Robert Henri Quotes

There is nothing more entertaining than to have a frank talk with yourself. Few do it-frankly. Educating yourself is getting acquainted with yourself.

A Curve does not exist in its full power until contrasted with a straight line.

Good composition is like a suspension bridge; each line adds strength and takes none away... Making lines run into each other is not composition. There must be motive for the connection. Get the art of controlling the observer – that is composition.

The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.

The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish, and spirits must flow. There must be courage. There are no easy ruts to get into which lead to happiness. A man must become interesting to himself and must become actually expressive before he can be happy.

By my teaching I hope to inspire you to personal activity and to present your vision.

The artist should have a powerful will. He should be powerfully possessed by one idea

Everything depends on the attitude of the artist toward his subject. It is essential.

The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook.

Let every student enter the school with this advice. No matter how good the school is, his education is in his own hands. All education must be self education.

You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing: wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you.

The true artist regards his work as a means of talking with men [and women], of saying his say to himself and to others. It is not a question of pay.

Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out.

When we respect the nude, we will no longer have any shame about it.

An artist must first of all respond to his subject, he must be filled with emotion toward that subject and then he must make his technique so sincere, so translucent that it may be forgotten, the value of the subject shining through it.

A weak background is a deadly thing.

Painting should never look as if it were done with difficulty, however difficult it may actually have been.

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.

Because we are saturated with life, because we are human, our strongest motive is life, humanity; and the stronger the motive back of the line the stronger, and therefore more beautiful, the line will be.

Artists must be men of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers; read, study and think a great deal of life.

There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.

Art tends toward balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in.

We are not here to do what has already been done.

I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.

Good composition is like a suspension bridge - each line adds strength and takes none away.

All is as beautiful as we think it.

Realize that a drawing is not a copy. It is a construction in very different materials. A drawing is an invention.

Art after all is but an extension of language to the expression of sensations too subtle for words.

There are people who buy pictures because they were difficult to do, and are done. Such pictures are often only a record of pain and dull perseverance. Great works of art should look as though they were made in joy. Real joy is a tremendous activity, dull drudgery is nothing to it.

Don't stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.