John Ruskin Quotes

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

Painting is by nature a luminous language.

Not all paintings are abstract; they're not all Jackson Pollock. There's value in a photograph of a man alone on a boat at sea, and there is value in painting of a man alone on a boat at sea. In the painting, the painting has more freedom to express an idea, more latitude in being able to elicit certain emotion.

Painting does more than just point to things. The very act of pointing is a value statement.

Visual storytelling utilizes both language and art to pass on the essence of who we are.

I see no reason for painting anything that can be put into any other form as well.

I have told myself a hundred times that painting - that is, the material thing called a painting - is no more than a pretext, the bridge between the mind of the painter and the mind of the spectator.

The first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, a general preparation for whatever the student may afterward choose for more particular application. The power of drawing, modeling, and using colors, is very properly called the language of the art.

Painting is a medium in which the mind can actualize itself; it is a medium of thought. Thus painting, like music, tends to become its own content.

Visual art is a foreign language I'm fluent at, but my native language is language.

Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas.

Painting is a language which cannot be replaced by another language. I don't know what to say about what I paint, really.

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

The temple of art is built in words.

Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn't look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.

I still take photographs for my own use, personal studies. I do not feel that I can fully express my views through the medium and this is why I have moved towards painting.

The question I ask myself when adapting a book is how do I be true to the spirit and soul of the character? How would I describe this character in my medium? If you asked one person to do a painting of something and another to create a sculpture of it, you'll never ask, 'Why doesn't the painting look like the sculpture?'

The way I make art - the way a lot of people make art - is as an extension of language and communication, where references are incredibly important.

Painting is the aesthetic side of the object but it has never been original, has never been its own goal.

I believe the reason I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective.

Since 'concepts' are closely bound up with language, concept art is a kind of art of which the material is language.

Photography brought a lot to painting because it forced artists to think about what painting could do that photography couldn't.

Yes, I'm very expressive with my painting.

My popularity has to do with the divorce between modern art, where everything is obscure, and the viewer who often feels he needs a professor to tell them whether it's good or not. I believe a painting has to talk directly to the viewer, with composition, color and design, without a professor to explain it.

Painting gives the object itself; poetry what it implies. Painting embodies what a thing contains in itself; poetry suggests what exists out of it, in any manner connected with it.