It's not a matter of painting life, it's a matter of giving life to painting.
Pierre BonnardRead
I am just beginning to understand what it is to paint. A painter should have two lives, one in which to learn, and one in which to practice his art.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of both learning and practicing in the journey of becoming an artist.
Pierre Bonnard highlights that an artist's growth involves two distinct phases: the first is dedicated to learning and understanding the craft, while the second focuses on the actual practice of creating art. This duality suggests that mastery in art requires time spent both studying and engaging in the act of painting.
Themes
ArtPaintingPracticeLearningGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote is perfect for an art class discussion about the process of artistic development.
More from Pierre Bonnard
All quotes βSimilar quotes
The painter... does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents.
Annie DillardRead
One of the ways my first novel failed was that I was too in love with my characters.
Jesmyn WardRead
Tall ships and tall kings Three times three, What brought they from the foundered land Over the flowing sea? Seven stars and seven stones And one white tree. (The Two Towers)
J. R. R. TolkienRead
I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That's when I was born.
Charlie ParkerRead
If something doesn't creep into a drawing that you're not prepared for, you might as well not have drawn it.
Edward GoreyRead
The default mode of modern writing about art is to despise any notion of singularity as so much overheated genius-fetishism.
Simon SchamaRead