Robert Henri Quotes

Memory does not make films, it makes photographs.

We made drawings the size of a whole quarter of a room ceiling, which we would then send on to the model makers. I did this every day for two years. Even now I can draw cartouches with my eyes closed.

There is no better exercise than to study and devour a picture, and then, without looking at it again, to attempt the next day to reproduce it.

Memory demands an image.

The living model never answers well the idea or impressions the painter wishes to express; one must, therefore, learn to do without one, and for that, you must acquire facility, furnish one's memory to the point of infinitude, and make numerous drawings after the old masters.

Being able to draw means being able to put things in believable space. People who don't draw very well can't do that.

I've been taking art lessons since I was little, and I've always drawn. I think in pictures.

I'm a horrible drawer. I have no artistic ability in my hands.

I have no drawing talent whatsoever. I cannot do it.

I enjoy painting and can copy almost anything.

Most people draw from the mind, not the eye. They draw the idea of a table or a face, not what's in front of them. We don't actually see the line of the jaw as a line and we don't see an eye as a perfectly outlined almond shape.

Drawing teaches you to look at things properly and to understand form and structure.

I would hardly call myself an artist in that sense; I doodle, I draw, I'm not a trained artist, I couldn't sit down and do an accurate portrait of anyone.

I wish I could draw.

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.

I start with an idea in my head. I sketch it out quickly as a line drawing, using pencil. It never comes out quite right - usually a bit better than my mental picture.

I wasn't a very good draughtsman.

I've been drawing since I was five years old.

The photograph is like a quotation, or a maxim or proverb. Each of us mentally stocks hundreds of photographs, subject to instant recall.

And never forget, there is memory.

Vision sometimes comes in a memory.

The more intelligible a thing is, the more easily it is retained in the memory, and counterwise, the less intelligible it is, the more easily we forget it.

Photography has definitely been my favorite way to remember things. At least for me that’s how my brain processes things, of memories or moments.

It is the power of memory that gives rise to the power of imagination.

The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space.