Georgia O'Keeffe Quotes

Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness.

I love Monet - I've nicknamed him King Blob. When you go up to the painting, it's a series of blobs - amazing.

Mount Tamalpais became my house. For Cezanne, Sainte-Victoire was no longer a mountain. It was an absolute. It was painting.

A person with normal eyesight would have nothing to know in the way of 'Impressionism' unless he were in a blinding light or in the dusk or dark.

In classical oil painting, there seemed to be a radical turn to seeing things as the camera sees them, with that technological modification. I began to have a tremendous problem with all of this.

I love the perspective afforded by having lived five decades, a degree of bemused and muted calm, a relief from the insistent demands of a turbulent ego and rampant ambition. I'd love to stay here forever. But something tells me that 50 is a sunny idyll, a temporary state of grace, a golden afternoon.

Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations.

To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.

Impressionism; it is the birth of Light in painting.

To love beauty is to see light.

If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him.

There is an abiding beauty which may be appreciated by those who will see things as they are and who will ask for no reward except to see.

Don't get me wrong, I admire elegance and have an appreciation of the finer things in life. But to me, beauty lies in simplicity.

My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature.

If Monsieur X spent an eternity studying treatises on optics, he would never paint 'La Grande Jatte.'

What is the use of good painting? We want a spell cast upon the optical part of our existence! We seldom really see the world, but when we do, we become as still as a picture.

What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.

Often while traveling with a camera we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts.

I have never subscribed to the Dirty Pallet school of painting.

I'm just a landscape painter. I look out the window and I see what's going on, and I paint it. While I'm painting it, I also write thoughts about what I see going on out there.

You don't have to know anything about art to appreciate it or to look at it. There aren't any hidden secrets or things that you're supposed to understand.

By attracting attention to yourself, you distract people from the movie. Ideally, you like a movie to speak for itself. You don't describe a song before you sing it or tell about a painting before you show it. You don't reveal the recipe before you serve the dish. You taste it.

When it comes to jewellery, less is more as you get older. Just before I go out to a party, I look at myself in the mirror and take off half of the jewellery I'm wearing. Anything that rattles or clanks is just too dowager duchess.

The simple things can be really powerful.

I don't see things the way my parents do. They can look at a tree and see something amazing, whereas I just see a tree. That's not to say I don't appreciate its beauty. When I watch the sea in somewhere like Sardinia, I see the beauty in that.