“It is not too much to say that art is the noting of the existence of order throughout the world, and so, order stirs imagination and inspires one to reproduce this beautiful relationship existing in the universe, as best one can.
Technique is to me merely a language, and as I see life more and more clearly, growing older, I have but one intention and that is to make my language as clear and simple and sincere as is humanly possible.
A Still Life
Language can be of no value for its own sake, it is so only as it expresses the infinite moods and growth of humanity.
All good art is composition.
A portrait that is not a composition is not a portrait.
A line is not good because it is like a line. A line is good because of its power related to other lines, which are powers.
Every line, area, tone, value, texture, in fact ever effect produced in any way including even the pressure of the brush, should be considered as a compositional or constructive element.
I am not interested in art as a means of making a living, but I am interested in art as a means of living a life.
Art is certainly not a pursuit for anyone who wants to make money. There are ever so many other better ways.
Things being as they are, the life of an artist is a battle wherein great economy must be exercised. The kind of economy which will result in moments of the purest freedom in spite of the world’s exactions.
Paint like a fiend when the idea possesses you.
The beauty of a work of art is in the work itself.
Use the ability you already have, and use it, and use it, and make it develop itself.
Like to do your work as much as a dog likes to gnaw a bone and go at it with equal interest and exclusion of everything else.
It isn’t so much that you say the truth as that you say an important truth.
It would be easy to divide artists into two classes: those who grow so much within themselves as to master technique by the force of their need, and those who are mastered by technique and become stylists.
I can think of no greater happiness than to be clear-sighted and know the miracle when it happens. And I can think of no more real life than the adventurous one of living and liking and exclaiming the things of one’s own time.
Great works of art should look as though they were made in joy. Real joy is a tremendous activity, dull drudgery is nothing to it.
Freedom can only be obtained through an understanding of basic order. Basic order is underlying all life.
There is nothing so important as art in the world, nothing so constructive, so life-sustaining.
Work always as if you were a master, expect from yourself a masterpiece.
Don’t be ashamed to keep your bad stuff. After all you did it. It is your history and worth studying.
No work of art is really ever finished. They only stop at good places.
Shame is one of the worst things that ever happened to us.”
from The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
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