Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.
Robert HenriRead
I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that art should be a way to enrich life rather than just a source of income.
Robert Henri suggests that the true value of art lies in its ability to enhance our existence and provide deeper meaning to our lives, rather than merely serving as a financial pursuit. By prioritizing art for its life-enhancing qualities, individuals can experience fulfillment and connection to the world around them.
Themes
ArtLifeExpressionCreativityLiving
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of creativity in education, this quote can illustrate the value of art beyond financial gain.
More from Robert Henri
All quotes βKnow what the old masters did. Know how they composed their pictures, but do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them, and they are wonderful. They made their language. You make yours. All the past can help you.
Robert HenriRead
The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook.
Robert HenriRead
You form a society: that limits you. Adopt a name, and you've limited yourself again; draw up a constitution and bylaws and you've made a groove, a rut, that hampers your growth. You think you can fix your course and move straight along it. But sometimes the important thing is to strike out sidewise.
Robert HenriRead
After all, the goal is not making art. It is living a life. Those who live their lives will leave the stuff that is really art.
Robert HenriRead
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.
Robert HenriRead
Similar quotes
I don't care if the audience is 600 Saul Bellows; I'm going to knock them dead with a comedy routine. I'm out there as a missionary for literature because, if people laugh and enjoy themselves, they might actually do something as bizarre as reading the book.
T. C. BoyleRead
I think I would really lay down and die. Music comes from a very primal, twisted place. When a person sings, their body, their mouth, their eyes, their words, their voice says all these unspeakable things that you really can't explain but that mean something anyway. People are completely transformed when they sing; people look like that when they sing or when they make love. But it's a weird thingβat the end of the night I feel strange, because I feel I've told everybody all my secrets.
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Poetry can't give us the laws and institutions and representatives, the antidotes we need: only public activism by massive numbers of citizens can do that.
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Science studies the relations of things to each other: but art studies only their relations to man.
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That is the artist's job: take mineral rock from dark silent earth, transform it into shining light-reflecting form from sky.
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I don't understand why the press is so interested in speculating about my appearance, anyway. What does my face have to do with my music or my dancing?
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