Best 20 quotes of Pierre Bonnard on MyQuotes

And after drawing comes composition. A well-composed painting is half done

A painting that is well composed is half finished.

Art is not nature... There was a lot more to be got out of color.

Color does not add a pleasant quality to design - it reinforces it.

Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, and express your pleasure strongly.

How many days have I spent alone with my cat... and when I say alone, I mean without a material being, for my cat is a mystical companion, a spirit.

I am just beginning to understand what it is to paint. A painter should have two lives, one in which to learn, and one in which to practice his art.

Imagination is merely the exploitation of our memory.

It is still color, it is not yet light.

It seemed to me that it was possible to translate light, forms, and character using nothing but color, without recourse to values.

It's not a matter of painting life, it's a matter of giving life to painting.

Painting has to get back to its original goal, examining the inner lives of human beings.

Speaking, when you have something to say, is like looking. But who looks? If people could see properly, and see whole, they would all be painters. And it's because people have no idea how to look that they hardly ever understand.

The important thing is to remember what most impressed you and to put it on canvas as fast as possible.

The painter's only solid ground is the palette and colors, but as soon as the colors achieve an illusion, they are no longer judged.

The precision of naming takes away from the uniqueness of seeing.

The principal subject is the surface, which has its color, its laws over and above those of object.

What attracted me was less art itself than the artist’s life and all that it meant for me: the idea of creativity and freedom of expression and action. I had been attracted to painting and drawing for a long time, but it was not an irresistible passion; what I wanted, at all costs, was to escape the monotony of life.

What I am after is the first impression - I want to show all one sees on first entering the room - what my eye takes in at first glance.

You reason colour more than you reason drawing Colour has a logic as severe as form.