Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.
Robert HenriRead
Painting should never look as if it were done with difficulty, however difficult it may actually have been.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art should appear effortless, regardless of the challenges faced in its creation.
This quote by Robert Henri emphasizes the importance of presenting art in a way that conveys ease and grace, even if the process of creating it was challenging. The artist's struggle and hard work should remain behind the scenes, allowing the viewer to connect with the final piece without being aware of the difficulties involved in its creation.
Themes
ArtEffortlessnessCreativityExpression
In practice
Example use cases
An art exhibit opening where the artist speaks about the beauty of their work appearing effortless.
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
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BanksyRead
My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.
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The fairy poet takes a sheet Of moonbeam, silver white; His ink is dew from daisies sweet, His pen a point of light.
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If a writer doesn't generate hostility, he is dead.
V. S. NaipaulRead
To allow only the kind of art that the average man understands is the worst small-mindedness and the murder of mind and spirit. It is my conviction that the intellect can be certain that in doing what most disconcerts the crowd, in pursuing the most daring, unconventional advances and explorations, it will in some highly indirect fashion serve man - and in the long run, all men.
Thomas MannRead