William Butler Yeats Quotes

There is nothing new in art except talent.

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

We look at the Mona Lisa and say we're going to do our version of the Mona Lisa. We mirror it. But exaptation would say that painting the Mona Lisa would lead to a whole new place... Bugs Bunny.

A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything.

Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is black charcoal crushing white paper.

An artist is a person who has invented an artist.

People understand what art is supposed to look like, and so it's easy to make something that looks like art but isn't - especially in an abstract form.

I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.

In the domain of art there is no light without heat.

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.

The artist is called a creator.

My passions drive me to the typewriter every day of my life, and they have driven me there since I was twelve. So I never have to worry about schedules. Some new thing is always exploding in me, and it schedules me, I don’t schedule it. It says: Get to the typewriter right now and finish this.

In the end nobody knows how it's done — how art is made. It can't be explained. Optical devices are just tools. Understanding a tool doesn't explain the magic of creation. Nothing can.

Do not copy nature. Art is an abstraction. Rather, bring your art forth by dreaming in front of her and think more of creation.

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

Being an artist is celebrating life.

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

While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first personality, which no one should copy.

In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendour.

Creation is the artist's true function; where there is no creation there is no art.

You know, artists are influenced by other artists. We're all deeply influenced by what's around us; we don't make anything cold. Sometimes we think that we do. But within that, the most important part is that even though we're influenced, what are the levels of invention that we carry forth even as we've been influenced by something that's come before?

Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.

Art is both creation and recreation.

It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.