I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them. Pablo Picasso
In painting you must give the idea of the true by means of the false. Edgar Degas
Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do. Edgar Degas
A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. Michelangelo
A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great. Joshua Reynolds
Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. Edgar Degas
Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas. Georges Braque
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. Vincent van Gogh
To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano. James McNeill Whistler
Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. To such an extent indeed that one day, finding myself at the deathbed of a woman who had been and still was very dear to me, I caught myself in the act of focusing on her temples and automatically analysing the succession of appropriately graded colours which death was imposing on her motionless face. Claude Monet
For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life – the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value. Claude Monet
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. Pablo Picasso
You have no idea what portrait painters suffer from the vanity of their sitters. Kenneth Clark