Andre Malraux Quotes

Art only begins where Imitation ends.

But there's nothing more profound than creating something out of nothing.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

Art revolves around creating something that isn't there.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

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

If you're not observing the world around you, in some sense you're not really an artist because then that means you're just replicating other people's stuff, or, I don't even know what you're doing.

You cannot possibly invent painting all by yourself.

A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

You can’t learn your craft by copying me or anyone else. I hope what I do can do is in some way inspire others but I would be appalled if I thought my work was being studied as ‘the right way to do the job’. My way is just one of an infinite number of ways to do the job.

Creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chronological order, since the latest science replaces what went before. But the arts are another story- a story of infinite addition. We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination.

Both the man of science and the man of art live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it. Both, as a measure of their creation, have always had to do with the harmonization of what is new with what is familiar, with the balance between novelty and synthesis, with the struggle to make partial order in total chaos.... This cannot be an easy life.

Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you.

To live is to express, and to express you have to create. Creation is never merely repetition. To live is to express oneself freely in creation.

An artist must be very careful not to look for models. As soon as one artist takes another as model, he is lost. There is no other point of departure than reality.

Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation

Artists should never look at pictures, but should stutter in a language of their own.

To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

One musician listens to another musician, and you get inspired and then you do your thing, but it's yours.

...Any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Making art is complicated because the categories are always changing. You just have to make your own art, and whatever categories it falls into will come later.

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

One painter ought never to imitate the manner of any other; because in that case he cannot be called the child of nature, but the grandchild. It is always best to have recourse to nature, which is replete with such abundance of objects, than to the productions of other masters, who learnt everything from her.