. . . there were masses of pictures she had not seen; however, Lily Briscoe reflected, perhaps it was better not to see pictures: they only made one hopelessly discontented with one’s own work.

This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn’t know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you.”He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt,...

On the opposite wall was a Damien Hirst spot painting, bought by Arabella after a decent bonus season. Roger’s considered view of the painting, looking at it from aesthetic, art-historical, interior-design, and psychological points of...

I never look at a painting and ask, “Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?” It’s just a painting.

I was reading about animals a while back and there was this motherfucking scientist in France back in the thirties or forties or whenever the motherfuck it was and he was trying to get apes...

He remembered that in the art books he had leafed through at Leader’s, many paintings depicted death. A severed head on a platter. A battle, and the ground strewn with bodies. Swords and spears and...

Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” The painting can also inspire a physical response in the form of tears as it calls to mind its more earth-bound aspects;...

I do not distinguish between the construction of a book and that of a painting and I always proceed from the simple to the complex.” – 1946

We don’t see the world as a botanist who is at the same time an architect, a physician, a geologist, and a ship’s captain. Recognizing isn’t at all like seeing; the two often don’t even...

[L]ife is a phenomenon in need of criticism, for we are, as fallen creatures, in permanent danger of worshipping false gods, of failing to understand ourselves and misinterpreting the behaviour of others, of growing unproductively...

My hand inside a glove is like a painting in a frame, and should be insured as such. The things my hand makes have immense value, so how much more valuable is the thing that...

I’m sure we don’t read old paintings the way they were intended.

why not let the children touch the paintings?

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...

Paintings. Or the collapse of time in images.

Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.

There is nothing to be found in human eyes, and that is their terrifying and dolorous enigma, their abominable and delusive charm. There is nothing but that which we put there ourselves. That is why...

Never buy four C-plus paintings when you can buy one A.

:Paintings are easy to see,” he said after a moment. “Open, presented flat to the eye. Words are not easy. Words have to be discovered, deep in their pages, deciphered, translated, read. Words are symbols...

Outside, the sunlight had turned pale lemon, but the studio remained cool. The white walls and white-tiled splashback behind the sink were made more clinical by the metal tables which looked as if they’d originally...

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

My paintings are rubbish.

I don’t want these. They’re mud and they’ve got no color. Or at least the color is different from what I’m used to. Take any American city, in autumn, or in winter, when the light...

Art is a harmony parallel with nature

Aryami Bose’s home had been closed up for years, inhabited only by books and paintings, but the spectre of thousands of memories imprisoned between its walls still permeated the house.

I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.

Ah, merciless Love, is there any length to which you cannot force the human heart to go?

The paintings of Francis Bacon to my eye are very beautiful. The paintings of Bosch or Goya are to my eye very beautiful. I’ve also stood in front of those same paintings with people who’ve...

The people who love my paintings, that respond to them the most, they’re spectators, they’re not viewers.

Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.

Why not fall in love with an artist? Otherwise there are no letters, pictures, paintings and songs for you when you wake up.

There were details like clothing, hair styles and the fragile objects that hardly ever survive for the archaeologist—musical instruments, bows and arrows, and body ornaments depicted as they were worn. … No amounts of stone...