Explore Quotes by Robert Henri

All manifestations of art are but landmarks in the progress of the human spirit toward a thing but as yet sensed and far from being possessed.

Your style is the way you talk in paint.

The ignorant are to be found as much among the educated as among the uneducated.

Colors are beautiful when they are significant.

Good composition is like a suspension bridge - each line adds strength and takes none away.

Completion does not depend on _x000D_ material representation. The work is done when that special thing has been said.

Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.

Don't worry about the rejections. Everybody that's good has gone through it. Don't let it matter if your works are not "accepted" at once. The better or more personal you are the less likely they are of acceptance.

Self-acquainta nce is a rare condition.

I can think of no greater happiness than to be clear-sighted and know the miracle when it happens. And I can think of no more real life than the adventurous one of living and liking and exclaiming the things of one's own time.

Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway.

The big painter is one who has something to say. He thus does not paint men, landscape or furniture, but an idea.

The most vital things in the look of a landscape endure only for a moment. Work should be done from memory; memory of that vital moment.

The picture that looks as if it were done without an effort may have been a perfect battlefield in its making.

An artist's job is to surprise himself. Use all means possible.

In a tree there is a spirit of life, a spirit of growth and a spirit of holding its head up.

The true artist regards his work as a means of talking with men [and women], of saying his say to himself and to others. It is not a question of pay.

All the past up to a moment ago is your legacy. You have a right to it.

Paint like a fiend when the idea possesses you.

The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. In such moments activity is inevitable, and whether this activity is with brush, pen, chisel, or tongue, its result is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state.

The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art.