Wassily Kandinsky Quotes

This communication alone, by the comparison of the antagonisms, rivalries, movements which give birth to decisive moments, permits the evolution of the soul, whereby a man realizes himself on earth. It is impossible to be concerned with anything else in art.

Art has been good for my soul. And it's been good for my brain. I think I'm a better painter now than I was a musician growing up. You struggle to see things and translate an image through your hands to a canvas.

I maintain that if you're a novelist and you go into an art museum, you'll come out a better novelist. And if you paint a picture for an hour you're a better actor at the end of it.

I am an artist, you understand? For me, a picture is like poetry. When you make art, this is not coming from an intellectual place. It's coming from the deep side of your unconscious, your soul.

I think you always, as an artist, feel like you would like to be more and more specific about your intent and your interests.

I have improved the way in which I paint. The colours are cleaner and there is more energy in the brush work.

I think the great artists, especially in literature, have always thought with the heart.

Growing up, I enjoyed drawing, but it was always in the service of an idea. I drew all the time, and I enjoyed making.

I start with the aim of making something instrumental, and then I'm just like, 'Agh, no, it's not interesting enough. I've got to say something here.'

Art does not begin with imitation, but with discipline.

Know that the secret of the arts is to correct nature.

......so called “composition” becomes a personal thing, to be developed along with technique, as a personal way of seeing.

It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart and head.

The Academies of Art are nothing but great painting factories - those with talent are fed in at one end, and they come out as mechanical painting machines.

I sketch the faces upside down because it's like drawing from the left side of the brain or the right side of the brain. I never took an art lesson in my life.

What has made it work, or what makes certain paintings successful or not, has to do with my being a painter and a thinking, feeling person, more than my sex, color, height, origin.

The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul, so that it can weigh colours in its own scale and thus become a determinant in artistic creation.

My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like an apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable.

The first step toward spiritual growth is to become aware of your emotions.

Every thought which enters the mind, every word we utter, every deed we perform, makes its impression upon the inmost fiber of our being and the result of these impressions is our character. The study of books, of music, or of the fine arts is not essential to a lofty character. It rests with the worker whether a rude piece of marble shall be squared into a horse-block or carved into an Apollo, a Psyche, or a Venus di Milo. It is yours, if you choose, to develop a spiritual form more beautiful than any of these, instinct with immortal life, refulgent with all the glory of character.

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.

If you give a child something very complex to paint, such as a bouquet of flowers or a natural landscape, if he is very good, eventually he will get back - like Cezanne - to the essential forms of what he sees.

When you begin a picture you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it over several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it, but rather condenses it, makes it more substantial. What comes out in the end is the result of discarded finds. Otherwise you become your own connoisseur.

I'm a painter, that's where I started out, at four years old, that was my first love as far as expression. So, I'm not a painter in the sense of, "Please come see my paintings" but, I do understand the value of not looking over the artist's shoulder while the work is in progress.

One of the goals of a spiritual practice is self-awareness, and one of the best tools of self-awareness is simple emotional vulnerability.