Francis Bacon Quotes

Don't think about making art, just get it done.

Inspiration and creativity, they ride right next to one anotherNot everyday are you going to wake up, the clouds are gonna part and the rays are gonna come downsometimes you gotta just get in there and force yourself to work and maybe something good will come out of it.

I'm very interested to see how this new painting will go - I know I want it big and stark, and as I said, I follow the muse, and that's when it always works perfectly for me.

You cannot just be working in a vast, air-conditioned loft space and think you are going to make a decent painting. Francis Bacon had a special studio built, and he felt completely emasculated in there. I have to be somewhere comfortable.

In my experience a painting is not made with colors and paint at all. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint?

I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting. It's in the subconscious.

I don't even think about maintaining a relevance. I just think about what do I want to paint, what am I gonna do now, what am I gonna do later.

Don't think about making art.

To make art you need to be inspired.

The muse whispers to you when she chooses, and you can't tell her to come back later, because you quickly learn in this business that she might not come back at all.

Sometimes you feel like you have to do research to make something, other times you know you don't feel it so much.

I tend to write first thing, and then do my drawing later. I like to draw at night. But often I go for long stretches without drawing, because I'm trying to figure out what I'm writing.

In the same way, I can wake up with a very positive idea of what I want to do for my collection, and be completely desperate at night regarding the same thing. And I do a lot of other things too: Writing for me is almost as important as drawing my collection.

As an artist, you just want to keep creating, keep finding a place that really inspires you that feels fresh and new and keep it exciting.

... a canvas that I have covered is worth more than a blank canvas. My pretensions go no further; that is my right to paint, my reason for painting.

I always say that intuition is the number one tool for an artist.

Composition for me is, externally at least, scarcely distinguishable from catatonia.

You paint the way you have to in order to give. That's life itself, and someone will look and say it is the product of knowing, but it has nothing to do with knowing, it has to do with giving.

Just slap something on it when you see a blank canvas staring at you with a sort of imbecility.

I begin my pictures under the effect of a shock which I feel and which makes me escape from reality... I need a point of departure, even if it's only a speck of dust or a flash of light.

When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out.

How certain human beings are able to create works of art is a mystery, and why they should wish to do so, at a great cost to themselves usually, is another mystery. Works are not created by one's life; every life is rich in material.

An artist needs a certain amount of turmoil and confusion.

I succeeded in simply attending at the birth of all my works.

Pictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended.