Robert Henri Quotes

Art is a little bit larger than life - it's an exhalation of life and I think you probably need a little touch of madness.

You paint the way you have to in order to give. That's life itself, and someone will look and say it is the product of knowing, but it has nothing to do with knowing, it has to do with giving.

A work of art can only come from the interior of man. Art is the form of the image formed upon the nerves, heart, brain and eye of man.

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.

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

That's what art is. You don't make up stories. You live your life.

Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness.

Art is not about objects of high monetary exchange. It's about reasserting our firsthand experience in present time.

To create is to relate. We trust in the artist in everybody to make his own connections, his own juxtapositions.

Born of the sensibility, art sows and creates life in its turn.

Art is mind and heart and touch as much and more than it is mere instrument, technique - without which however it cannot exist at all.

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

Art is not communicative, art is not reflexive. Art, science, philosophy are neither contemplative, neither reflexive, nor communicative. They are creative, that's all.

Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.

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

Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them?

I love art. It is uplifting.

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.

In every work of art, the artist himself is present.

For art is order, but it is born out of the chaos of life.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

When you are talking about someone's art, it is usually so personal.

Composing is my life blood.

Art is not living. It is the use of living.

I view art as an inspirational tool.