I have had three masters, Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt.
Francisco GoyaRead
Painting, like poetry, selects in the universe whatever she deems most appropriate to her ends. She assembles in a single fantastic personage, circumstances and features which nature distributes among many individuals. From this combination, ingeniously composed, results that happy imitation by virtue of which the artist earns the title of inventor and not of servile copyist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art allows creators to select and combine elements from the world to produce something unique and original.
In this quote, Francisco Goya conveys the idea that artists, much like poets, curate and assemble various aspects of the world to create art that is not merely imitative but innovative. This creative process transforms ordinary components into a distinctive vision, allowing the artist to be recognized as an inventor rather than a mere replicator of nature.
Themes
ArtCreativityInnovationImitationNaturePoetry
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of creativity in personal expression.
More from Francisco Goya
All quotes →The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.
Francisco GoyaRead
Monsters are the result of the sleep of reason.
Francisco GoyaRead
Similar quotes
Somehow I started introducing writing into my drawings, and after a time, the language took over and I started getting very involved with the handwriting and then the look of the handwriting.
Patti SmithRead
The thing a drama school can't give you is instinct. It can sharpen instinct but that can't be taught, and you have to have intuition. It's an essential ingredient.
Gary OldmanRead
There are other singers of ranchera music who sing very beautifully, but you can tell from the way they sing that they never lived on a ranch. They never knew what it was to milk a cow, to birth a calf, to shoe a horse. I've lived all that.
Vicente FernandezRead
If someone asked, 'What are your films like?,' the best I can come up with is that they're, like, a fine balance between comedy and drama. And they deal mainly with the clumsiness of humanity.
Taika WaititiRead
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who can't attain it in anything.
Eugene DelacroixRead
Conceptually, I am open to mistakes - errors, actually. I do play lots of wrong notes while I am making some music, and a mistake or a wrong note is like a gift for me: 'Oh, wow, an unknown sound or an unknown harmony. I didn't know about this.'
Ryuichi SakamotoRead