Jean Dubuffet Quotes

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

Artwork is not like a commercial business; there is no such thing as a schedule for art. You can't hurry art.

Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

If you're not trying to be real, you don't have to get it right. That's art.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. ...Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that the world has known. ...Art is Individualism.

If you think about it enough to have a really articulate answer, you're not doing it right. That's how I feel about art. If your thought process could take you to knowing exactly what you're doing and why, there would be no point in making the art. It would become like propaganda. It's more nebulous than that.

An artist must find his expression closely linked to his individual experience or else follow in the old grooves resulting in lifeless forms.

It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. Stop settling for what's good enough and start creating art that matters.

All art is based on non-conformity.

It is not logical for art to be logical. Art goes against the grain of the times as readily as it goes with it and at the very same moment. Instead of seeking the nearest exit, art responds to a new situation by uncovering a labyrinth of problems.

Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.

Here's the truth you have to wrestle with: the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can't tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there'd be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map. Don't you hate that? I love that there's no map.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

I want that every piece of art be honest, never mind what it is about.

I love to create, and to me, the ultimate freedom of expression is a blank canvas or a block of clay to capture whatever emotions your imagination gives it.

Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.

To be a true artist, I have to be true to who I am now and write that way.

I'm not a manufactured artist. Nobody taught me how to be a proper artist.

I never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.

There were times in my career when I would try to write songs like Bob Dylan... Artists get hooked up in that. To be a follower, you lose.

It's really easy to project this whole ideology of what being an artiste is, and I'm just not down with intellectualizing it. I just think, if you feel like doing something, then do it.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.