Robert Henri Quotes

The word "art" does not designate the concept of a mere eventuality; it is a concept of rank.

The world of the arts is by no means always comfortable, but neither is it likely ever to be boring. It is full of surprises, humor, traps for the unwary, and challenges to smugness. It is a world of moods as well as of revelation, of beliefs and fears, of unpleasant truth as well as of delicious fantasy. Perhaps it is arrogant to say that anyone who does not venture into this world is only half-interested in life. I say it, nonetheless.

The modern world thinks of art as very important: something close to the meaning of life.

Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made - I try to act in the gap.

Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations from nature to add local color. The results are invariably false and hollow. Art must spring out of the fullness and richness of life.

Art knows, life applies knowledge; art feels, life acts.

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.

All art is immortal. For emotion for the sake of emotion is the aim of art, and emotion for the sake of action is the aim of life.

We have our Arts so we won't die of Truth.

Even luxuries are arranged according to ideas and ideals, to make them reflect as much of thought-life as possible - and this is Art.

Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself.

Real art is illumination, it adds stature to life.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.

To be honest, I think, for me, the power is always with art. The art world clearly couldn't happen without art.

Art is good, bad, boring, ugly, useful to us or not.

I have to say that I reject somewhat the distinction between something called art and something called public art. I think all art demands and desires to be seen.

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

We're all going about trying to make beauty in the world and trying to make order out of chaos. And that's what art is.

Burzum is not a political or religious band, or even an anti-religious band. Burzum is music - art if you like - and the interpretation of art lies in the eye of the beholder.

I think that there is not really a difference between a 'Peanuts' and a beautiful Renaissance painting. There is something very romantic in the 'Peanuts' - it's at the same level of a novel or a Jane Austen story or a beautiful embroidered rose fabric. It is a piece of romanticism.

I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope.

How do I define a work of art? It is not an asset in the stock-exchange sense, but a man's timid attempt to repeat the miracle that the simplest peasant girl is capable of at any time, that of magically producing life out of nothing.

Art is an infinitely precious good, a draught both refreshing and cheering which restores the stomach and the mind to the natural equilibrium of the ideal.