Painting has long been a powerful form of expression, capturing emotions, ideas, and the beauty of the world around us. Whether you're an artist seeking motivation or simply someone who appreciates the art, these 70 inspiring painting quotes offer thoughtful insights and encouragement. Dive in to explore the wisdom and creativity shared by some of the greatest painters and art lovers throughout history.
1. “I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” - Vincent Willem van Gogh
2. “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” - Oscar Wilde
3. “I believe that art has a kind of rightness, as in music, when we hear whether or not a note is false” - Gerhard Richter
4. “If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” - Vincent Willem van Gogh
5. “On and on they flew, over the countryside parceled out in patches of green and brown, over roads and rivers winding through the landscapes like strips of matte and glossy ribbon.” - J.K. Rowling
6. “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
7. “The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.” - Vincent Willem van Gogh
8. “Dr Sass…maintained that in paradise, until the time of the fall, the whole world was flat, the back-curtain of the Lord, and that it was the devil who invented a third dimension. Thus are the words ‘straight’, ‘square’, and ‘flat’ the words of noblemen, but the apple was an orb, and the sin of our first parents, the attempt at getting around God. I myself much prefer the art of painting to sculpture” - Isak Dinesen
9. “You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject.” - Henri Matisse
10. “It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.” - Albert Camus
11. “The painter is not simply someone who looks and who sees. Above all, the artist is someone who exposes a personal vision by rendering it visible. The painter shows or allows the seeing of "something" that without him, without his intervention, would not be seen. He manifests through his work a possibility of seeing that would otherwise remain latent. In other words, painting is an art that reveals or unveils the world from an angle that the world itself does not present to us. Painting creates. It does not limit itself to imitation or reproduction. Any desire to confine painting within the limits of déjà vu would be a gross misunderstanding of the essence of what painting is. Painting allows us to see that which without it would never be seen.” - Marcel Paquet
12. “I say that good painters imitated nature; but that bad ones vomited it.” - Miguel De Cervantes (Author)
13. “How do you even know I'm someone you'll want to remember? We've only seen each other once before.'(Amber)'Have you ever looked at a painting and known you had something in common with it? Have you ever seen something so beautiful you feel like crying? When I see you, I feel that way. I feel like the deepest part of me understands something vital about you.'(Virgil Daly)” - Christina Westover
14. “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” - Pablo Picasso
15. “The painting has a life of its own” - Jackson Pollock
16. “I'm painting color squares. Onesquare - one color. That's what I paint.” - Nigel Tomm
17. “both you and paintings are layered… first, ephemera and notations on the back of the canvas. Labels indicate gallery shows, museum shows, footprints in the snow, so to speak. Then pencil scribbles on the stretcher, usually by the artist, usually a title or date. Next the stretcher itself. Pine or something. Wooden triangles in the corners so the picture can be tapped tighter when the canvas becomes loose. Nails in the wood securing the picture to the stretcher. Next, a canvas: linen, muslin, sometimes a panel; then the gesso - a primary coat, always white. A layer of underpaint, usually a pastel color, then, the miracle, where the secrets are: the paint itself, swished around, roughly, gently, layer on layer, thick or thin, not more than a quarter of an inch ever -- God can happen in that quarter of an inch -- the occasional brush hair left embedded, colors mixed over each other, tones showing through, sometimes the weave of the linen revealing itself. The signature on top of the entire goulash. Then varnish is swabbed over the whole. Finally, the frame, translucent gilt or carved wood. The whole thing is done.” - Steve Martin
18. “The figure in the icon is not meant to represent literally what Peter or John or any of the apostles looked like, or what Mary looked like, nor the child, Jesus. But, the orthodox painter feels, Jesus of Nazareth did not walk around Galilee faceless. The icon of Jesus may not look like the man Jesus two thousand years ago, but it represents some *quality* of Jesus, or his mother, or his followers, and so becomes an open window through which we can be given a new glimpse of the love of God. ” - Madeleine L'Engle
19. “All you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction, and a vision in your mind.” - Bob Ross
20. “Literature is painting, architecture, and music.” - Yevgeny Zamyatin
21. “Hans then asked him about painting from nature; Jackson...bluntly offered a phrase that entered Village lore, “I am nature.” - Ross Wetzsteon
22. “[I]t was [Barnett] Newman who made the famously wry remark, “Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds,” - Ross Wetzsteon
23. “Who are you, Martin Eden? he demanded of himself in the looking- glass, that night when he got back to his room. He gazed at himself long and curiously. Who are you? What are you? Where do you belong? You belong by rights to girls like Lizzie Connolly. You belong with the legions of toil, with all that is low, and vulgar, and unbeautiful. You belong with the oxen and the drudges, in dirty surroundings among smells and stenches. There are the stale vegetables now. Those potatoes are rotting. Smell them, damn you, smell them. And yet you dare to open the books, to listen to beautiful music, to learn to love beautiful paintings, to speak good English, to think thoughts that none of your own kind thinks, to tear yourself away from the oxen and the Lizzie Connollys and to love a pale spirit of a woman who is a million miles beyond you and who lives in the stars! Who are you? and what are you? damn you! And are you going to make good?” - Jack London
24. “Writing, music, sculpting, painting, and prayer! These are the three things that are most closely related! Writers, musicians, sculptors, painters, and the faithful are the ones who make things out of nothing. Everybody else, they make things out of something, they have materials! But a written work can be done with nothing, it can begin in the soul! A musical piece begins with a harmony in the soul, a sculpture begins with a formless, useless piece of rock chiseled and formed and molded into the thing that was first conceived in the sculptor's heart! A painting can be carried inside the mind for a lifetime, before ever being put onto paper or canvass! And a prayer! A prayer is a thought, a remembrance, a whisper, a communion, that is from the soul going to what cannot be seen, yet it can move mountains! And so I believe that these five things are interrelated, these five kinds of people are kin.” - C. JoyBell C.
25. “The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine.” - Thomas Hardy
26. “I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.” - Oscar Wilde
27. “Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representation of the storm. One's language is frequently imprecise in that manner, I have discovered.” - David Markson
28. “She felt about a love set as a painter does about his masterpiece; each ace serve was a form of brushwork to her, and her fantastically accurate shot-placing was certainly a study in composition.” - Janet Flanner
29. “You see, for me a painting is a dramatic action in the course of which the reality finds itself split apart. For me, that dramatic action takes precedence over all other considerations. The pure plastic act is only secondary as far as I'm concerned. What counts is the drama of that plastic art, the moment at which the universe comes out of itself and meets its own destruction.” - Francoise Gilot
30. “A force de peindre la vie des autres, il avait oublié de peindre la sienne."On ne se tue pas pour une femme (2000)” - Olivier Weber
31. “To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing-- what language can communicate. Painting has nothing to do with that.” - Gerhard Richter
32. “Being a painter, I ought to say why in pictures people's faces are painted green and red.” - Kazimir Severinovich Malevich
33. “The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.” - Norman Rockwell
34. “When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don't. I have a knack for disturbing.” - Jean Cocteau
35. “I haven't the slightest idea what art is, but to be a painter is something of which you have to prove.” - Wayne Thiebaud
36. “Like the sundial, my paint box counts no hours but sunny ones.” - Arthur Rackham
37. “In the medieval tradition, Beksinski seems to believe art to be a forewarning about the fragility of the flesh– whatever pleasures we know are doomed to perish– thus, his paintings manage to evoke at once the process of decay and the ongoing struggle for life. They hold within them a secret poetry, stained with blood and rust.” - Guillermo Del Toro
38. “The Dutch customs once thought my pictures were photos. Where on earth did they think I could have photographed my subjects? In Hell, perhaps?” - H.R. Giger
39. “I spray the sky fast. Eyes ahead and behind. Looking for cops. Looking for anyone I don't want to be here. Paint sails and the things that kick in my head scream from can to brick. See this, see this. See me emptied onto a wall.” - Cath Crowley
40. “For all the pain you suffered, my mama. For all the torment of your past and future years, my mama. For all the anguish this picture of pain will cause you. For the unspeakable mystery that brings good fathers and sons into the world and lets a mother watch them tear at each other’s throats. For the Master of the Universe, whose suffering world I do not comprehend. For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting—an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment.” - Chaim Potok
41. “Such is my relationship with God: on my gigantic canvass of life, I am the one throwing all of the brightly-colored paints, creating genuine splatters, authentic whirlpools of color, beautiful patterns, wonderful streaks and stains and wild accents; God is the one with the paintbrush who stands beside my canvass filling all the intricate and amazing details in between the whirlpools and the streaks! We're happy together!” - C. JoyBell C.
42. “yes, i have dated Salvador Dali guy when i was a high school girl. he was a great lover. but i had to dump him because he stole my inspiration of bent clock*~* .... who cares...” - Hiroko Sakai
43. “In every motions to put colors on my canvas, I feel like I am screaming, "I AM HERE"... To whom?.. To where?... Where am I going to...?” - Hiroko Sakai
44. “The more I drive myself into the depth of my inside, the more things come up to my vision, visibly or invisibly... I even do not know if I am seeing them with my eye or with my mind. I just need to copy them on my canvases. But this mental process is always overwhelming. I often have hard time to deal with my emotion on this state. You could call this depression on surface? But actually, so many 're-birth' and 'reform' are going on on my thoughts, inspiration, philosophy...etc in the underwater. I believe this struggle make my art real. My art always comes from my emotion.” - Hiroko Sakai
45. “When you paint late at night, drinking beer or wine or both, you gotta be very careful to watch what you are doing...” - Hiroko Sakai
46. “With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.” - Wassily Kandinsky
47. “Painting is a great outlet for those inner emotions you cannot get out any other way.” - Carol Brearley
48. “Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.” - Ally Condie
49. “Glezniecība ir tik sasodīti grūta lieta, ka pietiek ko nomocīties jau ar krāsām, eļļu un terpentīnu un tāpēc modeļi sen patriekti no darbnīcām, lai nemaisās pa kājām! Modeļi nenozīmē neko citu kā vien kafijas plencēšanu, nebeidzamu muldēšanu un vazāšanos apkārt pa krogiem. Kad dienas darbs ir beidzies, tad krāsotājs ir tik nobeidzies, ka labi ja var ierāpties gultā. Un rītā ir atkal darba diena, kas prasa visus spēkus un briesmīgu uzmanību!” - Anšlavs Eglītis
50. “I hear the question upon your lips: What is it to be a colour?Colour is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness. Because I’ve listened to souls whispering – like the susurrus of the wind – from book to book and object to object for tens or thousands of years, allow me to say that my touch resembles the touch of angels. Part of me, the serious half, calls out to your vision while the mirthful half sours through the air with your glances.I’m so fortunate to be red! I’m fiery. I’m strong. I know men take notice of me and that I cannot be resisted.I do not conceal myself: For me, delicacy manifests itself neither in weakness nor in subtlety, but through determination and will. So, I draw attention to myself. I’m not afraid of other colours, shadows, crowds or even of loneliness. How wonderful it is to cover a surface that awaits me with my own victorious being! Wherever I’m spread, I see eyes shine, passions increase, eyebrows rise and heartbeats quicken. Behold how wonderful it is to live! Behold how wonderful to see. I am everywhere. Life begins with and returns to me. Have faith in what I tell you.” - Orhan Pamuk
51. “I intend to destroy, destroy everything that exists in painting. I have utter contempt for painting.” - Juan Miro
52. “You have to work with the paint and work with whatever the day brings you. If it's a wee bit dreary out, you paint it. But paint it so it makes you glad to be inside near a cozy fire.” - Kieran Kramer
53. “It's often about the simple things, isn't it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult.” - Linda Olsson
54. “A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.” - Robert McKee
55. “Love is an art, Berk. Just like painting or music. Some painters draw mere lines, scratches on the canvas and call them art; some paint stars studded skies like van Gogh; or Chopin’s music conquers the hearts of millions while the execrable disco music blaring out of the open windows of a car have also their audience. Some describe love in high-flown flowery language and you identify yourself with the hero and the heroine and feel yourself in the seventh heaven while some give such a lamentable picture of it that you almost curse it!” - T. Afsin Ilgar
56. “In painting, three things must be considered - the position of the viewer, the position of the object viewed, and the position of the light that illuminates the object.” - Lynn Cullen
57. “I sat back and looked at it. It was ugly, dark, uncontrolled. Like a monster's face. Or maybe what I saw there was my own face. I couldn't quite tell. Was the face the image of something evil or the image of myself?"Both," Bea muttered, as if I'd spoken my question out loud. "Of course, it's both. But it shouldn't be. Goodness, no.” - Jennifer Brown
58. “Fortunately for me, I know well enough what I want, and am basically utterly indifferent to the criticism that I work to hurriedly. In answer to that, I have done some things even more hurriedly theses last few days.” - Vincent Van Gogh
59. “I don't like to make a distinction between the writer and the painter , finally , because I do both things anyway . Everybody's dreaming and trying to put down their dreams in the way that their hand knows best . I feel as much a unity , as much comradeship , with painters as I do writers .” - Clive Barker
60. “What a face this girl possessed!—could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born. Her face, at once innocent and feral, soft and wild! Her mouth voluptuous. Eyes deep as oceans, her eyes as wide as planets. I likened her to the slender Psyché and judged that the perfection of her face ennobled everything unclean around her: the dusty hems of her bunched-up skirt, the worn straps of her nightshirt; the blackened soles of her tiny bare feet, the coal-stained balcony bricks upon which she sat, and that dusty wrought-ironwork that framed her perch. All this and the pungent air!—almost foul, with so many odors. Ô, that and the spicy night! …Pungency, spice, filth and night, dust and light; all things dark did blossom in sight; flower and bloom, the night has its pearl too—the moon! And once a month it will make the face of this tender girl bloom.” - Roman Payne
61. “Painting, by its nature, cannot provide an object of simultaneous collective reception... as film is able to do today... And while efforts have been made to present paintings to the masses in galleries and salons, this mode of reception gives the masses no means of organizing and regulating their response. Thus, the same public which reacts progressively to a slapstick comedy inevitably displays a backward attitude toward Surrealism.” - Walter Benjamin
62. “... the house is on fire, but go ahead - finish painting the verandah...” - John Geddes
63. “Whether I'm painting or not, I have this overweening interest in humanity. Even if I'm not working, I'm still analyzing people.” - Alice Neel
64. “Above all, he encourages her to paint, nodding with approval at even her most unusual experiments with color, light, rough brushwork [...]. She explains to him that she believes painting should reflect nature and life [...]. He nods, although he adds cautiously that he wouldn't want her to know too much about life - nature is a fine subject, but life is grimmer than she can understand. He thinks it is good for her to have something satisfying to do at home; he loves art himself; he sees her gift and wants her to be happy. He knows the charming Morisots. He has met the Manets, and always remarks that they are a good family, despite Édouard's reputation and his immoral experiments (he paints loose women), which make him perhaps too modern - a shame, given his obvious talent. In fact, Yves takes her to many galleries. They attend the Salon every year, with nearly a million other people, and listen to the gossip about favorite canvases and those critics disdain. Occasionally they stroll in the museums in the Louvre, where she sees art students copying paintings and sculpture, even an unchaperoned woman here and there (surely Americans). She can't quite bring herself to admire nudes in his presence, certainly not the heroic males; she knows she will never paint from a nude model herself. Her own formal training was in the private studios of an academican, copying from plaster casts with her mother present, before she married.” - Elizabeth Kostova
65. “...A painting was a translation of the language of my heart.” - Amy Tan
66. “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
67. “I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime.” - Van Gogh on "The Night Cafe" painting
68. “I see it, Jack. Your muse is back. The thing that gave you passion, tormented you, and haunted you is back. You're reeling in ecstasy and dread. It's something you want, but can't ever have. And the one that brings the pain is pure, white as snow... and standing in front of you.” - H.M. Ward
69. “Everyone who has any talent at all in sketching, painting, sculpturing or carving, should have the opportunity to use that talent. The expression is important for the person, and can tremendously enrich the lives of other people. What can you do?” - Edith Schaeffer
70. “The fact that for a long time Cubism has not been understood and that even today there are people who cannot see anything in it means nothing. I do not read English, an English book is a blank book to me. This does not mean that the English language does not exist. Why should I blame anyone but myself if I cannot understand what I know nothing about?" -Pablo Picasso.” - Pablo Picasso
