Best 157 quotes of Robert Genn on MyQuotes

Flat, uninteresting parts of paintings are, in fact, a ruse to get the viewer to see what needs to be seen.

Flowers are an education in a vase.

For all of us, self-briefing before going out or starting a project sharpens artistic wit.

For a lot of us drawing is a tyranny which impedes freshness and spontaneity.

God may work in light, but we mortals work in pigment.

Great paintings have gradations, large and small... They serve to lift the subject off the two-dimensionality of the canvas. Gradations are an essential abstract convention.

I always thought signing was an artist's honour and guarantee of authenticity.

I do know, for most of us, the very best of times are when you're in your own space sweating, trying to squeeze quality out of imperfect capabilities.

I find that as I get into a painting I have high hopes, then little by little I begin to see that it is not going to be the masterpiece I thought it would be, and I start putting my hopes into the next work.

I have always found it a testament to the importance of painting that the first thing many people do when their home is on fire is to grab their paintings and then run out.

I'm a believer in moderation in all things, including moderation.

In acrylics, what you lose on the straights you make up for on the corners.

In art, everyone who plays wins.

Incompetence, in my books, is the failure of the critical faculties to interfere constructively with the natural flow.

In life and art we need to make sure that we honour that which our hearts and brains tell us is good. And we should cast a philosophic yet curious smile at that which our hearts and brains tell us otherwise.

In life and art it's better to be an enthusiastic amateur than a jaded professional.

In painting you cover up your sins and everyone thinks you're naturally talented.

In the companionship of art we are all of a time. Early or late we are to be shared.

I required a destination that was worthy of many visits.

I simply like the monumentality of the subjects - the opportunity for metaphor and the varied light that comes with high altitudes.

I suppose what you're doing as a painter is making a record of your trip through life. I can't think of any job that is quite as satisfactory as doing a painting.

It is necessary to put yourself out for rejection, and accept that you will be rejected.

It's better to have a small diamond than a large piece of glass.

It's my wish that I can help creative people think of new ways to be creative - to get more joy and understanding from their own unique processes.

It's okay to doubt. It's important to test. The way to discover secrets is to be a student of your own efforts.

I've come to realize that companionship and mild competition can help build quality and lay the ground for excellence.

Keep busy while you are waiting for something to happen.

Learning to focus and pay attention, if only for a short time, has been identified as a primary key to the development of human effectiveness.

Life is a passage through a museum of beauty.

Many a fine style has evolved from a decent handicap.

Many of us knuckle-dragging brush-painters think that 'behind the times' is part of our job description. Why deny ourselves the authentic journey of a time-honoured form?

More than any other colour, red is loaded for action.

Mountains in all their moods are symbols of something greater, something worth aspiring to. Mountains are powerful, dangerous, beautiful, noble and mysterious. Mountains get respect.

Music is the most abstract of the arts and it expresses the sound of the universe itself. These are the real rhythms that stimulate the artist's mind and guide his hand.

My app is the same juicy paint used by Vincent Van Gogh; my screen is the woven canvas of Titian. Painting by hand, I've come to figure, is a certain kind of love.

Never forget that the nurturing and preservation of your own muse is job one. Lose it and you may be losing a great deal.

No one is going to hand you an organizational chart. You have to hand it to yourself.

No one would have the courage to walk up to a writer and ask to look at the last few pages of his manuscript, but they feel perfectly comfortable staring over an artist's shoulder while he is trying to paint.

Novelty is vital to the stimulation of life... New neural paths are sparked by caving in to notions.

Now familiar with my own particular voice and accent, my Dragon app prints out exactly what I speak into my iPad. Twenty years ago this miracle would be unthinkable.

Objects are held by the backgrounds that are cut into them.

Once as I sat painting, I became aware of a man's face hovering near me, moving closer and closer to the panel I was working on. When he spoke he said, 'That is a fantastic brush!

One compositional element suggests and asks for another. This is what makes the activity interesting.

One of the ways to learn is to know when you're making failures.

Our bodies, apart from their brilliant role as drawing exercises, are the temples of our being. Like the bodies of all fauna, they deserve both our study and our appreciation.

Our human landscape is overburdened with competitions and contests. Art need not be a contest. Art is a personal quest for quality. Quality is the forerunner of acceptance. Character is the forerunner of quality. Be your own discriminating connoisseur.

Painters paint, and history continues to make fools of curators.

Paintings, like tombstones, will last a good five hundred years, well into twenty or thirty generations.

Passion is the force that springs an artist from the needling cushion of depression.

Perhaps we might, within the anatomy of our imaginations, think once more of the naked body as a vessel of grace, taste and wonder. In the spotted history of art, stranger things have happened.