painting an entirely realistic picture.
Alexander McCall Smith
#76. I still have a lot of pleasure doing them, but as time goes by I come to appreciate more clearly which paintings are good and which should be discarded.
Claude Monet
#77. Painting is really good fun, I have always enjoyed it. As long as I paint what I want with the freedom that I enjoy, I never tire.
John Dyer
#78. Many Hollywoodians may have good taste and an interest in culture but they certainly hide it. They're afraid they'll be branded as sissies if someone finds out they write poetry or own a painting. They're so timid about culture.
Vincent Price
#79. Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals is instructive in painting a realistic portrayal of Lincoln and his methods for accomplishing his objectives. In fact, many good political biographies are useful in learning about power, strategy, and decision-making.
Jeffrey Pfeffer
#80. But, when I had this feeling and started painting sacred art, as I had this feeling to do, then it come to me: my problem is I'll get a lot of criticism and another problem is my work's not good enough to sell.
Howard Finster
#81. Little deer, I've stuffed all the world's diseases inside you. / Your veins are thorns // and the good cells are lost in the deep dark woods / of your organs.
Pascale Petit
#82. I started painting graffiti in the classic New York style of big letters and characters but I was never very good at it.
Banksy
#83. It's good when someone comes to a book or a movie and interacts with it. It's the difference between an illustration and a painting. An illustration serves a specific purpose, and a painting is something you can immerse yourself in.
Charlie Kaufman
#84. The reason I play music is to touch people - for selfish reasons, as well. It feels good to make someone else feel something, whether it's a kiss, a painting, good idea or it's a song.
Dave Matthews
#85. What's that supposed to be anyway?" said Fred squinting at Dobby's painting. "Looks like a Gibbon with two black eyes!" "It's Harry," said George pointing at the back of the picture. "Says so on the back." "Good likeness," said Fred grinning. Harry threw his new homework diary at him.
J.K. Rowling
#86. If my time has come I shall have nothing to complain of. For fifty-tree years I have been painting; so I have been able to devote myself entirely to what I loved best in the world. I had never suffered poverty; I had good parents and excellent friends; I can only thank God.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
#87. To his surprise he also discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something, whether painting or poetry, that you cared about a great deal.
Richard Russo
#88. I do all these various activities like painting and writing, comedy and films probably because not that I'm good at everything but because I'm not good at any of these things.
Takeshi Kitano
#89. Photography as a subject is a good one. Its history is only about 150 years ... You only have to know about twenty-five or thirty names and that's it. All you need. In painting there are more than 1,000.
William Wegman
#90. Good taste is a virtue of the keepers of museums. If you scorn bad taste, you will have neither painting nor dancing, neither palaces nor gardens.
Antoine De Saint-Exupery
#91. A good landscape painting is not just a demonstration of competent application of paint. It must offer a feeling of homage to the subject.
Keith Shackleton
#92. While some people are good at painting, playing an instrument or singing, I have been told more than once I am good at storytelling. I hope that you enjoy my stories as I recall them.
Eric Arrouze
#93. What's that?' Thaniel said, curious. The postmarks and stamps weren't English or Japanese.
'A painting. There's a depressed Dutchman who does countryside scenes and flowers and things. It's ugly, but I have to maintain the estates in Japan and modern art is a good investment.
Natasha Pulley
#94. I am a great lover of art, in many forms: paintings, objets, textiles. I don't have the talent for painting, but I have a very good sense of colour, a love of visual beauty.
Jacqueline Bisset
#95. I can picture things, like a painter would, though Im not good at painting, either.
Donald O'Connor
#96. If the weather is good I go into the nearby wood - there I am painting a small beech forest (in the sun) with a few conifers mixed in. This takes until 8 'o clock.
Gustav Klimt
#97. I figure I'm still good for painting until 95 or thereabouts.
Bern Will Brown
#98. I liked English and art and did a lot of painting. And for some reason I was good at math, but I wasn't an A student. I really had to work hard to get good grades.
Natasha Bedingfield
#99. Here are my politics: I love music and painting; a good book is an event for me; I'm going on forty-four. How much time do I have left? Fifteen, twenty, thirty years at most? Very well! I maintain that in thirty years ministers will be a bit shrewder, but just about as honest as they are today.
Stendhal
#100. I was not out to paint beautiful pictures; even painting good pictures was not important to me. I wanted only to help the truth burst forth.
Alice Duer Miller
