Robert Henri Quotes

Do not worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to.

Art appreciation, like love, cannot be done by proxy.

Finished persons are very common - people who are closed up, quite satisfied that there is little more to learn

Count on big lines to express your ideas.

Art is the giving by each man of his evidence to the world. Those who wish to give, love to give, discover the pleasure of giving. Those who give are tremendously strong.

Don't worry about your originality. You couldn't get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do.

The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art.

Lines are results, do not draw them for themselves.

An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.

The real artist's work is a surprise to himself.

It is harder to see than it is to express. The whole value of art rests in the artist's ability to see well into what is before him.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.

If a certain activity, such as painting, becomes the habitual mode of expression, it may follow that taking up the painting materials and beginning work with them will act suggestively and so presently evoke a flight into the higher state.

There is nothing in all the world more beautiful or significant of the laws of the universe than the nude human body.

Self-acquainta nce is a rare condition.

All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.

All outward success, when it has value, is but the inevitable result of an inward success of full living, full play and enjoyment of one's faculties.

Do not expect pictures to say the expected; some of the best will have surprises for you, which will, at first, shock you.

All manifestations of art are but landmarks in the progress of the human spirit toward a thing but as yet sensed and far from being possessed.

There are pictures that manifest education and there are pictures that manifest love.

Art appreciation, like love, cannot be done by proxy: It is a very personal affair and is necessary to each individual.

Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it.

Cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them.

It is the common defect of modern art study. Too many students do not know why they draw.

Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. None of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence.

No work of Art is really ever finished. They only stop at good places.

Beauty is no material thing. Beauty cannot be copied. Beauty is the sensation of pleasure on the mind of the seer. No thing is beautiful. But all things await the sensitive and imaginative mind that may be aroused to pleasurable emotion at sight of them. This is beauty.

Your only hope of satisfying others is in satisfying yourself. I speak of a great satisfaction, not a commercial satisfaction.

Fight with yourself when you paint, not with the model. A student is one who struggles with himself for order.

The ignorant are to be found as much among the educated as among the uneducated.

In a tree there is a spirit of life, a spirit of growth and a spirit of holding its head up.

In every human being there is the artist, and whatever his activity, he has an equal chance with any to express the result of his growth and his contact with life. I don't believe any real artist cares whether what he does is 'art' or not. Who, after all, knows what art is?

The most vital things in the look of a landscape endure only for a moment. Work should be done from memory; memory of that vital moment.

Personal experimentation is revealing, and once you get into it, immensely engaging.

After all, the goal is not making art. It is living a life. Those who live their lives will leave the stuff that is really art.

The work of the art student is no light matter. Few have the courage and stamina to think it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways. We like sympathy and we like to be in company. It is easier than going it alone. But alone one gets acquainted with himself, grows up and on, not stopping with the crowd. It costs to do this. If you succeed somewhat you may have to pay for it as well as enjoy it all your life.

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.

Beauty is an intangible thing; can not be fixed on the surface, and the wear and tear of old age on the body cannot defeat it. Nor will a "pretty" face make it, for "pretty" faces are often dull and empty, and beauty is never dull and it fills all spaces.

I am always sorry for the Puritan, for he guided his life against desire and against nature. He found what he thought was comfort, for he believed the spirit's safety was in negation, but he has never given the world one minute's joy or produced one symbol of the beautiful order of nature. He sought peace in bondage and his spirit became a prisoner.

Find out what you really like if you can. Find out what is really important to you. Then sing your song. You will have something to sing about and your whole heart will be in the singing.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature.

To paint is to know how to put nothing on canvas, and have it look like something when you stand back.

The fun of living is that we have to make ourselves, after all.

It seems to me that before a man tries to express anything to the world he must recognize in himself an individual, a new one, very distinct from others.

Through art mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men.

There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land.

You pass people on the street, some are for you, some are not.